Winners and Losers Following Cincinnati Bengals 27-3 Loss to Tennessee Titans

Cincinnati is 1-3 following Sunday's lost to Tennessee.

Author:
Blake Jewell
Publish date:
Oct 1, 2023 4:51 PM EDT

In this story:

Cincinnati Bengals

The Bengals lost to the Titans 27-3 on Sunday in Nashville. They're 1-3 on the season.

Here are our winners and losers:

Winners

Joe Mixon

Joe Mixon was the lone bright spot for the Bengals offense. He had 67 yards on 14 carries, averaging 4.8 yards per carry.

Mixon has looked pretty good this season, and the Bengals should likely be leaning on him more with Joe Burrow hurt and the their passing game struggling. After falling to 1-3, the Bengals need to try to slow things down and get back to relying on Mixon, both to move the ball and to protect Burrow from taking many hits.

Dax Hill

The second-year safety has been off to a terrific start in 2023. He’s the teams leading tackler and has made some pretty big plays through four games.

He picked off Ryan Tannehill and added 8 tackles to his stat-line against the Titans on Sunday. With the departures of Jessie Bates and Vonn Bell, they needed Hill to step up this season and so far, he’s done just that.

He did get called for an unnecessary roughness penalty in the third quarter, but played a good game outside of that mistake.

Losers

Joe Burrow

The Bengals star quarterback just doesn't look like his normal self. He missed six weeks of training camp with a calf injury and it’s been very clear through four games. His calf his clearly still bothering him and impacting his throwing mechanics.

He completed 20-of-30 passes for 165 yards on Sunday.

Zac Taylor

The Bengals offense has looked miserable through four games in 2023. Even with their star quarterback playing poorly, they have looked bland and have lacked creativity on offense.

With Burrow hurt and the passing game not working, Mixon has yet to get 20 carries in a game this season. It feels like they can’t figure out how to function without Burrow playing well.

If the Bengals want a shot at the playoffs this season, Taylor will need to find a way to score even if Burrow isn’t healthy.

Bengals Defense

The Bengals defense had one of their worst performances in recent memory against the Titans. They didn’t get much help from their offense, but the struggled to contain Derrick Henry and gave up some big plays to Ryan Tannehill.

The Titans threw for 227 yards and two touchdowns and ran for 173 yards and another score. They have to bounce back next week against a below average Cardinals team.

Cam Taylor-Britt

Cam Taylor-Britt is going to be a really good cornerback, but the Titans game just wasn’t his game. He got beat deep twice before leaving the game in the third quarter with a concussion.

The Bengals defense as whole had a rough performance, but they’ll need Taylor-Britt to get back to his usual self moving forward. Hopefully he gets healthy soon and plays well when he's back on the field.

Nick Scott

The new Bengals safety has struggled in coverage so far this season. Tannehill made some big throws to open receivers in this game and Scott had a hard time keeping up. With Hill playing well, the Bengals defense could benefit from Scott getting more comfortable and playing at a higher level.

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