The Cincinnati Bengals are squandering the brilliant Joe Burrow’s prime

[Arkansas Bengal]

oliver connolly

Thu, Nov 21, 2024, 6:25 AM CST·8 min read

 

 

Joe Burrow is having an unprecedented season for the Bengals.Photograph: Kirby Lee/USA Today Sports

 

You could be forgiven for getting a sense of deja vu watching the Cincinnati Bengals and Los Angeles Chargers last Sunday. For the second week in a row, Joe Burrow torched a defense. He hit one eye-popping throw after another. In the final accounting, he threw for 356 yards, three touchdowns and did not turn over the ball. And yet the result was the same: the Bengals lost by one score.

 

What Burrow is doing this season is unprecedented. Never has a quarterback played at such a high level, with such a heavy workload, while being let down by almost everyone around him. Only Tony Romo in 2010 and Aaron Rodgers in 2018 have come close, but even that duo had the benefit of solid protection from their linemen. Burrow does not. Burrow is outpacing every quarterback in the league despite those around him flailing.

 

The defeat to the Chargers marked the third time this season that Cincy have lost in a game in which Burrow has thrown for more than 300 yards with three touchdowns and zero interceptions. According to NFL research, Burrow is the only quarterback since the league’s merger in 1970 to post those figures in three losses in a single year. With the latest effort, he became the first quarterback in league history to put up that kind of production in back-to-back games. To put that in context, Tom Brady only had two such games in his entire 23-year career, according to CBS Sports. Woof.

 

The Bengals are 1-6 in one-score games this season, a notoriously flaky measure of how good a team actually is, and 4-7 overall. A bounce of the ball, sloppy play call, officiating decision (or non-decision), or defensive stop can tip a one-score game either way. After the fact, we like to ascribe virtues to teams that close out one-score victories. They’re tougher – or smarter. They wanted it more. Their ‘culture’ got them over the line. Sometimes, those things are true – great teams limit penalties and execute the tiny details that can be the difference in a game decided by one or two plays. But sometimes we chase those cliches as comfort food to mask the obvious: it’s luck. One-score games are little more than a toss-up.

Related: NFL offenses are struggling on two-point conversions. No one knows why

 

In the case of the Bengals, both are true. They’ve dealt with bad luck and botched plays at crucial moments, or too often dug themselves into a hole that even Burrow has been unable to drag them out of. There have been missed field goals, decisive holding penalties, mangled coverages, and blows officiating calls on must-have-it downs that, had any of them gone the other way, would have been the difference between winning and losing. They’ve lost one-score games against AFC heavyweights: the Chiefs, Chargers and twice against the Ravens. In all four games, Burrow was close to flawless, throwing for 1,428 yards and 15 touchdowns with one interception.

 

Losing six close games with a quarterback playing this well is almost impressive. Burrow’s numbers this season are bonkers. He has thrown for 3,028 yards, 27 touchdowns and has only four interceptions so far. He’s on pace for the best rushing season of his career, scrambling around to make something happen. He tops the league in QBR and is third in the RBSDM composite, which measures the value of a play and how much the quarterback can be deemed responsible for the value. In a normal year, Burrow would top ballots for the league’s most prestigious hardware. Instead, he’s left scrapping for the final playoff spot in a lousy AFC wildcard race (NFL.com gives the Bengals a 12% chance of making the postseason). Most likely, the Bengals will be on the outside looking in by the time the postseason rolls around.

 

Asked after the defeat in LA whether it was the most frustrating season of his career, Burrow replied: “Yes.” Why? “It’s pretty self-explanatory,” Burrow said. “Our margin of error is slim … I got to make those plays. We all got to make those plays.”

 

It was only three season ago that Burrow led the Bengals on an improbable Super Bowl run. Back then, everything coalesced around the quarterback. Cincinnati had a solid run game, one of the most dynamic receiving corps in the league, a frisky defense and a clutch kicker. Save for his receivers, everything else has collapsed around the quarterback this season.

 

The team’s defense, once a calling card, has fallen off a cliff, coughing up 26.9 points a game, the fifth-worst total in the league. Only the Panthers – a franchise fielding a CFL roster on defense – have been worse against the run this year. The team’s pass-rush has vanished, too, with only Trey Hendrickson being a reliable threat. They have sunk to 28th in the league in sack rate through 11 weeks. And this is a unit that the Bengals have prioritized, spending more on their defensive line than all but three teams this season and drafting more defensive linemen than any other franchise since 2021. As investments go, there hasn’t been a worse return since the NFT bubble.

 

On offense, they are just as disheveled. Any attempts to diversify the offense have failed. The group still flows as Burrow and his receivers, Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins, flow. They have no run game, falling to 30th in the league in rush success rate (and that despite defenses fearing being clipped over the head by Burrow and Chase!). Is now a good time to mention they traded away Joe Mixon, back to his best in Houston, last offseason for a seventh-round pick?

 

To top it off, their kicking game has flat-lined. Evan McPherson, once viewed as the heir apparent to Justin Tucker as the league’s premier kicker, now looks like, well, 2024 Justin Tucker. McPherson has made just 50% of his kicks from 40-plus yards this season and has missed his last four kicks from 50-plus yards, including whiffs against the Ravens and Chargers in one-score defeats.

 

Beyond that, the Bengals continue to have protection woes. Burrow has been hit more than any quarterback since he entered the NFL. Part of that is due to him holding on to the ball and waiting to attempt deep throws. But most of it has been due to a sloppy offensive line. Despite chucking cash and draft picks at the problem, the Bengals still cannot put a functional line together.

 

Since Week 5, the Bengals have conceded pressure on 40% of Burrow’s dropbacks, one of the worst rates in the league. And Burrow continues to get drilled. He has been hit 37 times this year, according to Pro Football Focus. That’s 12 more than the closest quarterback. They have not been soft touch, nice-to-meet-you hits, either; they’ve been bone-crushing shots, including a pair after the whistle. How much longer can he stand up to this physical toll? He’s already missed chunks of two seasons with serious injuries, tearing his ACL in 2020 and rupturing a ligament in his wrist last season.

 

When an offense is focused on a few pieces – in the Bengals’ case Burrow, Higgins and Chase – it becomes plodding and predictable. Yet Burrow, despite being under siege, has stood in and delivered, putting together the finest season of his career. He has not only kept the Bengals’ offense afloat, he has lifted it into the top 10 in all the dorkiest metrics. By points per game, they’re sixth in the NFL. Can you imagine what it would look like with merely a bad offensive line or running game rather than some of the worst in the league?

 

If the MVP award is truly about ‘value’, it’s hard to think of someone who has brought more to their unit than Burrow. Put a league-average quarterback – Russell Wilson or Baker Mayfield – in Burrow’s spot, and Cincinnati’s offense would crumble. Forget a potential late playoff push, without Burrow playing at his current level, the Bengals would not even be competitive.

 

Any hope that the Bengals can squeeze back into the playoff picture relies on the idea that the team’s defense can finally pull its head above water. But it would also require the run game to start chugging along and Burrow’s protection to improve.

 

At this point, they need a minor miracle. But, in some ways, the team has already had that miracle: Burrow playing at an MVP level despite the chaos around him. Asking a quarterback to maintain that standard throughout a full season is fanciful. At some point, surely, the odds will tilt against Burrow. A ball will be tipped. He will misread a defense – as he did late against the Chargers.

 

When the margin of error is so small and the quarterback is under constant duress he will eventually make a mistake. And if the Bengals drop one game because Burrow falls back to Earth or takes one hit too many, then their playoff hopes will be over.

 

Plenty of teams have bungled how the careers of exceptional quarterbacks. But the Bengals are making a case to earn a carving on the Mt Rushmore. From the early career beatings, to failing to ink Burrow’s key weapons to long-term deals, to botching a defensive rebuild, they have hit all the checkmarks. They have so far squandered Burrow’s prime. Now, one of the greatest quarterback seasons on record will probably become an afterthought. As team building goes, it’s unforgivable.

 

https://sports.yahoo.com/cincinnati-bengals-squandering-brilliant-joe-122540401.html

[Arkansas Bengal]

D’Oh! A Frustrating Bengals Season Gets Even Worse

The offensive numbers all say Cincinnati should have a winning record, but instead the team is 4-7 and just about out of hope.

By

 Robert Weintraub

 

 

 -

November 21, 2024

If there is one truism I’ve learned and repeatedly said about the Cincinnati Bengals lo these many years, it’s that the team and high expectations do not mix well. I have been proven correct in this often through the decades, but I honestly believed that with Joe Burrow under center the Stripes had become immune to that kind of cynical outlook.

 

Alas, this Season of Suffering has proven the shibboleth true yet again in spite of Burrow’s brilliance. Sunday night’s soul-eating 34-27 defeat in L.A. to the Chargers was yet another inexplicable loss in a season full of endgame catastrophe.

 

I simply don’t have the space (or the strength) to catalogue all that took place in that now-hated edifice in Inglewood. I used to love this song but now I can’t even listen to it, because the line “Inglewood, Inglewood, always up to no good” now seems like a direct shot at Bengals Nation. All I know is if Tupac is indeed still alive, he better not cross my path...

 

The Chargers game featured yet another tragicomic defensive performance, more red zone failures on D, another head-scratching special teams effort—another game larded with “if only” moments. My man Cameron Taylor-Britt somehow has gotten even more perplexed in the secondary. Evan “10-Time All-Pro No More” MacPherson somehow has forgotten the rule is that the ball has to go between the uprights for points to be allotted, not around them. Even Burrow missed yet again in the latter stages when just one play could rescue his team and get a much-needed win. The man I dubbed “Atlas” for carrying the weight of the franchise on his shoulders has developed a hernia.

 

That this monument to self-inflicted frustration took place against the Chargers, heretofore the league’s best marksmen when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot, is just another ironic component to this season-long trip to Hades.

 

So despite awesome offensive numbers that under almost every circumstance translate into a playoff berth, Cincinnati is now 4-7 and virtually eliminated, despite still, amazingly enough, having scored more points than they’ve allowed (by one). Somehow they are 1-6 in one-score games, and the one win is janky thanks to a garbage time TD and two-point conversion by Cleveland. They continue to find new ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the regular. If there is a documentary film ever made about this edition of the team, it will be called Losing Time. This from a team that made its bones by winning close games in pivotal situations.

 

Technically, the Bengals are still alive. Sure, part of me thinks about the 2016 Packers, who were 4-6 with a high-flying offense led by a not-yet-cooked Aaron Rodgers and a rueful defense and then won six straight and two more playoff games by scoring baskets of points and getting just enough D to make the NFC title game. Is Burrow capable of the same? Sure he is. Would 10-7 be good enough for the last playoff spot? Probably.

 

But the far more likely outcome is more heartache, the locker room imploding, and jobs being lost at the end of the season. There is a ways to go before that, however. So the question for the day is this: As of right now, are the 2024 Bengals the single most disappointing/frustrating team in franchise history?

 

Obviously, there is no single right answer. It depends on your terms. I throw out the successful squads that fell agonizingly short, such as the Super Bowl and AFC title teams (though I think about them every day). I likewise toss out the crap teams with little to no chance coming into the season—many had ceilings of 7-9 or so, hard to get too worked up about them specifically (those years were more frustrating from an organizational standpoint, and they usually lasted over multiple seasons). There were several teams that got jobbed or were good but unfortunately happened to play in an era with few playoff slots available. Those are more frustrating in retrospect, but we all knew the terms at the time.

 

My previous answer to the “disappointment” question would have come down to the 2005 and 2015 teams, even the 2023 version—outfits perfectly capable of winning it all but undone by injury to quarterbacks at terrible times (Joey B. last year, Carson Palmer, and even Andy Dalton), forcing us to endure Jon Kitna and A.J. McCarron at the helm of otherwise excellent teams in critical games. But as maddening as those are, injuries are part of the sport; the number of excellent, championship-worthy squads that fell short because of ouchies to key players is legion.

 

This season, however, is a special torture: The Bengals feature an All-Pro QB/WR combo and an excellent, consistent offense that’s remained mostly healthy; there are an unprecedented number of playoff slots on offer; and when the team has failed it’s generally been in the most painful ways imaginable. Worse, the current Bengals are comprised of players that have, for the most part, succeeded in the past.

 

This season’s failure can’t be pinned on player departure or a rash of injuries or a new system. Nothing is new, except for so many reliable elements turning unreliable seemingly out of nowhere and for no good reason. And with Burrow and presumably Chase’s contracts due to inhale a far larger percentage of the cap starting next year, 2024 was always going to be a “The Time Is Now” season.

 

Because of that, because Burrow’s play is perhaps the best of any Cincinnati QB in history through 11 games and has been so thoroughly wasted, and because expectations were so high to begin with, I hereby nominate 2024 as the most galling thus far in franchise history. Seconded! (Bangs gavel.)

 

The worst part of it all, I suppose, is that the vibes were bad all summer. Before the season opener, I wrote a sadly prophetic column about how the team had more questions than answers—and yet this season has still wildly exceeded my pessimism. I didn’t think that was even possible after all my time rooting for this damn team.

 

In that sense, then, the Bengals’ bye week comes at a good time, for the sad reason that we just can’t take another brutal body blow without some recovery time.

 

Ordinarily it’s best to play quickly after a horrible loss to cleanse the palate. But after so many accumulated kicks to the groin I can use an extra week on the injured list to recuperate, especially with the hated Stealers next up on the schedule.

 

Alas, that means regardless of what happens against Pittsburgh we’re looking at almost an entire month between victories—Cincinnati clubbed the Raiders way back on November 3, and the Stealers game is on December 1. Lose to the Black and Gold, and it will be eight more days of pain until the Stripes get a chance to win again a Monday Night Football encounter in Dallas. There is no flexing out of that one, because a) it’s the Cowboys and b) there is a special alternative broadcast featuring The Simpsons scheduled for that game, so we are stuck in prime time.

 

Given the way this season has gone, even Bart Simpson feels pity for the Bengals. Perhaps this is the only way to sum up the 2024 campaign.

 

 

https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/doh-a-frustrating-cincinnati-bengals-season-gets-even-worse/

[KA14_HOF]

This bye week is oddly relaxing, not having to wonder what soul-crushing way we'll find to lose a game this weekend.

[-GoBengals-]

i dunno man i think joes injuries are have squandered most of it. 

 

QB: hurt all the time

Team: gives him a quarter billion dollars

Fans: cheap ass bengals.

[T-Dub]

5 minutes ago, GoBengals said:

i dunno man i think joes injuries are have squandered most of it. 

 

QB: hurt all the time

Team: gives him a quarter billion dollars

Fans: cheap ass bengals.

 

 

Yeah it's crazy how he keeps injuring himself.  Why would he do such a thing? 

 

They should trade him and get a QB that's not top 5-10 in sacks every year.

[-GoBengals-]

2 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

 

Yeah it's crazy how he keeps injuring himself.  Why would he do such a thing? 

 

They should trade him and get a QB that's not top 5-10 in sacks every year.

 

i guess you missed the 50-60 times joe talked about taking sacks on purpose as its a smarter play in some scenarios? and i know you know im defending the o-line. especially one inside lineman who sucks.

 

but if youll allow me to split hairs. none of joes injuries happened on sacks. 2 happened on hits, one happened in the open field in camp. 

 

caleb williams has been sacked 14 more timees than joe this season. hasnt missed any time.

 

Joes injuries have been more of a fluke variety, the wrist injury that no QB has ever had before, the calf in the open field on a roll out in camp.. and the non fluke LG sucks (different lg) hit that tore his leg in half.

 

but i can lookup the posts where fans here were saying joe is too injury prone and they should just start jake browning or bring back andy dalton or draft another QB.... if that makes you feel better.

[T-Dub]

2 minutes ago, GoBengals said:

 

i guess you missed the 50-60 times joe talked about taking sacks on purpose as its a smarter play in some scenarios? and i know you know im defending the o-line. especially one inside lineman who sucks.

 

but if youll allow me to split hairs. none of joes injuries happened on sacks. 2 happened on hits, one happened in the open field in camp. 

 

caleb williams has been sacked 14 more timees than joe this season. hasnt missed any time.

 

Joes injuries have been more of a fluke variety, the wrist injury that no QB has ever had before, the calf in the open field on a roll out in camp.. and the non fluke LG sucks (different lg) hit that tore his leg in half.

 

but i can lookup the posts where fans here were saying joe is too injury prone and they should just start jake browning or bring back andy dalton or draft another QB.... if that makes you feel better.

 

 

Sacks, hits, "pressures" -  the guy has been getting pummeled his entire career.

 

Caleb Williams has all of 9 TDs to 5 INTs and over 1000 less yards... and has won just as many games as Burrow this year.

 

What do you think needs to happen?

[T-Dub]

2 hours ago, Arkansas Bengal said:

D’Oh! A Frustrating Bengals Season Gets Even Worse

The offensive numbers all say Cincinnati should have a winning record, but instead the team is 4-7 and just about out of hope.

By

 Robert Weintraub

 

 

 -

November 21, 2024

If there is one truism I’ve learned and repeatedly said about the Cincinnati Bengals lo these many years, it’s that the team and high expectations do not mix well. I have been proven correct in this often through the decades, but I honestly believed that with Joe Burrow under center the Stripes had become immune to that kind of cynical outlook.

 

Alas, this Season of Suffering has proven the shibboleth true yet again in spite of Burrow’s brilliance. Sunday night’s soul-eating 34-27 defeat in L.A. to the Chargers was yet another inexplicable loss in a season full of endgame catastrophe.

 

I simply don’t have the space (or the strength) to catalogue all that took place in that now-hated edifice in Inglewood. I used to love this song but now I can’t even listen to it, because the line “Inglewood, Inglewood, always up to no good” now seems like a direct shot at Bengals Nation. All I know is if Tupac is indeed still alive, he better not cross my path...

 

The Chargers game featured yet another tragicomic defensive performance, more red zone failures on D, another head-scratching special teams effort—another game larded with “if only” moments. My man Cameron Taylor-Britt somehow has gotten even more perplexed in the secondary. Evan “10-Time All-Pro No More” MacPherson somehow has forgotten the rule is that the ball has to go between the uprights for points to be allotted, not around them. Even Burrow missed yet again in the latter stages when just one play could rescue his team and get a much-needed win. The man I dubbed “Atlas” for carrying the weight of the franchise on his shoulders has developed a hernia.

 

That this monument to self-inflicted frustration took place against the Chargers, heretofore the league’s best marksmen when it comes to shooting themselves in the foot, is just another ironic component to this season-long trip to Hades.

 

So despite awesome offensive numbers that under almost every circumstance translate into a playoff berth, Cincinnati is now 4-7 and virtually eliminated, despite still, amazingly enough, having scored more points than they’ve allowed (by one). Somehow they are 1-6 in one-score games, and the one win is janky thanks to a garbage time TD and two-point conversion by Cleveland. They continue to find new ways to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory on the regular. If there is a documentary film ever made about this edition of the team, it will be called Losing Time. This from a team that made its bones by winning close games in pivotal situations.

 

Technically, the Bengals are still alive. Sure, part of me thinks about the 2016 Packers, who were 4-6 with a high-flying offense led by a not-yet-cooked Aaron Rodgers and a rueful defense and then won six straight and two more playoff games by scoring baskets of points and getting just enough D to make the NFC title game. Is Burrow capable of the same? Sure he is. Would 10-7 be good enough for the last playoff spot? Probably.

 

But the far more likely outcome is more heartache, the locker room imploding, and jobs being lost at the end of the season. There is a ways to go before that, however. So the question for the day is this: As of right now, are the 2024 Bengals the single most disappointing/frustrating team in franchise history?

 

Obviously, there is no single right answer. It depends on your terms. I throw out the successful squads that fell agonizingly short, such as the Super Bowl and AFC title teams (though I think about them every day). I likewise toss out the crap teams with little to no chance coming into the season—many had ceilings of 7-9 or so, hard to get too worked up about them specifically (those years were more frustrating from an organizational standpoint, and they usually lasted over multiple seasons). There were several teams that got jobbed or were good but unfortunately happened to play in an era with few playoff slots available. Those are more frustrating in retrospect, but we all knew the terms at the time.

 

My previous answer to the “disappointment” question would have come down to the 2005 and 2015 teams, even the 2023 version—outfits perfectly capable of winning it all but undone by injury to quarterbacks at terrible times (Joey B. last year, Carson Palmer, and even Andy Dalton), forcing us to endure Jon Kitna and A.J. McCarron at the helm of otherwise excellent teams in critical games. But as maddening as those are, injuries are part of the sport; the number of excellent, championship-worthy squads that fell short because of ouchies to key players is legion.

 

This season, however, is a special torture: The Bengals feature an All-Pro QB/WR combo and an excellent, consistent offense that’s remained mostly healthy; there are an unprecedented number of playoff slots on offer; and when the team has failed it’s generally been in the most painful ways imaginable. Worse, the current Bengals are comprised of players that have, for the most part, succeeded in the past.

 

This season’s failure can’t be pinned on player departure or a rash of injuries or a new system. Nothing is new, except for so many reliable elements turning unreliable seemingly out of nowhere and for no good reason. And with Burrow and presumably Chase’s contracts due to inhale a far larger percentage of the cap starting next year, 2024 was always going to be a “The Time Is Now” season.

 

Because of that, because Burrow’s play is perhaps the best of any Cincinnati QB in history through 11 games and has been so thoroughly wasted, and because expectations were so high to begin with, I hereby nominate 2024 as the most galling thus far in franchise history. Seconded! (Bangs gavel.)

 

The worst part of it all, I suppose, is that the vibes were bad all summer. Before the season opener, I wrote a sadly prophetic column about how the team had more questions than answers—and yet this season has still wildly exceeded my pessimism. I didn’t think that was even possible after all my time rooting for this damn team.

 

In that sense, then, the Bengals’ bye week comes at a good time, for the sad reason that we just can’t take another brutal body blow without some recovery time.

 

Ordinarily it’s best to play quickly after a horrible loss to cleanse the palate. But after so many accumulated kicks to the groin I can use an extra week on the injured list to recuperate, especially with the hated Stealers next up on the schedule.

 

Alas, that means regardless of what happens against Pittsburgh we’re looking at almost an entire month between victories—Cincinnati clubbed the Raiders way back on November 3, and the Stealers game is on December 1. Lose to the Black and Gold, and it will be eight more days of pain until the Stripes get a chance to win again a Monday Night Football encounter in Dallas. There is no flexing out of that one, because a) it’s the Cowboys and b) there is a special alternative broadcast featuring The Simpsons scheduled for that game, so we are stuck in prime time.

 

Given the way this season has gone, even Bart Simpson feels pity for the Bengals. Perhaps this is the only way to sum up the 2024 campaign.

 

 

https://www.cincinnatimagazine.com/article/doh-a-frustrating-cincinnati-bengals-season-gets-even-worse/

 

 

I just want to point out that this dude used the word "shibboleth" and threatened to fight Tupac.

 

If this season is getting worse, he's not helping.

[claptonrocks]

1 hour ago, T-Dub said:

 

 

Sacks, hits, "pressures" -  the guy has been getting pummeled his entire career.

 

Caleb Williams has all of 9 TDs to 5 INTs and over 1000 less yards... and has won just as many games as Burrow this year.

 

What do you think needs to happen?

Trade Joe for Caleb?...😎

[Jungletiger]

Run game can't be relied upon to consistently pick up short yardage for 1st downs.  The short pass to the RB for short yard is often abandoned for farther strikes, makes me think some one gets too impatient to settle for getting 1st downs; or they think they are clever and want to catch the D off guard (we pass to much to fool anyone).  Interior line is subpar causing Joe to sometimes step in to a sack when he wants to throw.

[saphead]

I think we can win 6 in a row. Beat the stealers and it's only 5 in a row, so on and so forth. 

I don't think it's that crazy. 

 

[T-Dub]

4 hours ago, saphead said:

I think we can win 6 in a row. Beat the stealers and it's only 5 in a row, so on and so forth. 

I don't think it's that crazy. 

 

 

 

Man..  I just hope they win some of them & manage the roster well. 

[sparky151]

Bears have a good defense. Bengals don't. That's why Williams has won as many games as Burrow (or anyone on the roster).

 

Nobody can argue that the Bengals aren't wasting a great season from Burrow. It's hard to argue that the front office has done a good job considering the resources of draft picks and cap space invested in the O-line and defense. It's hard to argue the coaches have done a good job considering the results.

 

 

 

[LostInDaJungle]

52 minutes ago, sparky151 said:

Bears have a good defense. Bengals don't. That's why Williams has won as many games as Burrow (or anyone on the roster).

 

Nobody can argue that the Bengals aren't wasting a great season from Burrow. It's hard to argue that the front office has done a good job considering the resources of draft picks and cap space invested in the O-line and defense. It's hard to argue the coaches have done a good job considering the results.

 

 

 

Compare and contrast the Bengals and Chiefs. What moves have they made since that championship game 2 years ago and where is each club now.