Coming into Sunday’s matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers, the expectation was that the Cincinnati Bengals would try to protect quarterback Jake Browning against a defense that gets after the passer a ton and takes the ball away at a high rate by leaning on the run game, specifically running back Joe Nixon.
That wasn’t the case — at all — Sunday against the Steelers.
In the 16-10 loss to the Steelers, the Bengals ran the football just 13 times for 25 yards. Browning had three carries for nine yards, while Mixon had just eight carries for 16 yards with a long of four yards on the day. In fact, Mixon touched the football just 10 times total on the afternoon.
After the game, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor explained the struggles in the run game, stating that that is life against Pittsburgh on the ground, even with the Steelers coming into the matchup allowing over 1,200 yards on the season and 4.4 yards per carry, though they’ve been better in recent weeks.
“Yeah, that life against Pittsburgh. That’s what’s gonna happen. It’s gonna be tough sledding when you’re running the ball,” Taylor said to reporters after the loss, according to video via Bengals.com. “We need to get more production out of that, take the pressure off the pass game. That’s what they rely on. They rely on taking off the run and being able to rush the passer and putting you in your own passing situations. And so, we gotta do a better job just managing the drives as we go and putting yourself in a little bit more advantageous situations obviously.
“If you can put yourself in such situations where you call more runs and you’re not in second and 10, second long, third and longer, you can get more runs off, then eventually some of those runs start to get you bigger gains. We didn’t get an opportunity to get enough runs off.”
The Steelers did a good job of stuffing the run early and often, forcing the Bengals to put the game in Browning’s hands.
In the first half alone, Mixon touched the football just five times on the ground, and that came with the Bengals holding a 7-3 lead for much of the first half. Some of that was due to the situations that the run game put the Bengals in, but it was also a play-calling issue, too.
Too often Taylor was putting the football in Browning’s hands, trying to make something happen in the passing game as the Bengals undoubtedly identified the Steelers’ secondary as an area of weakness to try and attack.
That didn’t quite work, either. Browning threw for just 227 yards, one touchdown and one interception. One of the biggest plays of the day for the Bengals came off a tipped pass that wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase was in the right spot at the right time to corral and then break some tackles on his way to a 31-yard gain. There was also a 25-yard catch over Steelers cornerback Joey Porter Jr. down the right sideline, too.
But asking Browning to beat the Steelers’ defense on his own was a bad play right from the start. Taylor did him no favors, especially with no commitment to establish the run and stick with it, even if it wasn’t working early.
