Justin Tucker then hit a 56-yard field goal to tie it, and the Ravens won 41-38 in overtime on his 24-yarder after Evan McPherson missed a 53-yard attempt.
Here are five takeaways from the loss:
1. A long road ahead
While coach Zac Taylor says he still believes this is a championship-caliber team and “the defense has shown enough” to continue believe those guys can help Cincinnati “win a lot of games,” Burrow isn’t sugar-coating the state of the team.
The difference between 2-3 and 1-4 is stark, and now the Bengals face a longer road back to .500 and start of division play in a hole. Up next is a Sunday night game on the road against the New York Giants, and Cincinnati has struggled on the road in primetime games, with the exception of last year’s stunning win for Jake Browning at Jacksonville.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
Most expected the Bengals to get through September with three wins after they faced the teams that owned the top three picks in the NFL Draft in April, but they only beat one of those opponents and couldn’t build momentum off that victory at Carolina last week.
“We’re not a championship-level team right now,” Burrow said. “We’re not. I like to think that we’ll come back and improve throughout the season to get to that point, but right now, we’re not, and we have to get better.”
2. Jackson causes problems
The big storyline going into the game was how a struggling Cincinnati defense would contain dual-threat quarterback Lamar Jackson and the league’s leading rusher in Derrick Henry. Both were problems.
Boosted on its defensive line by the return of B.J. Hill and season debut of Myles Murphy, Cincinnati surprisingly kept Henry in check most of the game, but the one time he popped off a big run was costly. He ran for 51 yards on Baltimore’s second drive in overtime to set up the game-winning field goal with a little over three minutes left.
“That was the main thing, to stop the run -- the No. 1 rushing offense in the league,” Cam-Taylor Britt said. “We held those guys to some numbers they aren’t used to having, but that last one got out and that ended the game.”
Jackson was as elusive as ever, though, scrambling out of trouble, stiff-arming defensive ends coming at him and making throws he shouldn’t have had time to complete. He finished with 348 yards and four touchdowns while running for another 55 yards, as the Ravens scored on every drive of the second half to come back from a 10-point deficit. They scored the final 13 points of the game.
It didn’t help that Cincinnati was missing cornerback Dax Hill after a first-quarter knee injury. Mike Hilton also was out for the game because of a knee injury.
Credit: AP
Credit: AP
3. Missed opportunity
McPherson was disappointed he had the opportunity to win the game and couldn’t get it done, but he didn’t place the blame on rookie punter Ryan Rehkow, who had the snap slip out of his hands as he was placing the hold.
The ball was somewhat set when McPherson attempted the kick, but the hesitation prevented him from getting his full strength behind it. He still expects to make it in that situation.
“In that situation, I’m making sure we have time for the hold to get back up and I put a good enough strike on it that hopefully it goes in,” McPherson said. “I hate for it to end the way it did. I wish I could come through and kind of hesitate there and still put a good hit on it. It actually ended up going pretty far, but it’s just an unfortunate event. It won’t happen again from these guys. We work too hard for that to happen, and I just hate that I couldn’t come through for the team in that situation because they played a really tough game. Back and forth, and it’s just a terrible feeling when you can’t come through at the end.”
McPherson is 9 of 11 on field goals so far, also missing a 48-yarder against Washington, and he missed an extra-point at Kansas City.
4. Conservative approach
As clutch as McPherson has been, the offense perhaps could have been more aggressive in that situation.
Germaine Pratt recovered a fumble to put the Bengals on the Baltimore 35-yard line – when Jackson bobbled a clean snap on the first series in overtime –, but Cincinnati ran the ball three times and gained just three yards before sending McPherson out for the kick.
Burrow checked out of a pass play, saying “it wasn’t a good look” for the one called, but said he was OK with the conservative approach because of how good Baltimore’s pass rush is and the chance of getting sacks. Tee Higgins felt otherwise.
“Personally, I think we should have gone a little more aggressive on first and second down, just to try to get Evan in better field goal range,” Higgins said. “He can make those from that deep. I’m not putting it on him at all. It’s a team effort. We lost as a team, but we could have done a better job of putting him in better field goal range to make it an easier kick.”
5. “Something has to change”
The Bengals were on the verge of 2-3 before Burrow’s interception, or before the missed field goal and that could be said of many other plays that didn’t go their way this season, but there’s simply no margin for error right now.
Cincinnati has scored 33 points or more in three straight games and had a lead late at Kansas City that slipped away. The way the defense has been playing, the offense has to be “damn-near perfect,” as Burrow put it this week. The team’s four losses have been by a combined 15 points, and Burrow insists “the coaches are handling it the right way.” He hasn’t put blame on the defense, but it goes without saying the offense needs more help from that side of the ball.
“We just have to make plays down the stretch,” Burrow said. “We’re playing really well on offense. I don’t know what the league stats are, but we’re 1-4. That’s not where we want to be. Something has to change. I’m not sure what that is on our end, but we’ll do some critical thinking, watch the tape and see what we can do better. There’s plenty to improve on.”
SUNDAY’S GAME
Bengals at Giants, 8:20 p.m., NBC, 700, 1530, 102.7, 104.7
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