Joe Burrow left Sunday’s 31-24 win over the Miami Dolphins sounding less like a quarterback coming off a statement victory and more like a player already focused on what Cincinnati still has to clean up.
The Bengals improved to 31-24 against the now 0-5 Dolphins, but Burrow’s postgame message kept circling back to the same theme: the performance wasn’t sharp enough. Cincinnati heads into its bye week with a huge divisional matchup looming against Baltimore, and Burrow made it clear the margin for error won’t hold up if the penalties and stalled drives keep showing up.
"I think just not good enough all around," Burrow said. "Team-wide.
I think if we want to be the team that we think we're going to be, we got to be better than that ... Our receivers did a good job of finding space.
We didn't get a ton of man coverage, but when we did, we made them pay. They made a good play there on the last third down.
We had good field position most of the day, an I think for the most part we took advantage of it. But we had some dumb mistakes, and we got to get those cleaned up if you want to be a great team."
The quarterback did not dwell on his own numbers, even though the game marked the 10th time in his career he’s thrown four or more touchdown passes and the 14th time he’s posted a passer rating of at least 126. Instead, he kept steering the conversation toward the broader standard Cincinnati needs to meet.
Burrow also highlighted the effort from injured stars who pushed through to help the Bengals finish the job, including Ja'Marr Chase.
"You see what number one can do whenever the ball's in the air," Burrow said about the crazy 45-yard TD catch and touching on his toughness. "Obviously, unbelievable play, but we don't want to take it for granted.
But we're used to it at this point, you know. That's football, man.
That's football. When you have great players that want to be great and want to be there for the team, that's what it's all about."
Cincinnati is flying back tonight and will split up for a few days before getting back to work for the final two-thirds of the season.
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Cincinnati heads into its bye week with a 3-2 record after hanging on for a 31-24 win over Miami in conditions that tested just about everything a team can bring to South Florida. Joe Burrow delivered four touchdown passes and the offense found enough rhythm to outlast the Dolphins, even if Zac Taylor had plenty to point to afterward as areas that still need cleaning up before the second half of the season really takes shape.
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For a club with postseason ambitions, that kind of reliability changes how every drive is managed and how every stalled possession feels. McPhersons consistency has also put him in rare company in franchise history, underscoring how much confidence the Bengals can carry when they cross midfield and know points are still very much on the table. [Read more 🡒]