Bengals Film Review: Analyzing Week 1 Struggles for Joe Burrow, Zac Taylor and Entire Offense

I've talked about this before, and it's all the same things. Week 1 Joe Burrow is definitely a thing, but so is Week 1 Zac Taylor/Dan Pitcher, Week 1 Chase, and so on for an offense that is expected to be one of the NFL's best.

Barring bigger changes than a few preseason series, it's going to continue. Even if Burrow played his best, there weren't a lot of places to go with the ball.

Everyone deserves blame. From Burrow, to the head coach and offensive coordinator. The Bengals offense is a boxer that needs to be hit before he properly enters the fight.

Nature of the Machine

Among QBs with elite QBs, the Bengals' offense is not like Baltimore or Buffalo, where the run game and run action are big sources of offense. They're more like Kansas City, where if the QB is a touch off in his processing and operation, they'll run out of answers quickly. Every QB has them. In fact, antecedent to the Bills' run game becoming such a force, these used to be the patented Josh Allen meltdown games. Sometimes you're just not seeing it right, and more balanced offenses can lean on the run game and the easy openings it creates in the passing game. The Bengals offense requires the highest end of precision from the QB who has made a future Hall of Fame career on it. In Week 1 past and present, Burrow just consistently does not see things as crisply as he does after a week or two.

The Browns' defense makes it much more difficult to get away with it as well. Denzel Ward and Greg Newsome have always given Chase and Tee Higgins issues, and Cleveland is the only team able to play tight coverage against the Bengals and consistently get away with it.

In addition to sticky corners who just have their number, a dangerous pass-rush that doesn't need to send extra bodies helps them along. With a lack of sharpness and no run game (though that problem won't simply go away with time), tight coverage squeezing things underneath, and the inability to punish them for that due to both that lack of sharpness, the rush, and coverage, it's hard to point to where the Bengals turn for offense in a game like this.

On Netflix's "Quarterback," he offered some insight into this. The QB position is a delicate balance between aggression and security. Anybody can push the ball and attack tight windows, just ask Jameis Winston and Will Levis. On the other extreme, anybody can check the ball down forever and keep it out of harm's way, just ask Teddy Bridgewater. There is no inherent challenge in either behavior, the challenge, and what makes QBs great, is in striking the balance.

In "Quarterback," Burrow talked about how, early in the year, he leans on the safe side of that dynamic and looks to avoid turning it over instead of confidently pulling the trigger. I'll push back on this though, or at least seek to clarify it.

Not to argue with the man about his own game, but that isn'r *really* what's happening. Burrow posted, per PFF, a 1.9% turnover-worthy play rate a year ago and holds a career mark of 2.2%. He is *always* avoiding turnovers. Does that mean he isn't pushing the ball, picking windows, and throwing guys open? Of course not. Because of how special his processing is, he is able to walk the tightrope between aggression and recklessness as well as anybody.

That tightrope is awfully fine, and falling on one side of it is the difference between making it work in tough games like this and checking the ball down over and over. The QB's pen/not open calculator needs to be crisper and faster than Burrow's is at the starting gun to run this offense. We'll look at a couple of plays that show this in action.

Here, Burrow is working from 1: sail to Chase to 2: checkdown. I imagine he would also have Higgins on alert if he likes what he sees pre or at-snap. Chase gets jammed (not held) into his break, so it's a little unclear of a look for Burrow, who, with pressure up the interior, just checks it down.

A better Burrow will see this as open, trust his guy to win the 1v1, and put it up for him. He wins the route and should get the ball. Interestingly as well, Higgins gets switched onto a safety with the motion. I don't think that Schwartz wanted to travel his corners, keeping them on their respective sides to maintain multiplicity and deception in coverage. The matchups are mostly standard for Cover-1, with the CBs on the outside X and Z Higgins/Chase respectively, the MLB on the RB Brown, the SS Delpit on the F Gesicki, and the nickel on the Y to the field Fant. With Higgins changing sides, Delpit travels with him. A Burrow more inclined to take a heat check would see this and probably just take it.

It's not wide open and obvious, but Burrow needs to see and take this as well. The read here is 1: Chase over the ball, 2: blaze out to Higgins, and 3: checkdown. With the MLB Schwesinger widening and the defender on the weak hash starting to declare down to the back, Burrow would normally anticipate that window and rip this over the ball.

Week 1 Chase

The Burrow/Chase mind-meld isn't quite what id needs to be either. With off-man coverage from the corner, Chase slows down anticipating a ball to the back shoulder, but Burrow puts it long expecting him to work into his blind spot off the zone turn and blow by him.

Their inability to connect rendered the Bengals unable to actually punish these coverages and open things up. Look at how they're playing, it should be an automatic chunk to Chase. Newsome makes a nice play on the ball, but you'd want Chase, one of the NFL's premiere ball-winners, to have stronger hands and pluck this one away. Ideally as well, the ball would be a bit more up and outside to keep it away, but the ball is good overall. If there's no punishment for playing like this, there's very little air in the underneath and intermediate either.

Baba Yaga

Joe Burrow is one of the NFL's boogeymen...Myles Garrett is the man you send to kill the boogeyman. On Sunday, Burrow faced pressure on 41.4% of his dropbacks per PFF despite Cleveland sending 4 (or fewer) rushers 82.8% of the time. When they did send more, it was usually just 5. Burrow got it out pretty quickly, averaging a time to throw of 2.87 seconds, which is fine.

These conditions are near untenable, but we've seen Burrow navigate them before (last year's 2nd Ravens game comes to mind). The difference is that with man coverage and an inability to punish it, it's difficult to get the ball out as quickly as you need without just throwing it away or dumping it off to get tackled. The other, bigger difference, is that Garrett creates such clean, direct heat that it's hard to negotiate.

The Bengals had issues picking up twists and games, with Karras here getting knocked too far back by the penetrating ILB to pass him off and take Garrett on the loop. The results in all-out blitz conditions despite just 5 rushers. Burrow makes an amazing throw, but in an ideal world with 5 rushers, they'd be able to pick it up enough for him to progress backside to the dig which comes open, as Chase running into outside leverage is not a great option. He just doesn't have the time to work through options

Garrett showed on the possession he singlehandedly killed with back-to-back sacks just what kind of game wrecker he is. On the first play, the sail comes open but by the top of his drop, Burrow is already forced to move and can't get away from Garrett because he's in too clean and is just too athletic to get away from in a tight space.

On the second, the deep dig comes open, a great call against Tampa 2 they're playing, but by the time it breaks, Garrett has already walked the LT into Burrow. When you can't run it, can't punish man coverage quickly, and can't stop Freddie Krueger, there's not a lot you can do. Survive and advance, because they'll be fine.