During Sunday’s win over the Miami Dolphins, Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow could be seen frustrated on the sideline, at one point even slamming his helmet into the ground.
Keep in mind that Burrow orchestrated a dominant showing in Miami, going 23-of-32 with 190 yards and four touchdown passes.
After the game, though, Burrow made sure to highlight the bad from the contest.
"We've got to be smarter,” Burrow said. “We've got to be smarter. A couple of turnovers in the red zone. A couple of personal fouls. We've got to be better."
This wasn’t just Burrow just being hyper-critical of himself again. This felt like a pretty targeted message to the Bengals locker room.
To his credit, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor also stressed these points during
his own postgame presser.
“There's a lot of frustrating things on our end,” Taylor said. “We had two personal fouls. We fumbled twice in the red zone. We caught a kickoff on the four-yard line. We had a penalty on a field goal that led to a touchdown. Gave them four points. Give up over 200 yards rushing. So, plenty, plenty to clean up.”
So no, those fans uneasy after a shaky-feeling win over an 0-5 team aren’t wrong to feel that way. Burrow’s using his platform to send messages and being a different type of leader now.
Hard to blame him: The Bengals had an 18-point lead going into the final quarter. There were indeed lots of little, silly mistakes, from personal fouls to fumbles. The defense is often a mess of poor angles and poor tackling again.
Time will judge whether the Bengals locker room heeds Burrow’s warnings. But if enough losses directly caused by silly mistakes pile up, it won’t be his job at stake after the season, and that goes for the depth chart right on up through the coaching staff and perhaps into the front office, too.
This article originally appeared on Bengals Wire: Bengals would be wise to heed Joe Burrow’s warnings at bye week
