The Bengals were able to avoid a loss to the Eagles on Sunday, but they weren’t able to win for the first time this season.
The two teams played the first tie of the 2020 season after the Eagles passed on a chance to try a 64-yard field goal in the final minute of overtime. The result may have been different if the Bengals had been able to protect quarterback Joe Burrow.
Burrow was sacked eight times and hit 18 times by members of the Philadelphia defense. It was a continuation of a trend that’s been in effect all three weeks of this season and head coach Zac Taylor acknowledged it is something that has to end.
“We’re just trying to win the football game. That’s the bottom line,” Taylor said in his postgame press conference. “We can’t just have a free runner, a three-technique come clean every single time. That’s something we got to fix right away. I don’t care what play you call; you’re going to have problems when you can’t block a guy for a second. That part is frustrating, so we just have to continue to prove it and give ourselves a better chance to win.”
Burrow has played well when he has some time to throw the ball, but that’s going to need to happen more often if the Bengals are going to win for the first time this season.