The Cincinnati Bengals have been slow out of the blocks each of the past three seasons. They recovered from an 0-2 start in 2022, finished 12-4 and made the AFC championship game. But in 2023 and 2024, they went 1-3 and 1-4, respectively, before making too-little-too-late playoff pushes, ultimately watching the postseason from home with a 9-8 record in hand back-to-back years.
Bengals brass wants to put their September slumps in the rearview mirror.
So they approached August differently this time around. Head coach Zac Taylor, now in his seventh season leading the franchise, played his starters in the first two preseason games, with injury-riddled but supremely-talented quarterback Joe Burrow strongly supporting the decision.
"The things I have to come to grip with as the coach," Taylor said Wednesday. "You can't live in fear. You can't think, 'Oh God, if we walk on the field, someone's going to get hurt.' You can't operate that way. That's a horrible way to live your life. And so you got to go out there and play football and trust the guys are going to protect themselves and understand the situation."
Burrow and the offense picked up right where it left off last season. Unfortunately for the Bengals, so did their struggling defense.
After road trips to Philadelphia and Washington to play exhibitions against the Eagles and Commanders, Taylor has seen enough preseason action from his first teamers. He told reporters that his starters won't play Saturday against the Indianapolis Colts.
The question is, have they done enough to inspire a faster regular-season start? Taylor believes so.
"I feel further along as a team right now than I did last year because these guys have played in two preseason games," he said.
Taylor added: "I feel better going into the early parts of the season than I probably did a year ago."
New defensive coordinator, same defensive headache
Coming off a College Football Playoff run that ended just short of a national title at Notre Dame, Al Golden has replaced Lou Anarumo as defensive coordinator.
Taylor confirmed Wednesday that Golden has been keeping his scheme even more vanilla than a DC usually would in preseason because this is his first year coordinating a defense in the league. In other words, there's no reason to give opponents a head start on studying his NFL concepts.
Even so, some of the run fit issues and lost battles at the point of attack that plagued the Bengals last season have returned, and Cincinnati's first-team defense is still noticeably missing hold-in defensive end Trey Hendrickson, a must-have pass rush threat.
The Bengals' starting defense, or at least most parts of it, has allowed a touchdown on all three of its drives this preseason. The Eagles backups marched nine plays downfield for a quick six points with Tanner McKee operating the offense as smoothly as Jalen Hurts, even scoring on a tush push.
Then the Commanders found the end zone twice in the early stages of Monday night's showdown. Washington ran the ball down Cincinnati's throat, with Swiss Army knife Deebo Samuel Sr. gobbling up 19 yards on a sweep, running back Chris Rodriguez Jr. swiping 40 more yards of green grass and then quarterback Jayden Daniels scurrying 14 additional yards for a touchdown, easily breaking a poor-effort tackle from safety Jordan Battle near the goal line. The next drive, with Daniels out and backup Josh Johnson in, running back Jacory "Bill" Croskey-Merritt ripped off a 27-yard score.
Taylor has maintained optimism about Golden's defense, pointing to the practices the unit has won in training camp.
"I've never read too much into the preseason. I mean, if we read into the preseason, Ja'Marr [Chase] wouldn't have played a down for us," Taylor said Wednesday, referencing Chase's four-drop preseason in 2021.
"And I still go through my notes on how we felt on August 18th about some of the rookies we've had in the past and the growth that they've shown over the end of training camp and once the lights come on in games and they play a full 70 snaps and what that does for 'em as opposed to paying 10 snaps. So I'm just really excited about the direction of the defense. I think there's a lot of positivity there. We believe in everybody on this team and are excited to get through this last preseason game and then go play for real."
Burrow looks MVP-caliber again
Aside from putting himself at risk by taking a couple unnecessary hard hits Monday against the Commanders, Burrow has looked every bit the part of a sixth-year quarterback ready to win MVP.
"Led us on four touchdown drives in five possessions, and really the fifth possession we got called for an illegal procedure, a neutral zone fraction, which I'd like to argue with a little bit," Taylor said, when asked about Burrow's preseason prowess.
He hasn't skipped a beat after throwing for a league-leading 43 touchdowns and 4,918 yards last season. In his pair of exhibition outings this month, he's completed 18-of-24 attempts for 185 yards and a trio of scores.
Burrow and Chase flexed their telepathic, college-to-NFL connection right away, with Burrow finding his go-to target three times for 41 total yards on a game-opening series against the Eagles. The next drive, Burrow went back to Chase, that time perfectly syncing up a pass to his wideout's back shoulder, from which he caught the ball, tucked it and raced for a 36-yard touchdown.
Burrow's precision passing was on display versus the Commanders as well, particularly when he threaded the needle to 2023 fourth-round pick Charlie Jones for a 13-yard touchdown on a concept Taylor said his franchise quarterback has repped a million times.
Whether it's throwing to Chase or receivers like Jones who are trying to carve out a spot on the team, Burrow has looked fantastic. His offensive line has mostly impressed, and the same can be said about third-year running back Chase Brown.
But an offense that scored the sixth-most points in the NFL last season wasn't the chief concern entering Taylor's preseason experiment. That onus belonged to a defense that allowed 25.5 points per game in 2024.
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