Bengals Film Breakdown: Joe Burrow and the Passing Offense Goes Back in Time

Cincinnati hosts Baltimore in the Wild Card round of the playoffs on Sunday night.

Mike Santagata | Jan 11, 2023

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Cincinnati Bengals

The general hypothesis about the Bengals' offense on Sunday was that they held back against the Ravens, knowing that they would likely have to face their division rival this week in the playoffs.

It’s easy to come to that conclusion for a few reasons. The Bengals knew that they had a likely rematch with the Ravens in the Wild Card round, the offense looked a bit lifeless on Sunday, and probably most importantly, the coaches and players seemed to hint toward this conclusion. So what exactly did the Bengals show on Sunday? Let’s dive into the film to find out.

The Passing Offense

The Bengals' passing offense had an odd day. Yes, Joe Burrow and the wide receivers played below their standards, but there is more to it than that. The schematic side of the Bengals passing offense was eyebrow raising. The Bengals did not get to a majority of their staple concepts from the past 8 games or so and instead seemed to run more of the passing offense that was in play early in the season.

For example, the Bengals ran this concept “Zeus” multiple times in the game on Sunday.

It’s not an uncommon concept in the NFL, but it was one that the Bengals seemed to abandon after the first half of the season. It was relatively ineffective for the team and just did not seem like something that Burrow liked to run. The idea is for middle of the field open looks (Cover 2, Quarters) the outside cornerback will be the read. If he follows the short in route, then the quarterback should throw the deep out. If the outside cornerback does not follow the in route, then that's where the ball should go. This has to be read out very quick though because if the in route gets too far, then they wander into where the linebackers and slot corners may be. The Bengals typically have a middle of the field closed (Cover 1, Cover 3) beater on the opposite side such as slant-flat/dragon.

Bengals went back to some of their early season passing concepts in this game. This is Zeus and I'm not sure I've seen that in weeks. pic.twitter.com/mDeOf6c2Dn
— mike (@bengals_sans) January 10, 2023

This is an example of Zeus/Dragon and Burrow does a fine job on the play. The cornerback doesn't match the receiver until the throw is being made so Burrow is OK taking that. It’s definitely a middle of the field open look, so Burrow is correct in reading the Zeus concept even though the slant appears wide open to the bottom. This play works and it’s a nice gain. The question for me is why are they running this? This offense was humming after they scrapped this concept and utilized different concepts to attack middle of the field open looks.

Another example of this happening was with the HOSS Juke concept.

HOSS Juke was a Patriots staple with Tom Brady and Julian Edelman. It’s a mirrored concept with the hitch on the outside and the seam on the inside to each side. If it’s middle of the field closed, then the seam should bend inside. If it’s middle of the field open, then the seam should bend outside. The concept also has a juke route in the middle of the field. That player has the option to sit or he can sit and then break in any direction as a double move. The Bengals have used this concept previously, but not really during their long winning streak over the past few months.

pic.twitter.com/TJnmvfg4rN
— Wally the dog (@pff_wally) January 11, 2023

This is a case of Burrow seeming to misread the coverage. Both seam routes could be thrown here as Baltimore tries to match them with the outside corner. Burrow still creates something out of nothing as he makes about a dozen defenders miss and runs for a positive gain, but this play in particular was an example of everything that felt off with the Bengals offense. Burrow was missing his read and the concept is not something they have used while the offense was thriving.

All of this is to say that my personal hypothesis is less about how they ran a vanilla offense and more about how they ran the early season passing offense. They utilized concepts that have not been used in weeks and if you think about it, it makes some sense.

The Bengals last played the Ravens in Week 5, which is before the passing offense really underwent change. The passing offense seemed to undergo a change around Weeks 6-9 when they added more RPOs, changed some of the staple concepts, and overall made it fit the team a little bit better. Early in the year, they ran these concepts and the passing offense was a bit more inconsistent.

Sure, the Ravens can put on the film and see that these are not the concepts the Bengals have really been using over the past couple of months, but there is a difference between watching on film and live action. My thought process is simply that the Bengals did not want to tip their hand and show the schematic changes that they made to this passing offense live and in person. They also have probably saved a few other plays that they are confident could work against this Ravens defense.

This is not to say that the Bengals didn't run anything that they have been doing lately either. There is some overlap between the early season passing offense and the later season passing offense including the pair of shot plays that they took to Ja’Marr Chase. The other thing worth mentioning is that the Bengals did overplay their hand in one area to me and that was with the screens. All of those screens perfectly set up a fake screen play, but instead of saving it for the playoffs, the Bengals tried to use it this week and Burrow just flat out missed the throw.

pic.twitter.com/Ra8MwU5HKW
— Wally the dog (@pff_wally) January 11, 2023

If the Bengals were totally concerned with trying to keep everything they had for the Wild Card round, then they would not have thrown this play out there. Just look at how perfect this play worked other than the throw. The corner against Tee Higgins literally fell on his face because he was so surprised. It was a great set up during the game and also used the Ravens aggression against them.

The offense wasn’t totally “vanilla” like some have claimed. Instead, it appeared as if the passing offense was from Week 5. It’s an interesting way to play everything close to the vest for the Bengals.

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