The Cincinnati Bengals’ season is over. Officially.
A 24-0 blowout loss to the Baltimore Ravens finished the job and eliminated Cincinnati from the postseason for the third straight year.
Joe Burrow was back and (relatively) healthy. The defense isn’t quite the train wreck it was. And the o-line has been respectable.
And yet, the team isn’t competitive. That says a lot about the morale of this team.
So what did we learn?
Myles Murphy is developing
Let’s start with something positive. The third year pass rusher is finally putting it together.
He had probably his best game as a pro against Baltimore, with two sacks and three QB hits.
Joe Burrow is struggling mentally
The turf toe doesn’t seem to be hindering the star QB physically, as he looked accurate and mobile in the Thanksgiving game against the Ravens and most of the Buffalo Bills game.
But he’s having mental lapses we haven’t seen from him in recent years.
Burrow just doesn’t seem to be capable of bearing the mental load of pushing through so much adversity this late in the season right now.
By his own admission, Burrow was bad against the Ravens, a team he has torched many times in the past.
This doesn’t mean he wants a coaching change or is even pushing for a GM. The man just wants to win and not have to get surgery every year. Unfortunately, that’s a tall order in Cincinnati.
Bengals management will always be reactive
This is just the latest example, but not clearing snow off of the seats that fans paid hundreds of dollars to sit in to see a losing team in below freezing weather is a big middle finger to the people who care most about the team.
Of course, Mike Brown and the Blackburns would never intentionally disrespect fans. They literally just don’t care enough to do anything but the bare minimum until someone forces them to.
And that’s why it’s so important that current starts like Ja’Marr Chase and former players like Zack Moss apply pressure, because this front office does not take hints.
Time and time again we’ve seen that Bengals management needs negative PR shoved in its face to the point that the bottom line is jeopardized. And then that’s when they make a couple of conciliatory moves to quiet the critics for a few months.
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