The Cincinnati Bengals and Joe Burrow dropped a deuce of considerable size against the Philadelphia Eagles yesterday. Courtesy of a 20-point blowout, they now drop to 3-5 on the season, their playoff future precariously on the edge. With nine games left, what chance do they have of reaching the postseason?
“I think 10 wins usually gets you in”, Bengals QB Joe Burrow said after yesterday’s loss. “So we’ve got to win seven out of nine. That’s doable. That’s doable. So we’ll go from there”.
Were this most other teams, such a statement would be laughable, of course. But Burrow has done it before with the Bengals. After an 0-2 start in 2022, they finished the season 12-4. They won eight in a row to end the regular season, reaching the conference finals. We know this is a team that has the talent to get hot and go on a prolonged run.
Even without Burrow for much of last season, the Bengals still nearly made the playoffs. They started the season 1-3 but finished 9-8, going 8-5 after Week 4. Were it not for a three-game slide in the midst of Burrow’s season-ending injury, they likely would have made it.
But it is just too much this season for the Bengals to expect to come back? While the Browns is the Browns, the Steelers and Ravens will both have at least a two-game advantage over them after eight weeks. And the Ravens already have a game in-hand against them, for tie-breaking purposes.
Burrow and the Bengals had a 10-3 lead a third of the way into their loss to the Eagles yesterday. Even two-thirds of the way into the game, they tied it at 17 apiece. But then they just collapsed, Philadelphia ending on a 20-point run.
It wasn’t the best stretch for the offense, either. After tying the game early in the second half, Burrow hit Ja’Marr Chase short of the sticks on fourth down. They failed to convert, turning the ball over on downs, then he threw an interception the following drive. On the next drive, Burrow hit TE Mike Gesicki on first down, who promptly fumbled.
It wasn’t so long ago that the Bengals were a perennial Super Bowl assumptive favorite because of Joe Burrow. While on the whole he has played well this season, even very well, they simply don’t have the same talent. The defense in particular has let them down considerably, without great hope for a second-half resurgence.
The Bengals’ second-half schedule is perhaps a bit easier than the first. They have already played the Chiefs and Commanders, as well as the Ravens. Their only loss to a bad team was in the opener against the Patriots—the others you can excuse.
But winning seven out of nine is going to be tough even for Joe Burrow. The Bengals still play the Ravens again, in Baltimore, and the Steelers twice. The rest of the schedule is winnable, but the game against the Eagles was winnable, too. Will they beat all of the Raiders, Chargers, Cowboys, Titans, and Broncos? Probably not.
