For the first time this season, we saw peak Joe Burrow as he led the Cincinnati Bengals to a 31-24 win over the Miami Dolphins in Week 5.
The passing numbers a week prior against Jacksonville showed 428 yards passing with 1 passing touchdown and 2 interceptions. While he played pretty well overall, the turnovers played a big part in the Bengals coming up short against the Jaguars.
This week against Miami, Burrow threw for just 190 yards on the day. To me, it was a better performance than the week before.
Mainly, the reason for that is that he didn’t have a single turnover. When the Bengals can win the turnover battle, they are going to win a lot of games. They were also able to have more balance with the running game this week, getting 117 rushing yards on Sunday.
Burrow finished the game against Miami completing 23/32 passes on the day for a 71.9% completion rate. He also was able to throw for 4 touchdown passes, with three of those coming in the first half. He threw those three touchdowns to Mike Gesicki, Samaje Perine, and Tanner Hudson. All three of those scores came inside the red zone.
Finding ways to finish with touchdowns instead of field goals in the red zone is going to continue being a critical component of how successful this team is on a weekly basis.
Burrow was able to spread the wealth on Miami, with nine different players catching a pass this week. While that is always beneficial, it is still nice to have Ja’Marr Chase back on the field. Chase missed a good chunk of the previous game with a concussion, but was able to get cleared and showed no signs of that slowing him down against the Dolphins. Burrow did a masterful job maneuvering in the pocket for his final touchdown pass. This time finding Ja’Marr Chase for a 45-yard touchdown score. Chase was able to pin the ball up by his shoulder with one hand.
The Burrow to Chase connection is alive and well, and they will need it to be on point after the bye week. The Bengals will travel to division leading Baltimore on October 25th. An efficient Joe Burrow could help the Bengals secure a huge divisional road win that day.
