The Bengals Are Balling in the 'Middle 8'

Cincinnati is 3-1-3 during the "Middle 8" this season.

Football is a timed game, leading many to assume that the most important moments play out in crunch time—the final few minutes to close a game. The 2-minute drill is an important factor to winning close football games, but most contests are won and lost far earlier.

The "Middle 8" is a monumental time to gain an edge during a football game. It constitutes the final four minutes of the first half and the first four minutes of the third quarter. A time that the greatest coach of all-time tries to utilize every week in the NFL.

“[Bill] Belichick actually built an entire game-management theory around this simple realization," former NFL executive Mike Lombardi wrote in Gridiron Genius. "If the Patriots could manage a drive at the end of the second quarter, that would keep the opposing offense off the field for almost an hour of real-time. For a guy like [Peyton] Manning, that’s an eternity. No offense, no points. No plays, no rhythm. When Manning does finally get back in the game, he and his offense have lost their edge.”

This portion of the game is crucial in every football contest but especially those in the NFL, where the difference in talent is so razor-thin.

Going through every game played through Week 7 this season, and the results confirm what some of the greatest football minds already knew. Teams that won their respective games during each week this season are a combined 68-20-19 in the middle-eight minutes of their victories.  

That checks out to a 77.2% win rate nearly halfway into the 2021 NFL season. Win the "Middle 8" every week, and your team will win roughly 13-14 games every season—it's that important. Just ask the Chargers, who overcame a 17-0 "Middle 8" deficit against Cleveland (the largest "Middle 8" victory to end up in a loss this year) because of their ability to convert time and time again on fourth down. Losing the "Middle 8" like that forces teams to make tough choices.

Even at the college level—where blowouts happen in every part of the country—the "Middle 8" matters greatly. From 2014 to 2019, college teams that won the middle-eight minutes won 74% of FBS games.

Bengals head coach Zac Taylor knows this, and it's one of the reasons the Bengals parlayed their coin toss luck into consistent "Middle 8" success.

Cincinnati's streak of 11 straight correct coin-toss-calls is the stuff of legend. The odds of correctly guessing a coin toss 11-straight times is .0488%. Someone is expected to hit that streak 61 times out of 125,000 at that percentage. The Bengals rode the luck to a strong finish in 2020 and the AFC's #1 seed through seven weeks.

Taylor's team has won 6-of-7 coin tosses this year, and last weekend was the first time they have held the ball on the game's opening possession. Having a chance to double-dip on scores before and after halftime has put Cincinnati in an ideal spot over the game's most crucial timeframe.

The Bengals are 3-1-3 this season in the "Middle 8" minutes. Ironically, the only game in which they have lost that portion of the battle this season was this past Sunday. The Ravens outscored the Bengals 14-3, during the only stretch Baltimore could muster offense.

Cincinnati's complete team performance kept them from ruing their tough showing in the middle of the game. They weren't quite so lucky in their two losses. The Bengals tied Chicago (0-0) and Green Bay (7-7) respectively during the middle portion of those battles.

One-possession losses are wins if the Bengals handle the "Middle 8" and so far this year they've done a great job. The numbers heading into halftime paint the picture of a team that knows how to finish strong.

They rank third in the NFL with 34 points in the final two minutes of first halves this season. The team has put up a goose egg in that spot just twice through five games—one being the loss the Chicago. Cincinnati is recognizing its chances to double dip and seizing them.

Easier said than done.

It takes a precise and calm quarterback to execute these plays throughout each week, and the Bengals have arguably the best passer in the AFC seven weeks into the season. Burrow is destroying opponents at the end of the first halves.

According to PFF, Burrow has a 90.9 passing grade and five "Big Time Throws" in the final two minutes of the first half this season. To put the money throws into perspective, Burrow is almost a third of the way to Andy Dalton's BTT total over his final five seasons running the closing-first-half offense in Cincinnati.

Ja'Marr Chase, timely playcalling, and a great elevation from the protection group are all boosting this "Middle 8" offense to new heights. The offensive line gave up five sacks each of the first two games but turned things around—ranking top-five in both pressures allowed and sacks allowed since traveling to Pittsburgh.

The Bengals have two losses in the overall ledger, but just one in the all-important "Middle 8," and if they can keep winning that portion of games they'll be well on their way to the team's first playoff berth since 2015.

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