How are the Cincinnati Bengals adjusting to life without QB Joe Burrow since losing to the Pittsburgh Steelers with Jake Browning a couple week ago? It’s a rather important question, given that the rematch is coming up in a couple weeks, and Pittsburgh’s season is now hanging precariously in the balance. If the Steelers can’t sweep the Bengals this year, their playoff chances take a nosedive, already with six losses.
Interestingly, Browning apparently set one of those random, arbitrary NFL records by posting the highest completion percentage through a player’s first two starts in NFL history. He has gone 51-for-63 since moving into the starting lineup, completing 81 percent of his passes.
He completed 73 percent against the Steelers, throwing for 227 yards with a touchdown and an interception. Solid numbers, overall, which he bettered this past week in a win over the Jacksonville Jaguars. In that game, he threw for 354 yards, completing over 86 percent of his attempts, throwing for one touchdown and running for another.
“I think the week felt much smoother than last week”, he said, via Paul Dehner Jr. of The Athletic, referring to improvements made since making his first career start against the Steelers. “Going into the Jacksonville game was much more than the Steelers game with a little bit of, ‘I don’t know, let’s figure it out as we go’”.
Browning said that he basically learned to speak up, making it clear what he liked and didn’t like. And he also made a key suggestion about how to run practice to better prepare himself based on the times he felt uncomfortable against the Steelers. He encouraged the coaches to run the plays he likes in adverse circumstances rather than giving him only ideal looks to better simulate what he would see in-game.
“It was really smart of him”, one of his coaches said. “There’s a happy medium there for a guy that hasn’t necessarily played a lot of football where you don’t necessarily want to give him every perfect look. You want to mix in some looks that aren’t ideal with a call. We did a little better job of that last week that made him think on his feet”.
He clearly benefited from that if the improvement in his performance against the Jaguars is anything to go by. Of course, it should never be surprising when somebody plays better after his first start. The more you do something, the better prepared you become to do it again. So, in theory, he should be even better the next time he faces the Steelers.
The Bengals are striving to keep themselves relevant, looking to get to 7-6 with a win today over the Indianapolis Colts. Doing so would do wonders for them, as it would tie them for the seventh-best record in the conference with the Colts and the Steelers. They would have the head-to-head tiebreaker over Indianapolis and could knock Pittsburgh down a peg by beating their division rivals the following week. They still very much have everything to play for, and don’t need much help to control their playoff destiny.
