The Bengals opened the season on the road in Cleveland, taking on the Browns in a divisional matchup. Zac Taylor gave the starters more action in the preseason in hopes of avoiding the slow starts that have plagued them in past seasons. The offence came in with high expectations, but the defence, a lot of question marks. Still, the markets had Cincinnati favoured in this one.
Burrow and the offence got the ball to start the game, and the first play from scrimmage was a play action pass from under centre to Noah Fant. I have to say, it was refreshing to see. The drive continued on with Chase Brown getting his fair share of touches. They weren’t picking up a ton of yards, the Bengals were able to still move the chains. This resulted in a time consuming drive. Eventually, they got down to the 5 yard line, and Chase Brown was able to punch it in.
7-0 Bengals.
After a hot start offensively, Cincinnati’s defensive question marks presented themselves on Cleveland’s first possession. It was a similar drive to the one the Bengals had just completed, in that there were a lot of short gains, but they did enough to keep the chains moving. A pass interference call then extended the drive after the Bengals thought they had a 3rd down stop. Finally, they hit something beyond 10 yards, as Flacco found the rookie Sampson for a 12 yard completion, and a roughing the passer call on Trey Hendrickson tacked on another 15. The Bengals made a couple of stands, but on 4th down, Sanders was able to punch it in for the 1 yard score.
7-7.
The Bengals were able to regain the lead on their next drive. On this one, Burrow was able to complete a downfield pass, finding Ja’Marr Chase for 20 yards. Strangely, this was Chase’s second and final catch of the game. Anyways, it was Burrow on a 3rd down scramble finding Samaje Perine to keep the drive alive on 3rd & 2. Then, Chase drew a pass interference call that put them inside the redzone. At the 1 yard line for a second time in the game, Zac Taylor dialed up a play action pass that resulted in Noah Fant being wide open in the end zone.
The Browns would add a field goal before the half, and the Bengals went into the break with a 14-10 lead.
Cleveland got the ball to start the 2nd half, and were able to get their first lead of the day. Flacco found Fannin for 18 yards on 3rd & 3 to convert an early 3rd down in the drive. Shortly after, Flacco made another 3rd down completion, this time finding Tillman for 13 yards on 3rd & 9. A 14 yarder to Sampson placed the Browns just outside the redzone, and they continued to lean on him as they got deeper into Cincinnati territory. But after Sampson got the ball for a handful of plays in a row, it was Tillman who was on the other end of Flacco’s first TD pass of the season. Cleveland took the lead, but after Szmyt missed the extra point, the lead was only 2.
16-14 Browns.
The Browns got the ball back with their lead still intact, looking to build on it. However, it was a clutch drive for the Bengals defence. Trey Hendrickson picked up his first sack of the year on play 1. On the second play of the drive, Jordan Battle was able to take advantage of a tipped ball and come up with the interception at the Cleveland 34 yard line.
Starting inside Cleveland territory, the Bengals still managed a 7 yard drive, but could not find the end zone. But a 35 yard field goal by Evan McPherson did restore the lead.
17-16 Bengals.
The Browns were again able to get inside Cincinnati territory, but the defence came up clutch again, this time forcing a turnover on downs when Flacco’s pass, intended for Jeudy, fell incomplete.
Despite this, the Browns still got a few more chances, as the Bengals offence wasn’t able to get anything going. However, as few would have predicted, the defence continued to clutch it out in the biggest moments. In fairness, they were helped out by a missed 36 yard field goal, making that 4 points that Szmyt left on the board. But when the Browns had yet another chance to lead a game winning drive, DJ Turner was able to take advantage of another ball popping up off the receiver’s hands. He picked it off.
The Browns did get the ball back again with 19 seconds left, but this was after Ryan Rehkow pinned them at their own 1 yard line. With no timeouts left, the Bengals defence didn’t have much difficulty preventing any big gains, and the clock ran out.
Final: 17-16 Bengals
The Bengals will return home for week 2 with a 1-0 record. They’ll face the Jacksonville Jaguars, looking to build on their win from week 1.
