The 8-6 Bengals go to 7-7 Pittsburgh Saturday (4:30 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Channel 5) for a game eerily similar to the one they played 11 years to the day on the same field.
On Dec. 23, 2012, the Bengals won on their last play of the game at Acrisure Stadium and went to the playoffs The Steelers lost and went home and it’s got that same kind of feel as the Bengals play their first game ever without the Pro Bowl tandem of quarterback Joe Burrow and wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase.
But while Burrow backup Jake Browning isn’t perceived as the generational talent like those two guys, his numbers are after he bounced back from last month’s 16-10 loss to the Steelers in his first NFL start.
According to the NFL, Browning’s 109.3 passer rating as a starter is the fifth-best over the last 30 seasons in a player’s first four career starts. And his 76 completion percentage trails only Chad Pennington (76.9) for the first four career starts since 1950.
The Bengals and Browning have indicated this week that they’ve taken note of that Nov. 26 game. Browning has talked about how he held the ball too long on some third downs (where the Bengals were 2-for-10) on a day they had the ball for just 41 snaps and had a historically low 25 rushing yards on 11 attempts. They had Chase that day, but not wide receiver Tee Higgins, and they’ve got Higgins Saturday coming off his best game of the season with all two touchdowns, four catches, and 61 yards coming in the fourth quarter.
“We did not perform well on third down. I mean we only had like 40 some plays in that game, so we didn’t get a lot of chances because we didn’t convert and we had some manageable ones that we didn’t convert,” said offensive coordinator Brian Callahan this week. “Playing different on third down, being better on third down will help us. Without giving too much away and how we’re going to play differently, there’s some things in the run game we can do better and…
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