Through five games, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has completed 72.3 percent of his passes for 1,370 yards and 12 touchdowns against two interceptions for what should be MVP buzz.
His Bengals are 1-4.
And for the most part, Zac Taylor and coaches like Lou Anarumo are to blame.
We can talk about players needing to execute. And Duke Tobin and the front office 100 percent deserve some blame for blowing recent drafts (they’ve cut a second-round pick and third-round pick in recent weeks) and just crossing their fingers with hope that guys would magically replace top-shelf talent like Jessie Bates and DJ Reader.
But Sunday was the biggest indictment on Taylor and Anarumo yet.
In overtime, Taylor crawled back into his conservative shell yet again. His quarterback had thrown for five touchdowns, 392 yards and just nine incompletions all day while tearing apart the Ravens. So he took the ball out of Burrow’s hands, ran three straight times and settled for a 53-yard field goal in heavy wind with a rookie punter as the holder.
Were this a one-off mistake, perhaps it would be more excusable. But there are three or more prime examples of Taylor absolutely getting too conservative in key moments, at least one of them during the Super Bowl.
With the difference being 2-3 and alive and 1-4 and dead in the water, Taylor took the ball out of an MVP-worthy player, who is surrounded by perhaps the best-supporting cast of weapons in the league, and jammed it up the middle three times with a jumbo-looking set. Field goal missed, game over.
And Anarumo, frankly, is flirting with Teryl Austin territory for Bengals fans with long memories. Last year he got a pass for the “miscommunication” issues and fans were told that was fixed. Maybe the communication problems have been fixed, but the defense is worse than ever. Things are completely broken when an offense needs to hang 40 for a chance to win.
These numbers about Burrow, from ESPN’s Ben Baby and Sports Illustrated’s Michael Fabiano, stand out:
Per @pfref, Joe Burrow is only the 20th quarterback in NFL history to throw five or more touchdown passes in a single game … and lose. It happened to George Blanda and Dan Marino twice.
— Michael Fabiano (@Michael_Fabiano) October 6, 2024
Bengals QB Joe Burrow is the 3rd quarterback in NFL history to have a losing record through 5 games despite throwing 12 touchdowns while completing 70% of his passes.
(via ESPN Research)
— Ben Baby (@Ben_Baby) October 6, 2024
Burrow shouldn’t need to throw a perfect game with five scores, 38 points, and absolutely not even a single mistake against the Ravens, of all defenses, to get a win.
The Bengals aren’t likely to make a coaching change, of course. But the spotlight now turns to whether Taylor really still has the locker room through this sort of adversity and how the front office might react if he doesn’t, especially if things get worse.
