The Cincinnati Bengals got crushed in Week 1 by their AFC North rival Cleveland Browns. There’s no way to sugarcoat that. Joe Burrow and company got whooped, 24-3, and are now a game behind the Browns and the Baltimore Ravens right off the bat. The good news is that it was only Week 1, and there are 17 more weeks to go before the playoffs. The Bengals have been here before, and it is absolutely not time to panic. Here’s why.
Why there’s no need for Bengals fans to panic after Week 1 loss to Browns
The Bengals have made the AFC Championship game for the last two seasons and to the Super Bowl once. That’s pretty darn good. And you know what? They had tough losses out of the gates in each of these last two seasons.
In the team’s Super Bowl season of 2021, the Bengals needed overtime to beat the Vikings in Week 1 and lost to Andy Dalton, rookie Justin Fields, and the lowly Chicago Bears in Week 2. Now that is awful!
And in 2022, the Bengals lost to another AFC North rival, the Pittsburgh Steelers, in Week 1 and the Dallas Cowboys to drop to 0-2 off the bat. In Burrow’s rookie season, they also started 0-2 before getting a tie against the Philadelphia Eagles and the QB’s first NFL win vs. the Jacksonville Jaguars in Week 4.
Would it be great if the Bengals started seasons hot and rode that momentum through the year? Sure. But they have historically started slow in the Burrow Era. That seems like just how things go. Why? Well, that’s another reason not to panic.
Joe Burrow again had a tough training camp. In 2020 he was a rookie. In 2021 he was coming back from a season-ending knee injury. Then, in 2022, he had an emergency appendectomy, and this season, he missed a bunch of time with a calf strain.
Here’s the Burrow formula: Deal with injuries in the preseason, start slow, turn things around, dominate, and make (at least) the AFC Championship Game. It would be nice for Who Dey Nation if the Bengals could skip the first two steps and jump right to the third, but it seems like that’s not in the cards for 2023 either.
Joe Burrow had a brutal day in the Bengals Week 1 loss. He was 14-of-31 for 82 passing yards. Not even the rookie NFL QBs were that bad on Sunday. That said the weather was bad, he was rusty, and nothing went right for the Bengals.
Now the Bengals have an equally tough test in Week 2, as their other AFC North foes, the Baltimore Ravens, come to town after beating up the Houston Texans in Week 1. And while Bengals fans won’t like to hear it, Cincinnati will be OK if they lose that one, too.
The final reason not to panic after the Bengals Week 1 loss to the Browns is that, after the Ravens, the team’s next four games leading up to the Week 7 bye are all extremely winnable contests. Starting in Week 3, the Bengals have the Los Angeles Rams, Tennessee Titans, Arizona Cardinals, and Seattle Seahawks coming up.
Maybe the Rams aren’t as good as they looked in their Week 1 win, and maybe the Titans and Seahawks aren’t as bad as they seemed in their losses (and the Cardinals are still terrible). Either way, if the Bengals can go into their bye 4-2 or even 3-3, they’ll be OK.
If not, that’s when you can start to panic.