Three Takeaways From Cincinnati Bengals' 17-16 Win Over Cleveland Browns

CINCINNATI — The Bengals beat the Browns 17-16 on Sunday to improve to 1-0 on the season. Here are three takeaways from the Week 1 win:

Ugly Wins Are Better Than Pretty Losses

The Bengals won. Sometimes the how doesn't really matter.

The offense had chances to put the game away, but they couldn't do anything in the second half. It was one of the worst halves of football in the Joe Burrow era. They finished with just two net yards, gave up three-straight sacks on a drive and only had one first down in the final two quarters.

And they still won.

"We knew there was going to be adversity. There’s always adversity," Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said. "There’s always adversity in Week 1. There’s always adversity when we play Cleveland. There’s always adversity when we’re on the road in Cleveland. It’s never simple. So for our guys just to find a way to win in the end. I’m proud of them. The best outcome of this game is 1-0. Forget about the stats. Forget about the score. Forget about how it all played out. The best the outcome could have been was 1-0 and we’re proud of that. We’ll make some corrections and move forward."

Taylor's right. There's plenty to correct. There's plenty to fix. Fixing those things is a lot easier after a win.

"We found a way to win. Like somebody said earlier in this press conference, we didn’t win any of these games last year," Burrow said. "Usually when you can win a game like this, that’s a recipe for success and that means you are going to be a good team if you can find a lot of different ways to win and we did today.”

Tale of Two Halves

Bengals Joe Burrow (9) runs to avoid the Browns and throws during the game at Huntington Bank Field on Sunday, Sept. 7, 2025. | Phil Didion/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

It wasn't all bad for the offense. They played well in the first half, scoring touchdowns on two of their first three possessions of the game.

Burrow completed 11-of-14 first half passes for 88 yards and one touchdown. He had a 116.7 quarterback rating and wasn't sacked in the first half.

"We scored a touchdown on two of three first possessions. We went right down the field on the first one, scored a touchdown, put us in a good spot," Burrow said. "We just have to find a way to make some adjustments to help get some guys open and try to find a way to complete balls, keep running the ball in the second half, like we didn’t do today."

Burrow completed just 3-of-9 passes for 25 yards in the second half. He was also sacked three times.

Chase Brown ran for 43 yards on 12 attempts at halftime. He had the same number of rushing yards (43) at the end of the game, despite getting nine second half carries. Some of those touches were designed to waste clock, but nine rushes for zero yards is about as bad as it gets.

Defense Rises

The Bengals defense forced two turnovers and three other stops in the second half. After Cleveland scored on their opening possession of the half, they didn't score again.

Plenty of people will bring up Andre Szmyt's missed field goal in the fourth quarter, but the defense rose to the challenge on that possession too. The Browns got the ball at Cincinnati's 42-yard line. The Bengals gave up two first downs, but then they got the stop and forced Cleveland to settle for a field goal.

"Good to see that, honestly. Worship my defense right now," Ja'Marr Chase said. "I’ve been congratulating them since a minute and twenty seconds left on the clock. Nothing but praise to those guys. Can’t say anything more than just a hell of a job today."

Streak Over

Taylor and the Bengals are 1-0 for just the second time since he became head coach in 2019.

Good teams find ways to win games when they aren't playing their best. It was ugly on Sunday, but they snuck out of Cleveland with a win.

One thing is certain: they're going to have to play much better this week if they want to beat the Jaguars and improve to 2-0 for the first time in the Burrow/Taylor era.

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