Bengals boil over in frustration during loss to Jaguars
When the Cincinnati Bengals rolled into Jacksonville, their plan was to get what had – to that point – been a disappointing season back on track and at least get their team above .500 as they faced three road games ahead of them. Instead, the Jaguars – who have beaten every AFC North team thus far in the 2017 NFL regular season – watched the Bengals fall apart in a non-competitive game that offered them little challenge despite being without a key part of their offense. After tensions boiled over, it was hard not to ask: could this be the beginning of the end of the season for Cincinnati?
An unredeemable offense
As the second half of the regular season got underway in Week 9, the Bengals offense is a virtual trainwreck with nary a redeemable quality despite an earlier change to the offensive coordinator position. Behind a porous offensive line, the Bengals ran the ball 31 times for a meager 64 yards (2.1 yards per rush). Rookie rusher Joe Mixon, the guy Cincinnati feels is playing better than Giovani Bernard and Jeremy Hill overall, has zero room to get out of the backfield.
With the way his teammates are playing, picking on quarterback Andy Dalton, who’s been guilty of leaving points on the field and playing erratically week-to-week, seems almost pointless. The Bengals have relegated rookie receiver John Ross to the dregs of the depth chart (due to his need to catch up in practice per head coach Marvin Lewis) and outside of A.J. Green there just are not enough targets to spread the ball in the passing game, either.
On Sunday, the Bengals ran the fourth-fewest offensive plays in an NFL game in the last decade. 37 plays and two of those were kneel-downs. There is no consistency in Cincinnati’s offense and that is being exposed on a regular basis now in very detrimental fashion. They finished the game with 148 yards of total offense on 37 plays and managed just eight first downs.
A defense with no teeth, discipline
Where do we begin? A lack of coverage? Missed assignments? Costly penalties? An inability to stop the run? The Bengals have all of those issues on defense and that’s why they have no bite – no teeth – when playing opponents this season.
The Bengals defensive front went from creating sacks and being disruptive to opposing quarterbacks to allowing, for the second week in a row, rushers to blast the ball right up the center of the line and get into the open field. The Jaguars didn’t even have Leonard Fournette rushing the ball due to a one-game benching for violating team rules. Yes, Bengals nose tackle Pat Sims left the game early with a calf injury, but that shouldn’t have kept Cincinnati from being able to do their job and play their assignments.
Blake Bortles completed 24-of-38 passes for 259 yards and a touchdown (91.9 rating) and was able to convert on 12 of 18 third-down attempts against a Bengals defense that had been highly rated and touted as one of the league’s best. Bortles easily found tight end Marcedes Lewis for big gains and both Chris Ivory and Marqis Lee had an open field several times.The Bengals defense allowed the Jaguars to finish with 407 total yards on offense (78 plays) and keep their offense on the field 40-plus minutes.
Boiling over
As the Bengals became frustrated with how they were being dominated by the Jaguars, things got dicey as tempers boiled over. Dre Kirkpatrick handed the Jaguars a ‘gimme’ pass interference call. Adam Jones grabbed a facemask and drew a flag. Nothing compared to the scrum that broke out between Green and Jaguars defensive back Jalen Ramsey, however.
Green has been increasingly frustrated with the inability of Dalton to get the ball to him. Against the Pittsburgh Steelers, Green was held to three catches for 41 yards. Against the Colts, Green had just three catches for 27 yards and a touchdown.
Ramsey, known for physical play – and a bit of smack talk here and there – shadowed Green for the majority of the game. Green had just broken on a route and was wide open when Dalton overthrew them both, the ball sailing out of bounds. With just one more short pass, Green apparently had had enough and at the end of the half, he showed Ramsey how unimpressed he was with the shove at the end of a play by getting to his feet, grabbing Ramsey around the neck and bodyslamming him to the turf before throwing haymakers. It got both teams involved and both players ejected for the remainder of the game.
A.J. Green and Jalen Ramsey both ejected for this fight. pic.twitter.com/HK69Hu3DQo
— Big Cat Country (@BigCatCountry) November 5, 2017
The Bengals face the Tennessee Titans and Denver Broncos in the next two weeks of play and head coach Marvin Lewis wants to move past the on-field disruptions and frustrations. “Every time you come out here [onto a field], unfortunately, there’s a chance you might now win,” Lewis told the media in his post-game press conference. “But we just go back, and we have to play better…”
