Bengals OC Dan Pitcher Discusses Offensive Focal Point This Offseason

CINCINNATI — The Bengals had one of the most prolific passing offenses in the NFL last season, but the run game continues to lag behind that unit in terms of down-to-down impact.

Offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher noted that as a key area to improve on Wednesday as Cincinnati finished 2024 19th in EPA/rush and 25th in success rate.

They should be able to maximize those smaller-volume rushing opportunities with how prolific the passing game has shown to be.

"I think there's certainly room to grow in the run game," Pitcher said to the media on Wednesday. "That's a nuanced conversation that could take us half a day if we had that time. We believe that the run game is a critical piece of who we want to be as an offense. We are afforded some opportunities in the run game because of how explosive we are and efficient we are in the pass game that I think are areas where we can grow. And I think we did some of that. Those things again, like when you look at the volume statistics, we're obviously going to be at or near the bottom.

"We ran the ball less percentage-wise than any team in football. We threw the ball more percentage-wise, than any team in football, and that's not a goal of ours. I think we'll always be top 10 in how often we throw it, and probably bottom 10 in how often we run it. That's just resource allocation and who our best players are. But there's room to grow there, so we're going to look and find ways to do that. And I think we can always grow in how we protect/how we organize the passing game. Obviously, we want to keep Joe [Burrow] on his feet and again, nuanced conversation, right? A lot that goes into that, but that's an area that I think we can grow."

All in all, Cincinnati finished 30th in rushing yards per game but leaned heavily on Chase Brown, who excelled in his second season with 990 yards on the ground (17th in NFL) and seven touchdowns.

Cincinnati wants to take some of the burden off of him after he played a whopping 685 snaps in 2024 (75.7 overall PFF grade, fifth-best on Bengals offense).

"Super pleased with what Chase gave us and his development, and so we expect him to be a major part of what we do going forward," Pitcher said. "I think in a perfect world, there's probably a little more of a split than what you guys witnessed over the second half of last season. We found ourselves in some situations in the second half of last season where the urgency was incredibly high, in terms of it's basically a playoff game. We got to win this game within the game situation itself, the urgency was incredibly high.

"And so in those situations, you want to rely on your best players. And we counted Chase, as one of those people for us. As you step back and look at it big picture. I think that's definitely an area we're looking to potentially add some talent, and maybe supplement some of what Chase was able to give us but we believe in Chase, he's going to be a huge part of what we do going forward."

With Zack Moss (neck) ineffective when healthy last season and still a mystery in his recovery, Cincinnati is likely to add outside help at that spot again in 2025.

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