The Bengals Locker Room is Disintegrating In Real-Time

It is commonplace to have the media in the locker room after games. While some games have given us meme-worthy moments like Germaine Pratt spamming, “quick game,” after a particularly bad performance from him and the defense, others have been run-of-the-mill. It was the former after this game.

Starting on offense, Chase Brown was as candid as any. His frustration was apparent, swaying back and forth, making sure to take care to use his words well. While he was complimentary of the defense’s start to the season, Brown put it plainly: “Finish the f****** game.”

Brown finished this game with just 37 yards on the ground, but the Bengals were never in a good position to run the ball. He did help out in the passing game, however, Flacco targeted him a team-high 14 times, and he recorded eight receptions for 75 yards, marking the second-best game of his career.

Chase was about the same. His frustration was palpable, and he elected to “stay in his lane” when it came to the defense.

Like Brown, Chase did his job in this one. The reigning Triple Crown winner turned eight targets into six receptions for 111 yards. You can understand where he is coming from when he’s not calling out the defense. He doesn’t want it to come around to him when he has a bad game. However, Chase hasn’t been the reason for a Bengals loss, let alone being the reason for wasting two seasons.

“Catch You On Monday”

Meanwhile, as the Bengals’ offensive stars were wondering what more they could have done, the Bengals’ defenders were in much better spirits.

Reportedly, some of the defense’s biggest names — considering how poorly the defense has played, we are using that term incredibly loosely — elected not to take any questions, were smiling and laughing with one another, and just came back with “catch you on Monday.”

According to Mike Petraglia of 700WLW and ESPN, Jordan Battle, Myles Murphy, Shemar Stewart, T.J. Slayton, and Kris Jenkins felt that they did not need to face any scrutiny for their subpar play. Oren Burks, a free agent acquisition from the Philadelphia Eagles, was one defender who did speak to reporters. He offered advice from his time on a Super Bowl-winning defense: “There’s gotte be no quit.”

Well, it looks as though the Bengals’ defense has quit.

It’s incredibly easy to critique NFL players from behind a screen as we are doing here. However, when normal people underperform at work, they have to answer for where they fall short. Not these Bengals, though.

Suppose there’s anyone on this Bengals defense to have earned this level of aloofness, Stewart, Battle, and Murphy are not among them. Stewart, as the 17th-overall pick in last year’s draft, has two solo tackles, no sacks, and no tackles for loss this year. Ja’Marr Chase and Tahj Brooks have five, and Chase Brown has two. Battle has three interceptions this year, but he’s also tied for the team lead with 12 missed tackles on the year. Murphy, another first-round pick, has 1.5 sacks.

Zac Taylor has effectively lost the locker room. What was once a tight-knit group willing each other to victory has disintegrated into chaos. The offensive players feel as though they have to be perfect to pick up the historically bad defense. According to Locked On Bengals’ Jake Liscow, the Bengals have the worst defense since the turn of the century. It’s on pace to be the worst defense in the history of the league.

In order for this to be fixed, the Bengals’ ownership needs to care. Competent teams would move on from Al Golden and GM-in-name-only Duke Tobin. Zac Taylor hitched his career on the hiring of Golden to replace Lou Anarumo, and that’s failed. The Bengals need to clean house, sell off assets to stockpile draft picks, and actually hire a GM and scouting department. The team whiffs on every pick that’s not an obvious franchise-changing player like Burrow or Chase. It’s time to modernize.

Because if this continues, it’s only going to get worse.