BALTIMORE, MD – Often the punchline of jokes due to their perennial ineptitude, the Cincinnati Bengals put that all to bed in a 41-17 road rout of the defending AFC North champion Baltimore Ravens.
A franchise that has often made bone-headed front office decisions on and off the field and had Hall of Famers such as Paul Brown found it back in 1968 and names such as Bill Walsh, Ken Anderson, Boomer Esiason, Cris Collinsworth—yes, the annoying clown we all have to suffer thru on SNF—Corey Dillon, Chad Ochocinco (Johnson), Carson Palmer and Vontaze Burflict play for it.
On this fateful day, a new generation of tigers stalked and ripped apart their helpless prey down in Charm City.
Thanks to second-year quarterback in Joe Burrow, a native of Athens, Ohio—via Ames, Iowa—the former top overall pick in the 2020 NFL Draft shredded the proud Ravens defense to the tune of 416 yards, three touchdowns on 23-38 passing.
Mind you that Burrow is 12 months removed from a season-ending ACL injury in his rookie year. Against Baltimore, he looked more like an NFL MVP than Lamar Jackson.
Remember all of the issues with rookie wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase? In catching eight passes for 201 yards and one touchdown, he looked more like the O.G. New York version of Odell Beckham Jr. instead of the current washed version currently playing up I-71 in Cleveland.
Not to take a stab at my fellow Dawgs in the Dawg Pound, but if you watched Sunday’s game and saw Chase balling down in B-More, you couldn’t help but feel like that THIS is what you should be getting from OBJ, instead of the constant injuries, dropped balls and wild off-the-field antics.
Aside from that sidebar, from Jarvis Landry, OBJ 1.0, Justin Jefferson to Chase, there is just something in that bayou water when it comes to LSU producing stud NFL wideouts.
Luckily for Burrow and the Bengals, the franchise appears to have caught lightning in a bottle in paring the two former teammates together. If Sunday was a preview of things to come, then both the AFC North and the rest of the NFL are going to have to deal with the Burrow-Chase battery for years to come.
Sleep on them now if you dare, but at 6-1, and impressive road wins over the Pittsburgh Steelers in Baltimore, these are not your older brother’s Bengals of last millennium. These tigers are now the hunters, dangerously on the prowl and ready to strike all in their path.
You’ve been warned.