The Cincinnati Bengals are 2-6 in their first four games of the season the past two years, so how do they go about fixing it? Part of the new generation’s philosophy, HC Zac Taylor has shied away from playing his starters in the preseason. While that worked out fine in 2021, they have consistently lost early during the past three years.
Sure, there are other factors involved, including injuries, but Taylor acknowledged that preseason reps are up for discussion. “The one thing I do feel good about is playing our guys in the preseason”, the Bengals head coach said. “That’s one thing that we’ve openly talked about with our players, and I think will help us as we do it”.
While Ja’Marr Chase hasn’t played in the preseason since logging three snaps as a rookie, he hasn’t given it great consideration. When confronted with the Bengals’ poor starts by reporters, though, he said, “Sounds like we need to play preseason, huh?”. While that wasn’t an entirely serious answer, it’s reasonable to assume Taylor has brought this up.
The Bengals are a perennial preseason favorite to win the Super Bowl, largely thanks to Chase and QB Joe Burrow. But too often during their career together, they have had to spend most of the season digging out of holes. In 2022, they started the season 0-2, then falling to 2-3. To open the 2023 season, the Bengals lost three of their first four games. Last season, they started with an 0-3 slide, dropping to 1-4. They only barely clawed their way to a winning season thanks to a five-game winning streak to end the year.
But that meant little considering the Bengals missed the playoffs. That’s two consecutive 9-8 seasons with no playoff football for a team that competed in the conference finals the previous two seasons. In 2021, they were minutes away from winning the Super Bowl.
Now, this isn’t all because Burrow and Chase aren’t playing pitch and catch in the preseason, but the slow starts have been an issue. If getting in more offseason work helps toward fixing that, then they need to work on that.
And it sounds like they are, to listen to Zac Taylor. Perhaps to his detriment, he is shackled to high expectations after falling face-first into Joe Burrow in 2020. Ever since then, the Bengals have been an NFL darling, keepers of the golden boy at quarterback.
Although they nearly won the Super Bowl, the reality is they haven’t even made the playoffs since 2022. That would have been customary for Bengals teams of the past, but this is Joe Burrow’s Bengals. This is the Bengals of Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, at team that actually pays (most of) it’s players. Suddenly, this is a team that is drafting late and spending big on free agents. They can’t keep falling on their faces in September, trusting they’ll be sprinting by January. This might be a marathon, but when you stumble early, you have to hustle at some point.
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