No, this isn’t about the pass-blocking struggles of the Cincinnati Bengals offensive line in front of Joe Burrow.
It’s about the complete lack of fire from an offensive line that watches its quarterback get mauled — even after whistles — and just trots back to the next huddle for another play.
Anyone observing Cincinnati’s Week 10 loss to the Baltimore Ravens saw Burrow getting abused on most snaps. On some snaps, there were unflagged late hits, and there were multiple instances of hits to his helmet and facemask, including on the unflagged penalties on the game-deciding two-point conversion.
And it’s going to keep happening until Burrow’s line actually does something about it.
Thursday night was merely the start of a trend. One late hit, three steps after the throw, has Burrow dealing with an injury called a “bruise” by Zac Taylor:
Burrow getting roughed up with the grimace pic.twitter.com/VFBq93VP9Z
— Mark Slaughter (@MarkVSlaughter) November 8, 2024
And one of the unflagged, multiple hits to the helmet:
Joe Burrow gets hit in the facemask again and the refs don’t throw a flag. #CINvsBAL pic.twitter.com/t6OJoG5ptw
— Rate the Refs App (@Rate_the_Refs) November 8, 2024
Go back one week, too, to where Las Vegas Raiders defender Maxx Crosby kept hitting Burrow after plays while the offensive line did nothing, via Chris Maathuis of CBS:
Did you have a problem with the late hit from Maxx Crosby on Joe Burrow?
“I could see that Burrow didn’t, the way they were talking afterwards, and so I think it was just a unique situation with the timing and the whistle and (Crosby playing) full speed. I wanted to (take… pic.twitter.com/JVCuDTJQT5— Chris Maathuis (@sports8) November 4, 2024
Onlookers and even Burrow’s teammates can argue until they’re blue in the face that maybe they just didn’t see these things happen in real-time. But if fans are seeing this over the last two games, it’s hard to imagine it hasn’t been pointed out on the sidelines.
Right now, the Bengals look like a team without any fire whatsoever. Maybe some of that stems from the front office’s failing Burrow when it comes to roster building. That’s a much longer conversation for a different time.
But there’s no excuse for the offensive line to be failing Burrow like this. Everybody knows he’s propping up a middling roster right now after another season-ending injury. The least he could get in return is some fire from the guys around him while he plays at an MVP level.
Nobody is saying go do this, as seen by the Chargers a few weeks ago:
Saints lineman tries to rip Justin Herbert’s leg clean off.
Bradley Bozeman dispenses some summary justice pic.twitter.com/TqsWEqq23r
— Sam Monson (@SamMonsonNFL) October 27, 2024
But…maybe it needs to happen, too.
The Ravens won’t be the last, either. Again, if we’re seeing it, so are future opponents in the film room. If future opponents see they can get away with these little extra things over the course of four quarters without reprisal, they’ll try it, too.
Andrew Whitworth used to get ejected in Cincinnati back in the day when defenders took extra shots on his quarterback. Until this current team finds that type of fight, the type of energy it had during the Super Bowl run but has suddenly lost, they’ll keep losing close games and Burrow will continue to take high-risk shots that add up over the course of 17 games.
This might seem silly to some. But, excuses aside, it feels like a little thing that says a lot about this current crop of Bengals right now.
