But this I will say to you: your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.
-Lady Galadriel, The Fellowship of the Ring
The goodwill bought with their 2-0 start has been spent.
The Cincinnati Bengals are now 2-2 following two ugly losses—one to the Steelers in Pittsburgh and, most recently, at home to the Jaguars. Now they head into Week 5 to face one of the league’s five winless teams, the Miami Dolphins.
The Bengals should win.
And if they do, it’ll just mean they’re really good at beating teams that can’t win.
Here are some thoughts on Sunday’s loss:
- Tackling is a huge issue. That was the case last season and the season before that. The problem has persisted across multiple defensive coordinators and shows no sign of being solved. Jordan Battle was especially bad.
- The defensive front held the Texans’ running backs to fewer than two yards per carry, but the Steelers and Jaguars both ran the ball without much trouble. The secondary is banged up right now, and Al Golden doesn’t need his defensive backs being the first guys making contact with running backs.
- I was nervous about this game as soon as I learned Bryan Cook and Kyle Dugger were going to be out.
- The pass rush was better Sunday than it was in Pittsburgh. That’s a low bar, but at least it cleared it.
- Orlando Brown Jr. is a problem. Josh Hines-Allen pushed him back into Burrow, grabbed the quarterback as he released the ball, and the pass was intercepted. Brown has been an issue all season, and it’s not getting better. I’m not sure there’s someone available who would immediately be an upgrade, but the Bengals need to make some kind of adjustment before Burrow gets hurt.
- On the opposite side of the line, Amarius Mims continues to be one of the best right tackles in the NFL. I don’t want the Bengals swapping the tackles, either, because that could screw up both sides. It’s better to have one good tackle than two struggling ones.
- That first interception is hard to blame on Burrow. This one, though? Yuck. Considering Burrow threw another interception that was wiped out by a penalty, he certainly didn’t have his best game.
- Hopefully Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins are both good to go this weekend. If they’re not, the good news is the Bengals only have one game before the bye, which would give them some extra time to recover. Higgins’ injury is particularly worrisome because groin/adductor injuries have a way of lingering.
- The hit on Chase was inexcusable. Having his head twisted around was bad enough, but driving him into the ground as he was falling and defenseless is exactly the kind of play the NFL claims it wants out of the game. Ventrell Miller should be fined and suspended.
- The Bengals couldn’t run the ball, even when they spread the defense out with Chase and Higgins on the field. Chase Brown did catch 11 passes for 71 yards, and the short passing game helped supplement the nonexistent rushing attack, but it would be nice to know the Bengals can actually run the ball when they need to.
- Dohnte Meyers is exciting to watch, especially when he gets the ball in his hands with some space to move. When Higgins and Chase are healthy, Meyers could become a dangerous slot receiver, finding gaps in the zone coverages opposing defenses love playing against Cincinnati.
- Even with the defense doing everything it could to take away chunk plays, how does an offense featuring Burrow, Chase and Higgins finish a game averaging just 7.9 yards per completion with a long play of only 29 yards?
- The Bengals’ first drive ended with fourth-and-two at their own 44-yard line. Cincinnati lined up to go for it, but instead opted to take a delay of game and punt. Again, this offense features one of the best quarterbacks in football, the best wide receiver in the league, and arguably the best wide-receiver duo in the NFL, and Zac Taylor would rather punt than trust them to gain two yards.
- Absolutely gutless football from Taylor.
- The leading receiver for the Texans, Steelers, and Jaguars against the Bengals was a tight end. Some things never change.
The Bengals are balancing on the edge of a knife right now.
They’ve shown us some good, but they’ve also shown us plenty of bad. More concerning is that when they’ve faced teams that know how to win, they’ve crumbled. If they’re only going to beat teams with losing records, their easy schedule could still help them sneak into the playoffs, but they won’t win the division, and they certainly won’t go far in January.
So, the good…
The Bengals are 2-2, and they should head into the bye with a winning record. If they beat Miami, get healthy, and use the bye to fix some of these issues, they could come out on fire and start stacking wins on their way to a deep playoff run.
That possibility is still there.
The bad…
Their 2-2 start could once again put them in a position where late-season games become must-wins. It’s hard to make a deep playoff run when the playoffs effectively begin for your team before the regular season ends. It’s hard to keep winning when every game has to be nearly perfect, and there’s no margin for error.
I could truly see this going either way.
That’s what makes this team so frustrating.
Four weeks into the season, I’m not sure we know who the 2026 Cincinnati Bengals actually are.
Are they the team that started 2-0, looked like it had finally found a defense and seemed poised to take control of the AFC North?
Or are they the team that has since gone 0-2, can’t tackle, can’t run the ball, can’t protect Burrow’s blind side, and suddenly looks painfully familiar?
Their quest really does stand upon the edge of a knife.
Now we get to find out if they fall.
Relative Song Lyrics:
I really wanna know
Oh, I really wanna know
Come on, tell me, who are you, you, you?
Oh, who are you?
