Bengals Are ‘Pretty Damn Good, Too’

The defending conference champions have a shot at the top seed after overcoming a 17–0 deficit to Tom Brady. Plus, the Lions believed in themselves, and now other teams do, too, and why a first-year Eagle is surprised with the team’s success.

More MMQB: Doug Pederson on Everything to Celebrate in Jacksonville | Ten Takeaways: Chandler Jones Tells Us About ‘Desperado’ and the Play We’ll Never Forget | How Kirk Cousins and the Vikings Engineered the Greatest Comeback in NFL History | Six From Saturday: Good for Alabama Stars Playing in Bowl Game

We’ve been over it in the column, and in conversations with Joe Burrow over the past couple of years—the old Bengals (or Bungles, as they were called locally during a pretty low point) are dead and gone. And gone with them is any sort of sky-is-falling, other-shoe-is-dropping mentality.

In its place is what we saw, again, Sunday. Which is where the new Bengals are and have been headed.

And we have a fresh stat to illustrate what’s going on in Cincinnati. Heading into Sunday’s Buccaneers home game against the Bengals, Tom Brady was 89–0 when holding a 17-point lead. One more time: He was eighty-nine-and-zero.

Brady was 89-0 when leading by 17 points. He's now 89-1 after the Bengals scored 34 consecutive points after they trailed 17-0 :: Nathan Ray Seebeck/USA TODAY Sports

He’s now 89–1.

Because of Burrow. Because of the Bengals. Because Cincinnati stayed the course and never tensed up or panicked when it was down 17–0, which allowed the team, led by Burrow and a defense that registered four second-half takeaways, to run off 34 consecutive points, a run that stretched from the end of the second quarter into the final moments of the fourth, en route to a stirring 34–23 win.

“We just have a really tough-minded team,” offensive coordinator Brian Callahan told me from the team plane. “We have a really resilient group of players that have a lot of confidence in themselves and the guys around them to make plays, and the game never feels over for us. It doesn’t matter who we’re playing. We did it last year against Kansas City twice, and our guys don’t flinch.

“I think that’s what great teams have, is guys that play through no matter what’s happening and just focus on the next play and do a great job and make enough plays to win the game. I mean, we don’t ever feel like we’re out of the game at any point.”

On Sunday, for the Bengals, it was about believing that a rough start—a promising game-opening drive ended in a pick followed by three consecutive three-and-outs—was more about missed opportunities, and a game opponent, than it was any sort of deficiency on their part.

“The first drive, we don’t even have a third down and go right down the field and we get another tip-ball turnover, which sucks,” Callahan says. “We took a sack on one and got into long-yardage situations on the second drive. And then after that, we just had a third-and-4 and a third-and-5 that were manageable third downs that we didn’t convert on.

“I think I give a lot of credit to the early part of the game to [Buccaneers coach] Todd Bowles and that defense. They played really well. They emptied their playbook at us. I mean, we saw every coverage, every blitz, every look they could possibly give us. … [Burrow’s] got a good feel for when things aren’t going well, what it is, first of all, and he knows that we didn’t play good enough, but we also weren’t terrible. It wasn’t like it was just poor play all the way around.”

Soon enough, it wouldn’t be poor play at all.

Callahan pointed to a 15-yard Burrow-to–Ja’Marr Chase connection, one he says “shouldn’t have been open” on a two-minute drive at the end of the first half as a turning point. That seven-play, 47-yard series positioned Evan McPherson to give Cincinnati its first points on a 41-yard field goal. And then, in the second half, the floodgates opened.

On defense, it was a strip sack by Logan Wilson, a fumble recovery by D.J. Reader and picks from Tre Flowers and Germaine Pratt. On offense, it was touchdown strikes to all three of Burrow’s guys—Chase, Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd—to flip a 17-point deficit into a 17-point lead.

“We’re really tough to cover,” Callahan says. “They tried to double Ja’Marr and Tee down there, and TB got the one-on-one and he scored. And then we got one-on-one again with Tee, and he scores. And those are just those big moments. For TB to step up after being in surgery a week ago, and catch a touchdown, a contested touchdown pass? Pretty remarkable effort by him to play in this game.”

So that’s six consecutive wins for the Bengals, and ahead is a realistic shot at the No. 1 seed in the AFC. If Cincinnati can run the table, it’ll finish, at worst, tied with Buffalo at 13–4 and with the tiebreaker (it’ll have to beat the Bills in Week 17 to win out). And if the Chiefs stub their toe one of the last three weeks, then there’d be a three-way tie, with the Bengals holding wins over both teams.

Now, it won’t be easy. The Bengals will go to New England, then get the Bills and Ravens. But that’s where something Zac Taylor’s been telling his team the past few weeks comes into play.

The saying is “They Gotta Play Us,” and it’s pretty clear the guys in the building have taken it to heart.

“Everyone was talking about how hard our second-half schedule was,” Callahan explains. “Like, Oh, they gotta play all these teams. And this is gonna be really difficult. Everybody hears that stuff. And we know it’s gonna be difficult. But I think Zac made the point in one of our team meetings that we’re pretty damn good, too, and they all got to look at their schedule, and we’re on their schedule. And I think that’s the mentality of our team, that they’re just as worried about us as anybody else will be about us playing people.

“So that was kind of where it started, and our guys believe in it. The point is that we’re the defending AFC champs until we’re not. I think our guys appreciated that confidence, and I think that’s how they truly feel. We’re as good as anybody in football right now.”

The Bengals are playing like it, that’s for sure.

---

Goff and Wright celebrate after Wright's 51-yard touchdown catch put the Lions in the lead for good late in the fourth quarter :: Ed Mulholland/USA TODAY Sports

It was September or October, and no one really knew what to make of the Lions yet. Sure, Dan Campbell was endearing, and convincing, too, on Hard Knocks, and there were some good young players on the team. But the wins hadn’t followed and, for those outside the building, there was no grand reason to believe that would change.

Of course, the Lions believed—even as their record sank to 1–6—that they’d turn it around. And as it turns out, the teams that were playing them sort of believed it, too.

“A lot of it was feedback we’d hear from other teams that we played,” linebacker Alex Anzalone told me Sunday. “They’re like, You all are really good. You all compete your ass off. One of my college roommates [Luke Del Rio] is a coach in Washington, and he was saying they were getting crap for getting beat by the Lions. And he’d tell everyone, The Lions are really good. They just haven’t been able to put it together.”

Now, it’s fair that Del Rio caught crap for losing to the Lions in October, because that win over the Commanders was the only one Detroit had as of Nov. 1.

But no one is laughing now.

Sunday was another landmark for Campbell’s crew—with their third consecutive win and sixth in seven games—this one over a solid Jets team by a 20–17 score, putting Detroit back at .500 for the first time since that Week 2 win over Washington. It also positions the Lions in a tie for eighth in the NFC with the Seahawks (Seattle would have the head-to-head tiebreaker), which puts Detroit in the running to become the first team ever to start a season 1–6 and wind up in the tournament.

And true to form, this one came in high-wire fashion. Down 17–13 at the two-minute warning and facing a fourth-and-1 that, more or less, was the game for the Lions, OC Ben Johnson called for a play-action pass, keeping Brock Wright in to block, then releasing him to run a drag route on a delay. It was designed for the Jets to lose Wright in coverage—and that’s exactly what happened—with the tight end slipping out underneath Jets LB C.J. Mosley and breaking wide open in the flat to Jared Goff’s left.

Fifty-one yards later, the Lions were up 20–17.

The Jets weren’t done, converting a fourth-and-18 with one second left. But Greg Zuerlein missed the 58-yard field goal, and the Lions left, again, winners.

So here they are now after a few tweaks—the firing of secondary coach Aubrey Pleasant, the defining of roles on defense, along with some improved play in the clutch—and the team looks completely different, even if most of the faces are the same. Which, Anzalone thinks, is a credit to the coach he followed from New Orleans to Detroit after Campbell got the Lions job two winters ago.

“I feel like we really just took the identity of Dan,” he says. “We emphasize having grit as a team and an organization so much, and really just took the identity of that and just taking it one game at a time. We knew we were close and it was frustrating to say, We’re close after six losses. But we knew we were, and we just kept the faith, and all the coaches did a really great job of just keeping everyone uplifted and staying positive and not having that woe-is-me attitude that, I guess, I can assume that’s been here in the past.”

What’s really wild? Look at which teams are left on Detroit’s schedule: at Panthers, vs. Bears, at Packers.

If the Packers are eliminated by Week 18, then 10 wins looks like more than a possibility.

---

Hurts passed for 315 yards against the Bears. He also had three rushing touchdowns :: Daniel Bartel/USA TODAY Sports

Think about this: With a win next week, the Eagles can lock up the No. 1 seed and home field all the way through to Super Bowl LVII in Glendale.

Now, there are plenty of us who thought the Eagles would be pretty good. Like, maybe, 10- or 11- or even 12-win good. But this is different. After winning in Chicago on Sunday, Jalen Hurts & Co. are now 13–1. Again, they can clinch the top seed with two full weeks left in the season. And none of it seems remotely flukish, not with how the team is built through its lines, the same way as the Super Bowl LII champion team.

So I’ll be first to admit the Eagles have surprised me. And I found out Sunday afternoon—in talking to first-year Eagle Haason Reddick—that even some players on the team are surprised, too.

I asked Reddick flat-out, Is this what you expected when you signed?

“Oh, man, not really, if I’m being honest,” the Philly-area native says with a laugh. “I tell people all the time—when I first signed here, it was really just about the dream coming true to play for my hometown team and being closer to my family. But Howie [Roseman] and the job he’s done in the offseason, even during the season, getting Linval [Joseph] and [Ndamukong] Suh here. After he just kept adding pieces and adding pieces, on paper, the team had looked really, really good, like, really good.

“I knew from that point forward it would just be a matter of us going on the field and bringing everything to life. And we have been able to do that so far. We just gotta keep doing what we’ve been doing, taking it one game at a time, one day at a time, one opponent at a time.”

That opponent Sunday was the Bears, and this Eagles win was sort of ho-hum.

Philly struggled a little to keep pace with Justin Fields on defense early and didn’t really get on track offensively until Hurts put together a nine-play, 91-yard drive to end the first half. The Eagles took control from there, extending the lead to 17–6, then 25–13, before closing Chicago out at 25–20.

And the game playing out that way, as Reddick sees it, is another indication of the strength of the team.

In this one, it was specifically with defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon making adjustments at the half to better combat Fields. “We came into halftime, and JG got in front of the defense,” Reddick says. “We made some adjustments, and we came back out there, second half, man, and we brought the adjustments to life and we played relentlessly.”

It also highlighted the depth of the group and how the Eagles were able to wear down and wear out the Bears, the depth that Reddick has noticed is prevalent all over the organization.

“This is not a slight to any other clubs that I’ve been with, but man, this is a top-notch club,” Reddick says. “Just the first thing that I realized when I came to this team was just how many people were on staff here. And that right there, like how many cooks were here, how many people were in the training room, how many equipment guys we had. When you see how many people were in the strength and conditioning staff, when you see that, I knew. I said, O.K., this is an A-grade organization. It’s been like that since I signed here.”

And so with a win Saturday at Dallas, the Eagles could get more validation of that, not to mention something that sure will help in reaching the ultimate goal.

“That No. 1 seed, it’d be a big help,” Reddick says. “It’d give us a chance to rest. It’d give our coaches a chance to look at things, look at the schemes, see how they want to play our next opponent. But at the end of the day, we gotta go out there on Saturday first and handle business first to even get to that point.”

Fair to say the Eagles have handled their business pretty well all year.