Bengals Soaring in Unfamiliar Territory, and We're Not Talking About Spain

Five weeks ago, Joe Burrow sat in front of the media following a 22-17 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars that dropped the Cincinnati Bengals to 2-2, and he made a proclamation.

“This isn’t Armageddon,” he said.

Turns out he was right.

And maybe a little wrong.

Because for the teams standing in way of Burrow and the Bengals’ swelling offensive juggernaut, those 60 minutes surely have felt cataclysmic.

“For the most part, we were lights-out,” Burrow said following Sunday’s 34-17 victory against the Atlanta Falcons in Madrid.

Bengal QB Joe Burrow Enters MVP Front-Runner Status

Burrow accounted for four touchdowns, marking the fourth consecutive game in which he’s had at least that many. All four of those games have resulted in wins, moving the Bengals to 6-2, their best start since 2015 when they opened 8-0.

After scoring touchdowns on their final three possessions in last week’s 43-36 overtime win against the Tennessee Titans, Burrow and the Bengals found the end zone on their first three Sunday at the Santiago Bernabéu Stadium.

“We didn't score on every single possession, so you know, always room to improve,” Burrow said.

That’s where the bar is right now for this Cincinnati offense, believing it can score on every possession.

As it were, the Bengals scored on their first four and five of their first six to race away from the Falcons and negate the explosiveness of Bijan Robinson and their run game.

Burrow’s first of four touchdowns came on a 47-yard deep shot to Ja’Marr Chase up the sideline, one that looked identical to the one he botched the week before with a wobbly throw that resulted in an interception and was followed by Chase, who had dusted the coverage, slamming his helmet on the sideline in anger.

Sunday, the duo pulled off the play with perfection.

“Obviously when something like that happens … I worked hard on that this week so I don't miss another one like that,” Burrow said.

“They were pretty much in man (coverage) at first,” Chase said. “(The safety) played too low, and that's what we knew they were going to do. When Joe saw A.J. Terrell on me, he got pretty excited.”

And after Chase scored, the large contingent of Bengals fans who made the trip got excited watching Chase and Higgins show off a bull fighting celebration in the end zone.

The second drive ended with Burrow scoring on a 1-yard run to give the Bengals the lead.

Then Higgins caught a 4-yard TD from Burrow for a 21-10 advantage. And though Higgins capped the scoring drive, Chase fueled it with five catches for 69 yards on the 10-play, 88-yard march.

It started with a short pass that Chase turned into a 31-yard gain. There was a third-and-1 fling to escape pressure that resulted in a Chase diving catch, one the Falcons thought couldn’t been legit until they lost their replay challenge.

There also was a third-and-9 conversion in which Chase made one of the best sideline top-taps of his career, as the receiver showed off all of his skills in a span of 6 minutes and 43 seconds.

“I had so much fun watching him” Higgins said. “Once he got that first touchdown, I said, ‘Uh-oh, here it come.’ It just was a snowball effect after that. He was making play after play, and I'm so proud of him, for real.”

Higgins is off to the best eight-game start to a season in his career with 48 catches for 758 yards and six touchdowns.

That volume has come as Chase’s expense somewhat, but he flipped the script – literally – Sunday in Spain.

After Higgins caught 10 passes for 155 yards last week, Chase had 10 for 155 against Altana, including eight for 142 before halftime, marking the best first half of his career.

“We just feel like we got a lot of ways to attack you,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said. “I'm not trying to gloat or anything like that. We have a lot of high-level player players. I feel like we have a lot of answers if teams want to try to take away somebody, whether it's Tee or Ja'Marr, whatever they want to do. We just feel like we got good answers.

“Joe doesn't force the ball. He takes the ball where it needs to go based on the looks,” he continued.” Even if sometimes they're leaning to a guy or doubling a guy, he's still going to give him the opportunity, and some of those opportunities come up big for us.”

Burrow has thrown at least three touchdown passes in four consecutive games. He has 23 and just six interceptions for the season.

He’s also scored three rushing touchdowns, leaving him just two shy of his career high in that category.

Don’t be surprised if he’s neck and neck with Buffalo Bills QB Josh Allen for the best odds to win MVP by the time all of the Week 9 games are complete.

And, oh by the way, the Bengals got running back Chase Brown going Sunday with his two longest runs of the season for 19 and 16 yards. He finished with 57 yards on just nine carries (6.3).

Cincinnati is 6-2 and tied with the Steelers for first in the AFC North Division, although Pittsburgh has the tiebreaker edge via its 30-27 win in Week 3.

The Bengals offense is playing some of its best football of the Burrow era, and yet it feels as though there are more levels to reach. And more opponents to annihilate.

“To be 6-2 right now is a big deal,” Taylor said. “(We’re) going home. We have a major divisional game coming our way against Pittsburgh. They've already gotten us once this year, so we got to handle this flight back the right way. We got to get our bodies recovered. We got to have a great week and be ready for our home fans on Sunday night.”

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