No more than an hour after Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine had broken off long touchdown runs to deliver twin knockout blows and send 70,000 fans at M&T Bank Stadium to the exits, the face of this operation, 24-year-old Joe Burrow, lacked even a hint of an uptick in his voice as he explained what he and his Bengals teammates had just done.
Why? Well, Burrow’s not surprised by it in the least.
And if you are, then you should listen to what the quarterback said when I asked if he felt like Sunday’s stunning rout of the Ravens was a sign the Bengals’ ship is turning.
“No, it’s already turned,” Burrow told me. “That chapter from yesteryear is gone and behind us. And this is who we are now. We’re a tough, physical team that’s hard to beat, and we’re going to be in every single game because of the defense that we have, and the playmakers that we have on the outside. So it’s exciting. Excited for the city, excited for the organization, but we’re not satisfied.”
Bengals 41, Ravens 17 felt like a whole lot more than another Week 7 win.
It wasn’t just the score or the opponent, either. It was everything. It’s how Burrow and his LSU teammate Ja’Marr Chase have systematically erased doubts from training camp over and over again. It’s how Chase has turned that summer skepticism from a few drops into the greatest start by a rookie receiver ever. It’s how Burrow continues to play with less and less fear, so soon after ACL surgery.
It’s how Zac Taylor, Brian Callahan and Lou Anarumo have created aggressive, heady units capable of carrying out aggressive game plans. It’s how a patched-together secondary full of guys signed from winning programs has come together to lead the defense. It’s how Bengals director of player personnel Duke Tobin’s starting to catch fire draft-wise.
And it’s added up to a Bengals team that——would be the AFC’s No. 1 seed if the regular season ended today, carrying road wins against its division’s powerhouses in Pittsburgh and Baltimore, and a sort of belief that was forever in short supply in Cincinnati before Burrow and Chase arrived.
“We came ready to play football, worked at practice and it translated to the game,” Chase told me postgame. “I don’t think we’re scared of anybody. I don’t think we scared of nobody to be honest. … We got enough courage to go into anybody’s stadium to play football. That’s how we execute, how we practice and how we bring it to the game.”
The Bengals brought it on Sunday, alright. And they left with quite a story to tell.
