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Bengals Film Review Shows Why Joe Burrow Led Offense Could Be Special in 2026

The Bengals exit the 2025 season on the path to a new Greatest Show on Turf. Can they finish the painting?
Max Toscano|
Dec 14, 2025; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) hands off to running back Chase Brown (30) during the second quarter against the Baltimore Ravens at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images
Dec 14, 2025; Cincinnati, Ohio, USA; Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) hands off to running back Chase Brown (30) during the second quarter against the Baltimore Ravens at Paycor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images | Joseph Maiorana-Imagn Images

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Cincinnati Bengals

The last five years of offense in Cincinnati are probably the most useful schematic study in the entire league. That's not because the Bengals have been the best in the NFL. It's because following that trail will lead you to every major NFL-wide schematic flashpoint of change that we've seen in that window and will see going forward.

You'll see the rise of the 2-high revolution and the evolution of space-first defense in their 2022 early struggles and midseason revamp. You'll see the next step for defenses from top-down *only* to variety, confusion, and permanent disguise in their battles with Mike MacDonald on the other end of that revamp. You'll see the death of pass-catching only tight ends in three wide receiver offenses and learn the backwards reality of why one of those guys will kill your passing game, while a run block-only type helps it in Hayden Hurst, Irv Smith, and Drew Sample. You'll learn about why a dominant run game is better for pass efficiency than dominant skill weapons by looking at them relative to the Bills, Ravens, Lions, and 49ers. I learned everything I know about what NFL offenses need and will need going forward by watching this Bengals team run into challenges.

For the first time in that period, the Bengals are on the precipice of pulling ahead instead of chasing from behind. The main reason for that can be found how they've been able to stay great on offense, despite lagging one step behind the league's most progressive units: The quarterback. They have something the league is sorely lacking, even among the league's best signal-callers. That's not what this is about, though. Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase, and Tee Higgins haven't changed. The difference now is that the run game is finally rising to complement them. If that keeps going, they will be the most complete unit of offense in the current league by some distance. The last few weeks have been a fantastic launch point into an offseason that must take it to another level. So what has changed?

Movement

Nothing you do in the run game, especially on downhill schemes, matters without the offensive line creating displacement. For the Bengals, that fact has always killed every good idea in the cradle. Going under center at all became entirely pointless because teams knew they could stop it without selling out just by standing up and clogging the offensive line, so they never got the heavy boxes that would make any run-action passing effective.

At that point they had no cards, so they figured correctly that they may as well stay in the gun and give Burrow and friends a chance to push the car. The big difference this year has been in technique and pad level. A frequent issue you see, at all levels, with pass-happy offenses is that their line blocks very upright in the run game due to vertical stances and a lack of drilling on the details in the ground game. There's no inherent reason for this to be necessary, and it can be avoided if you make an effort.

Just watch North Texas, the Dallas Cowboys, or the Buffalo Bills. You can't leave out the players themselves. The emergence of Dylan Fairchild and more impressively, Amarius Mims, as physical forces has bolstered the entire unit around Orlando Brown Jr. and Ted Karras. They posted solid seasons that are in line with their established standards. Offensive line coach Scott Peters got off to a rough start, but deserves an A+ grade for what he did with that room.

Creativity in Formation, Motion, and Tagging

Joe Burrow
Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow (9) takes a snap from center Ted Karras (64) in the first quarter of the NFL Week 18 game between the Cincinnati Bengals and the Cleveland Browns at Paycor Stadium in Downtown Cincinnati on Sunday, Jan. 4, 2026. | Sam Greene/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

Designing a run game is an incredibly intentional process if you're doing it correctly. The base scheme itself doesn't really make all that much difference in a vacuum. So many people will say things like "this team needs to run more duo or counter instead of wide zone" and be surprised when they try just such a thing and it fails. The idea means nothing on its' own. There aren't that many families of run plays. The difference is made first by how well you execute blocks of course, but beyond that baseline, it's about how sound, intelligent, and creative you are in how you structure and tag those plays.

The "tags" on a run play refer to different things done by the auxilliary blockers (TE, FB, WRs) as well as different variations and rules layered onto a base scheme. Let's say you have wide zone and call it "18/19," like Kyle Shanahan. You don't just call that. You call "18/19 ZAP," for instance, which means wide zone to a surface with two TEs attached to the line of scrimmage next to each other. ZAP is the "tag". Alternatively, you can call "18/19 WEAK," which is wide zone to the side with no TE with the fullback lead blocking to the WILL linebacker. Creative tagging and formation-usage is critical. You can't just line up and dominate NFL defenses all the time. You need numbers and angles. That's how you create them.

Under Center Run

Under center for the Bengals, the fastball has become "midzone", which is a lot like wide zone but with a more vertical path by the OL and RB. Think of it as being between wide zone and inside zone, which is why it's called midzone. For example, the Bengals here jet motion from 3x1 to 2x2 in tandem with the snap and run midzone. They're attacking how the Browns will handle motion when in 2-high structures. They bump the overhang (outside-most 2nd-level defender that is not a perimeter CB) out because there's now a 2nd detached wide receiver to relate to in coverage.

This creates an alley between him and the MLB, which the LT Brown can widen by climbing to him and engaging off his combo with the LG. The RB can just first read off the DE to see if he wants to bounce it out or cut it back inside to the nearest available gap and keep working backside one gap at a time. The idea is to split the WLB and MLB and crease it between them wherever possible, with Chase and Higgins blocking the CB and S to that side. The design here is great, the peripheral execution just isn't quite ironed-out yet (more on that later), but further development and mastery of things like this can create huge, huge plays. They are very close, and the fundamentals (design and OL play) are in a good spot. Emphasis on the former there.

You can see above a variety of different formations, motions, and tags onto that midzone skeleton that we don't have time to get into one by one, but achieve specific, strategic things in the structure. They love using the jet-motion presentation, which has always been successful with zone sport-wide for a long time because of how it stretches the defense both ways.

If they have issues with the backside ILB making plays against cutbacks on the base run play, or backside ends flying down too hard, or get a lot of man coverage, they can hand the jet off as a constraint for an easy eight yards.

Off of that, the Bengals can work any number of play action designs they may gets looks for. With teams still defending pass-first against them, they can't really access the wide open chunks behind the LBs or shots over the top that you see teams like the Lions or Ravens hit over and over, but the lateral action off of the LBs and DEs has given them some easy buttons to hit at times. Pay special attention to the second clip. Notice how they present that wide receiver insert and tight end base-block before they both release. They tag that base-insert combo to all 3 of their base run schemes (midzone, duo, inside zone). This action marries to that.

Gun Run

Regardless of how much we all want them to go under center, the Bengals will never and SHOULD never be the Seahawks and spend more than half their time there. They should top out at 35% or so. The Bengals are built around their pure dropback pass game. That is fine. It's safely the best in the league in a vacuum. The only other team with a comparable pocket operator (Pat Mahomes) has car salesmen at WR and is picking right ahead of the Bengals (RIP 2021-2022 AFC Title franchises, you were fun). They should throw their fastball until it gets hit. As such, they need a robust shotgun run game to pair with it. For the Bengals, that centers around duo and other downhill schemes. The boxes are extra light and the fronts extra spaced out/small when the Bengals get into 3 wide (which includes 2 TE with Gesicki or Hudson as the 2nd). This creates ideal conditions to punch downhill.

Duo is a versatile play in how you can tag it. It's most often run from 3x1 bunches or 2 TE surfaces with a WR in tight alongside them to force the nickel into a true LB role AND give you a guy to block the SS, but the Bengals obviously don't get safeties involved in run D much, so they have a bit more freedom. It's also incredibly similar to inside zone, which pairs seamlessly with it. The Bengals are running that here but tagging it the same way they often tag duo (there's the base block+ F-insert tag again to the TE side). They also get the big advantage of almost always facing pass-rush front structures in the gun. That means that the DEs are going to be wider on the outside of the line. This creates big conflict on the 2nd level, because the next open (no DL aligned inside) gap inside the DE must to be filled by someone there. Normally to deal with the RPO, teams will move the DE straight up on or inside the OT or TE the overhang out in space taking the edge. That way he can play space first, but if he has to take the B gap here, which he obviously does, he has to stay in tight and work out late. That prevents him from playing the bubble. If they wanna stop both the run and bubble here, they need the S down, which is trouble because Chase is out there and Higgins often is as well. Many spread gap schemes pair naturally with all of this and are easy to add on top of the duo baseline.

This G-lead RPO is a good example. The line blocks down with the backside guard pulling to the perimeter. Chase's mere existence keeps the S out of the run fit here, but the bubble widens him and takes him out of the play altogether.

They can also tag the bubble to the backside instead of the playside. This conflicts the backside ILB. He is needed to track the puller to the other side so he's either in 3/4 a football field width of conflict or they have to involve one of the Safeties. If they start doing that consistently that's when you can start throwing and since it's gun, no need for any special actions, just drop back and throw.

Or this power+insert RPO. You can see that base block/insert tag again from the Y and X here, but sewn onto power. Just like G lead, this conflicts that backside LB with the pull and punishes them for not having a S in there. The main difference between G lead and power is simply that the G pulls inside of a kickout instead of leading to the perimeter.

Trap also pairs well with all of this and is dangerous when teams are too spaced out and pass-rushy along the front.

Taking the Next Step

Chase Brown has been, by all accounts, a huge hit for a 5th rounder. I won't dispute that, he's very good, but it's both a great and frustrating place to be that he is a limiting factor for the run game right now. He is explosive, fast, and pretty elusive as an athlete, but the consistent misreading of leverage and lack of anticipation run him into tacklers too often. He leaves a lot of meat on the bone. As unathletic as Samaje Perine is, his success rate (57.1% to Brown's 52.2%) is felt on tape and even just watching broadcasts. He doesn't have the juice to be a game changer that Brown does, but he makes the most of the space available while Brown often makes the least of it. If Brown can improve on this as the run game settles into its identity, they will be able to create chunks that force opponents into conflict they cannot survive. If he can't, they have to find someone with hopefully a touch more juice than Perine, who can do that.

They also need to clean up their auxiliary blocking rules. It's often too messy who is taking who on the second and third level and they get guys taking the same guy too often and/or end up leaving key box defenders unblocked. You can see here that the playside WR is the only guy outside of the OT since the TE is to the other side and they motion the F to that side as well. With the S in the box, he is the only guy who can take that. In any situation on a zone (or duo because it also has no pullers) run where the playside support defender (either the nickel or the FS depending on the side, in this case the FS) does not have a FB or TE climbing to them, the WR has to leave the CB alone and block down on him. Every time. It should be an automatic rule to the single WR side in 3x1 and for the slot WR in 2x2.

Since the WR goes to the CB, the playside guard and center combo and climb to the SS when they need to climb to the MIKE. With the backside guard and tackle comboing to the WLB, there is nobody on the MIKE. Your combos and climbs have to be organized side to side off of a reference point and you're gonna need that WR on a S if he's involved so you can block the box. They need to iron this out because involving the FS from deep alignments is going to be a big way teams try to stop the Bengals run game while maintaining 2-high integrity pre-snap and its resultant multiplicity/deception.

8-9 rules
49ers 2018

If you see here, the 49ers have what are called "8-9" rules on their wide zone runs for formations where this applies. You automatically block the S if he is involved and if he's out of everything, you go to the cornerback. He is lower priority as he will not have a gap assignment. Literate run games have this down.

What Would Make This Offense Perfect?

Well that's simple. There are only three franchises in the NFL over the last couple of years that have truly elite quarterbacks and robust, dominant run games that create conflict. They are Bills, the Ravens, and the Rams this season. The Ravens have obviously fallen off the wagon and the Bills' group of pass-catchers has imploded, but when they put everything together last year they fielding units of historic efficiency. Even teams like the Lions and 49ers can run the league from an efficiency perspective because of their ground games and run-action framework off of them.

The nice trade-off is that they are not great when the run game is off the table and defenses hold the cards. The Ravens struggle in these situations because while Lamar Jackson is a force making the run game go and isn't just a beneficiary of it, he is nowhere near the level of dropback passer that Matthew Stafford and Josh Allen are. He's more like Jared Goff in Devin Hester's body. That's a crazy player, but if the D can stop the run without loading the box because they're just that dominant up front, they are vulnerable. The same goes for teams like the Lions and 49ers, at least relative to their overall success.

The Bengals are the best equipped team in the entire NFL for those situations. In fact, those conditions are all Burrow has faced since he entered the NFL. The Bengals have complexity/adaptability in the dropback pass game. They trust Burrow with complex coverage reads and total protection flexibility at the line of scrimmage. They lack a certain rigidity that offenses with lesser passers require.

Additionally, they have Chase and Higgins, who would punish any loaded boxes FAR more than anybody on those teams, challenged only in that by Puka Nacua and Davante Adams who have dunked on the league this year. They create more conflict than any other pair. In short, the impacts of run-pass conflict would be more dramatic for Cincinnati, and they would remain insulated from the exposure of playing behind the 8-ball because they were BORN in that darkness. They have thrived in it. If they land the plane here, the Bengals could have the next Greatest Show on Turf. To get there, they will need even more creativity, even more diversity and offensive line development. They need even more soundness in their run game, but the process appears well underway for the first time in earnest. If you want a case for staff continuity, at least on offense, that's it, and it can't be overstated.

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Max Toscano
MAX TOSCANO

Max Toscano breaks down football strategy. Prior to joining Bengals On SI, he interned with the coaching staff at the University of Connecticut, assisting the defensive staff in opponent scouting as well as assisting the Head Coach and GM with analytics on gameday. Max's areas of specific expertise include Quarterbacks and Tight Ends, including also hosting a publication dedicated to the tight end position. He also writes for "And The Valley Shook" on SB Nation.

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