Joe Burrow says the Bengals are leaning back into a look that once made their offense hum, and he’s eager to see what comes of it.
The Cincinnati quarterback said the team is working to get under center more often so it can open up bigger plays and get the ground game rolling. Burrow pointed to the plan the coaching staff has built this offseason and said he likes where it’s headed.
“We’re trying to find ways to be explosive in the run game and then try to find some things off of that that can get us a couple of easy explosives,” Burrow said, via The Athletic. “We’re committed to that.
Our coaching staff has done a great job this offseason of putting a plan together to try to execute that. So I’m excited to see how it works out.”
Burrow also explained why the Bengals moved away from that style in the first place. He said the offense was heavy under center in 2020 and 2021, and that approach worked well.
But as the passing game became more explosive, the defense looks they were getting changed, and the under-center run game and play-action game lost some of their edge. Cincinnati then shifted into more of a shotgun-based operation, with RPOs and quick game becoming a bigger part of the formula.
“We were heavy under center in 2020, 2021, and that worked out well for us,” he said. “But then we were so explosive that we stopped getting the defenses that the under-center runs and the under-center play-actions were built for.
And then (we) weren’t explosive in the run game when we faced those light box defenses. Then we transitioned to a gun team and our run game because of our RPOs and our quick game, basically.
And the run game was kind of the icing on the cake because of that. And that was effective for a couple of years.”
In Cleveland, Shedeur Sanders said he’s not spending his time worrying about the outside conversation around the quarterback battle. He also said he doesn’t see himself as the one to decide whether he should be starting over veteran Deshaun Watson.
“I don’t think I’m a judge. I’m not a judge,” Sanders said, via Pro Football Talk.
“That’s nothing I’m focused on. I’m focused on developing as a player, doing everything, getting as comfortable as I can in the offense and the scheme and playing with confidence.
That’s all I’m really looking for and trying to improve every day.”
Baltimore kicker Tyler Loop said he and his wife heard from several NFL kickers and their wives after the miss that ended the Ravens’ season. Loop said the best way to handle it is to accept what happened, learn from it, and move on to the next attempt.
“I would say the biggest thing I did was just acknowledge and accept it, and it took a day or two,” Loop said, via Jamison Hensley of ESPN. “I would say moving on from the kick itself was pretty easy, just because I know you have to be ready for the next kick, and you have to be able to put it behind you.
It has to be completely flushed away next kick on the emotional side of it. I play a very factual position.
You either made the kick, fact, or you missed the kick, fact. You have to be able to look at it objectively and be like, ‘This is why I missed the kick.’
You learn from it, and you move on.”
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Cook brings a veteran resume and the kind of versatility teams need when offenses keep forcing safeties into different jobs on the same drive. Bates, meanwhile, has become the kind of steady presence Cincinnati wanted in the middle of the defense, and the bigger question now is how much more the Bengals can get out of that pairing as the rest of the AFC keeps loading up on matchup problems. [Read more 🡒]