CINCINNATI — In the offseason leading up to the 2019 season, the Bengals launched a commercial promoting their New Dey campaign. The campaign was designed to signify that the Bengals had turned the page to a new dey with then new head coach Zac Taylor and then quarterback Andy Dalton leading a faster more potent offense, and more wins coming with that as well.
Well, as we all know, what transpired over the last two seasons was an organization that won a grand total of just six games and an offense that wasn’t potent and lacked an identity. And all along, we kept hearing Zac Taylor say that things were eventually going to break the Bengals way and the wins were going to come. And yesterday, a break and win did come.
Show of hands here: how many of you thought the Bengals were going to force a turnover and win the game when the Vikings had the ball on the Bengals 38-yard line with just two minutes left in the overtime quarter? Exactly.
But then, seemingly out of nowhere, a break did go the Bengals way in the form of a fumble by Vikings running back Dalvin Cook on the first play out of the two-minute warning.
Okay, so the Bengals had avoided a potential loss. But there was still the possibility of the game ending in a tie. Then, after coaching conservatively in the fourth quarter and most of overtime, Zac Taylor gave Joe Burrow the freedom he deserved at the line of scrimmage with the Bengals facing a 4th&1 at their own 48-yard line. Burrow was given two plays, a run or a pass, and ultimately audibled at the line to the pass option, dropped back, bought time and lobbed a gorgeous touch pass to CJ Uzomah for 32 yards to set up rookie kicker Evan McPherson’s game-winning 33-yard field goal as the overtime clock expired. That fourth down conversion was not only a result of giving Burrow the freedom he deserves at the line of scrimmage, but also a result of coaching aggressive, playing to win.
All of this coming after the Bengals blew a 14-point second-half lead, 10-point lead in the fourth quarter alone, and the outcome was inevitably going to be all too familiar for Bengals fans. But this team found a way to win. The defense made a play when the team desperately needed one. The offense executed a brilliant play call with the game on the line, a risk-reward play not seen run by a Bengals team in a long time especially in the situation the play was executed in.
But there were so many other aspects to Sunday that made it feel different. The crowd; wow! It was loud. How great it is to have fans back? I think that’s why I saw my uncle jumping up and down so much more than I had even seen him do that at a Bengals game. I think that’s because, like so many other fans, he didn’t get to go the games last year due to limited capacity. And I think having such a limited number of fans allowed in attendance made Mike Brown realize he had to change the way he does business to get fans to come back this season with no capacity restrictions. The fans showing up Sunday was a major testament to Mike Brown and the Bengals front office and their work in the offseason. Elizabeth Blackburn had to be smiling yesterday. I got to give a lot of credit for the fans showing up. For fans of this franchise, that has not won a playoff game since 1990 and has had only seven winning seasons in the last 30 overall and all the anger this front office has caused them, they put all of it aside and showed up to watch this young and exciting Bengals team Sunday.
That young and exciting Bengals team. Both sides of the ball were flying on the field yesterday. We knew this offense would be flying. Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase’s connection Sunday was every bit we envisioned it would be, highlighted by the scintillating 50-yard touchdown at the end of the second quarter. Chase led the Bengals in receptions and receiving yards, showing why the Bengals drafted him fifth overall back in April. Joe Mixon was unleashed Sunday, running the ball for 29 times for 127 yards and a touchdown and taking advantage of run-game coordinator Frank Pollack’s wide-zone run scheme by bouncing outside on several rush attempts and turning upfield once he hit the edge.
But the impressive performance from the defense is what is providing encouragement for this season. I saw the Bengals defensive line get penetration up front and getting to Vikings quarterback Kirk Cousins three times. I saw the Bengals linebackers swarm to Vikings running back Dalvin Cook and the Vikings receivers. The same thing with the secondary. They were ready to tackle. A glaring weakness for this team the last few seasons was allowing chunk plays, yards after the catch or contact. On Sunday, the Bengals defense were there on the catches, they bottled up Dalvin Cook to just 61 yards on 20 carries. I saw a defense that came out with a gameplan to take away the Vikings running game and get to Kirk Cousins, and they, for the most part, executed that gameplan at a high level, holding the Vikings to just 67 total rushing yards
The end of the first half and start of the second half. How many times in recent seasons did we see the Bengals allow an end of first half score to the opposition and then another score to the opposition at the start of the second half? Or how many times would the Bengals just go conservative on offense to end the first half? That’s not what a Zac Taylor-coached team does. The Bengals got the ball back with just 1:11 left in the first half and the ball on their own 25-yard line. What did they do? Four plays. Four completions. 50-yard bomb from Burrow to Chase. Boom! 14-7 lead at the half. Then on their first possession of the second half, the Bengals drove 75 yards in 11 plays, including a 4th&1 conversion, punching it in with a Joe Mixon touchdown to make it 21-7 and keeping the pressure on Minnesota.
Speaking of Joe Mixon, that’s what also felt different about Sunday. No leaning on Joe Burrow to throw the ball 40 times. Joe Mixon had two more rushing attempts than Joe Burrow had pass attempts. That’s how you protect your quarterback, especially in a game where he was still sacked five times. Mixon’s 29 rushes for 127 yards was a huge difference in a game where the stat sheet was very close between the two teams.
We heard the New Dey campaign all throughout the offseason leading up to the 2019 season. We heard everything about moral victories and how breaks were going to come. We heard Zac Taylor thank fans for coming out to games where there were only 40,000 that showed up to a stadium that can hold 65,515 and told them that those were the same fans that were going to be there when this team would be playing for championships. I laughed when he said that.
But you know what? Sunday allowed me to think maybe Zac Taylor does know what he is doing. Maybe this team does have an identity, does know how to put together a gameplan- one that actually heavily includes Joe Mixon. Maybe this team did make good free agent signing decisions in the last two offseasons. Maybe everything that Zac Taylor talked about with the New Dey campaign in his first season in 2019 and Mike Brown, at Zac Taylor’s introductory press conference in February of that year, saying the team was open to new ideas is finally coming into fruition. It’s only one game in a seventeen-game season. But winning a kind of game Sunday that in years past this team would have more than likely found a way to lose offers hope that, you know what, at least Sunday felt like, at the very least, a different dey.
Let me be Frank and Cut to the Chase 