CINCINNATI – The offensive struggles continued for the Bengals in a loss to Jacksonville on Sunday.
Putting points on the board has been Cincinnati’s weakness all season long and those troubles were put on display in the 27-17 loss. The Bengals are now 0-7 this season and are running out of adjustments they can make to get their offense flowing.
Heading into the matchup Cincinnati had the seventh-lowest yards per game average as a team with a little over 307 yards per game. The Bengals were right on par with that bottom-tier average yet again against the Jaguars. Despite coach Zac Taylor’s best efforts to switch up their plan of attack heading into the matchup Cincinnati finished the game with 309 total yards in what’s become a typical performance for them.
Taylor was frustrated with the lack of progress they’ve made as a team throughout their first seven games and says that every aspect of their game plan will be put under review.
“We all have to be accountable on this deal,” Taylor said. “We’re 0-7 and what we just put on the field is not good enough. It was not how we planned on the game going but that’s how it went so we can own up to it and be accountable and figure out ways to fix the errors that we had.”
The biggest challenge for the Bengals in the matchup and throughout the season has been rushing yards. Cincinnati came into the game as the worst team in the NFL on the run with less than 57 yards per game. Jacksonville’s defense held their running backs to a combined two rushing yards throughout the matchup.
Joe Mixon has been at the point of attack for the Bengals when they run the ball this season but has struggled to find his form. Mixon was held to two yards on 10 carries against the Jaguars and without him producing on offense for Cincinnati, its placed extra pressure on quarterback Andy Dalton to do it all for the team.
Dalton was solid throughout the first three quarters of play and kept the Bengals in the game. Down 17-10 in the final quarter it looked like he was headed for a game-tying drive, but everything fell apart as he threw an interception after making it most of the way down the field.
Cincinnati never recovered. Once Jacksonville figured them out in the fourth quarter the Bengals lost all momentum. Dalton threw for two more interceptions throughout the quarter as the Jaguars ran up the score. He’d end the game 22-43 for 276 yards and was also the team’s leading rusher with 33 yards on four carries.
The margin of error for a quarterback becomes increasingly small when the vast majority of your plays throughout a game are for a pass attempt. With nowhere else to turn to pick up yards a bad quarter from Dalton means that the Cincinnati offense comes to a grinding halt, and that’s exactly what happened as Jacksonville expanded their lead.
Dalton says it’s been tough for him as the team’s leading man when opposing squads know that the Bengals can’t get it done on the run.
“When you’re one-dimensional, it makes it easy for the other side to know what’s going on,” Dalton said. “It’s tough when you’re behind the chains. We tried to run the ball early and it didn’t gain us yards. It makes it tough so then you have to be very efficient in the passing game, and we didn’t have that today.”
Dalton hasn’t been spectacular by any measure this season but overall he’s been a serviceable starting quarterback. If the Bengals want to find that elusive first victory and leave Miami behind as the only winless team in the league they have to find a way to alleviate some of Dalton’s workload.
That help has to come on the run for Cincinnati and Taylor knows it. He says he realizes that the frequency that his team leans on their passing is not sustainable and that it was the root of a lot of their struggles on offense against the Jaguars.
“There’s no question. We don’t want to play the game dropping back 43 times,” Taylor said. “We’ve got to be accountable in the run game. We called some runs, we get the pictures on the sidelines and they’re good runs but we lost the point of attack right as the back is hitting the line of scrimmage. We’re going to look at that tape and we’re going to have to take ownership of how we ran the ball in that game.”
Taylor will need to get creative to find a way to light a fire under his rushers. His next chance to show off those adjustments will come next Sunday when the Bengals head to London to play the Rams.
