Bengals Leaders Praise Joe Flacco's Quick Learning To Jolt 2025 Season Back To Life

CINCINNATI — Joe Flacco got plenty of worthy praise from his head coach and teammates following another strong outing in a Bengals uniform. Cincinnati needed competent, level quarterback play, with Jake Browning floundering, and they've gotten much more than that out of Flacco.

He's posted an average ESPN QBR above 70 overall through two games. Thursday was even better than Sunday against Green Bay. The 40-year-old completed 31-47 passes for 342 yards and three TDs to ignite the Bengals offense fully back to life with a 33-31 win over Pittsburgh.

“Yeah. His experience. He has 18 years of experience playing these games. We had a short week playing the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game that we needed to have. It’s easy for him ... because he's putting in the work," Zac Taylor said about his new QB. "He’s just so experienced in this situation. You gain a lot of confidence from that, because he goes out there and it's not too big (for him). I have to enunciate my formations better because some of them he’s hearing for the first time. And so, I have to do a better job enunciating. I think it's my Oklahoma accent. It had him a couple of times. I thought he did a great job managing the game.”

Flacco got a run game to work off of (23 carries for 142 yards) and made sweet, sweet music. He's channeling the late-career play he found with the Browns two years ago on their Cinderella run to the playoffs.

“Man, it's a lot of fun. And obviously, it's a lot of fun toward the end of the game when you're getting ready to go, but yeah, this is what we do it for, is games like that," Flacco said after the win. "It came down to the wire. We know it's going to, and we're really, really happy about how the guys just stayed with it for the full 60 minutes. And, man, our offensive line was going today, you know? We're running the football, protecting — doing a lot of things that we wanted to do.”

Flacco force-fed Ja'Marr Chase in this game for his second consecutive 10-plus catch game with a score and 13th such outing of his career (16 catches for 161 yards and one score on a franchise-record 23 targets).

Chase can really showcase his skillset as the NFL's top pass catcher with Flacco. It's amazing how well they are connecting nine days into Flacco's tenure.

“That’s a great question. I don’t know, man. We’re not really throwing the ball to each other at practice either, because this week was fast and we had walkthrough reps. Last week was a little off for me. Honestly, just coming in and being a veteran and just knowing the coverages and knowing what’s his answer — I think that’s his best reads,” Chase said about his quick chemistry with Flacco.

All in all, Chase is thrilled to be back in the mix, chasing an AFC Playoff spot by breaking the four-game losing streak.

"This is what I was talking about, man. We knew we were close," Chase said. "Last week, we felt like we just figured out how we’re going to go about Flacco, and just the offense period. I think today we showed what we’re really capable of, and showed how prolific this offense really can be.”

Cincinnati gets some time to rest and recover before taking on the winless Jets next week to reset the decks and get to 4-4 on the season.

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