The Bengals went up to Minnesota, in a battle of backup quarterbacks, trying to get a win and build confidence for the Jake Browning run.
Could things have gone better? You betcha.
The Minnesota Meltdown, as Willie has coined it, could not have been much uglier.
Carson Wentz, of North Dakota State fame, looked like a villain from the Fargo franchise (most of which actually takes place in Minnesota), but it was the Vikings’ defense that put the Bengals in the wood chipper.
The Bengals fumbled five times, losing three of them. Browning also threw two interceptions. All of these turnovers led to points for Norway’s finest, two of them immediately. In all, the Bengals gave up 31 points as a result of turnovers. They were also in field goal range on two of those occasions, meaning that they gave up at least six more points that they could have scored. All in all, that is a 37-point swing from turnovers in a game they lost by 38 points.
These numbers are insane.
That was the biggest problem, but not the only problem.
The run game was, uh, did not exist.
The defense gave up touchdowns on four of five Red Zone appearances, which is less than ideal.
There were some good performances on that side of the ball, but when they needed to make a play, they fumbled away their chance like… well, like the Bengals offense.
The way the Bengals lost this game is unsustainable. The run game is troubling, for sure, but there is no way they continue to turn the ball over at that rate. They had some good luck in the first two weeks with turnovers, but this far surpassed regression to the mean. In fact, it gave them a soybean field’s worth of room to progress back to it.
Matt and Willie are here to tell you that this team has some problems, but they are fixable, and the Denver Broncos are not unbeatable.
So let’s all hope the Bengals cleansed themselves in the waters of Lake Minnetonka and got the stink of this loss off them before they boarded the plane back to Cincinnati.
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Who Dey!
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