Know Your Foe: Cincinnati Bengals

Burrow’s Bengals started to get rolling after a 0-2 start, moving over .500 for the first time this season after convincing wins over New Orleans and Atlanta in Weeks 6 and 7. Then, wide receiver and reigning offensive rookie of the year Ja’Marr Chase injured his hip against the Falcons.

Chase won’t play against the Panthers while he goes through a 4-6 week recovery period. That’s a plus for Carolina, given how much Cincinnati struggled without him against the Browns. Chase, Burrow’s favorite target, had racked up 86.4 yards per game before the injury. Tee Higgins and Tyler Boyd average just over 60 receiving yards per game each, but neither has Chase’s ability to stretch the field consistently.

That was paramount in the Bengals’ loss Monday night, when Burrow went from averaging 8.1 and 11.5 yards per attempt against the Saints and Falcons, respectively, to 6.6 in Cleveland. Burrow has lost every game where he’s failed to put up more than 232 yards passing this season, reaching 300 in New Orleans and 481 against Atlanta.

Burrow lost when he put up 199 pass yards in Dallas, lost to Baltimore after throwing for 217, and fell to Cleveland with 232 yards. Burrow did, however, throw for 338 yards in a Week 1 overtime loss to Pittsburgh. Burrow has passed for at least 275 yards in all four of Cincinnati’s wins this year.

Despite a downward trend in the Bengals’ pass game without Chase, they’re still sixth in the league averaging 268 yards per game heading into Week 9, and Burrow is completing 69.2 percent of his passes, good for fourth in the NFL.

The Bengals’ run game is much less effective, ranked 30th in the league with 81 yards per game. Joe Mixon, who finished last year’s Super Bowl campaign with a career-best 1,205 yards in the regular season, has had a more muted start to 2022. Mixon is the Bengals’ rushing leader by a mile, and he has only tallied 485 yards on 129 attempts, an average of 3.3 yards per carry.