Bengals Must Find Identity Following Ugly Loss to Titans

Cincinnati is 1-3 on the season and have scored just six points in two road games.

Author:
James Rapien
Publish date:
Oct 1, 2023 7:15 PM EDT

In this story:

NASHVILLE — Joe Burrow walked up the ramp toward the visitors locker room at Nissan Stadium after Sunday's 27-3 loss to the Titans. It was his first loss to Tennessee.

The Titans dominated the Bengals. They scored three touchdowns in the final 6:31 of the first half. Meanwhile, the Bengals' offense has only scored three touchdowns in four games this season.

This is uncharted territory for Burrow and the Bengals. They entered this year with Super Bowl expectations, but they haven't even resembled a playoff team in the first month of the season.

"We’ve got a lot of work to do," Burrow admitted.

Are they a playoff team?

"Not if we keep playing the way we are," he said bluntly. "We know we have the capability of being a playoff team, but that's so far in the future."

Last season the Bengals rallied from an 0-2 start. They found their identity on offense, had a stout defense that bent, but didn't break and always seemed to make a big play in key moments.

The 2023 Bengals are searching for an identity. They certainly don't have one after four games. They better find it quick if they have any plans of qualifying for the playoffs.

The offense has produced 43 points in four games. The defense has been subpar for the majority of the season. Giving up multiple explosive plays to Ryan Tannehill is unacceptable, especially when Derrick Henry was also slicing and dicing them on the ground.

"Nothing was good enough for us today, really. We got beat in every phase and that’s up to every player, that’s on every coach that we’ve got," head coach Zac Taylor said afterward. "This is not the expectation we had going into this game. Tennessee controlled the game really from start to finish. They executed and beat us in every situation. Hats off to them, they outplayed us today. More discipline, more physical."

What do these Bengals want to be? They're no longer the young, upstart team that's playing with house money every week.

They entered this season with gigantic expectations. They have a star quarterback playing through an injury, a star receiver with broken ribs and their best offensive weapon is getting more and more frustrated.

"I'm open. I'm always f****** open," Ja'Marr Chase said after the game.

Chase had seven catches for 73 yards, but it wasn't enough to carry an offense that was stuck in the mud for most of the game.

The Bengals are 1-3 after four games. Their offense is the worst in the NFL. Their defense has struggled to stop the run and has given up far too many explosive plays.

"I would say whenever you're 1-3, you're going to be frustrated. You're going to be angry. You're going to be wanting to win games. And we haven't been," Burrow said. "We're not going to let anything like that come between us. That's how you end up having a bad season. We’ve had a bad start. We’ve had a bad first quarter, so we got three more quarters of the year to get through and go from there."

They better get through it soon. Otherwise, they're going to look up and have the "bad season" that no one expected.

They're an extremely flawed football team. They're looking for answers and they better find them quick.

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