The Cincinnati Bengals enter Sunday’s trip to Miami still searching for an offensive formula that can pair Joe Burrow’s high-volume passing game with a credible rushing threat.
Cincinnati has spent much of the offseason and opening month working Burrow into more snaps from under center, seeking a broader attack than its familiar shotgun-based approach. The early returns have been difficult, however, and the Bengals head into the Dolphins game with the NFL’s lowest yards-per-play average from under-center formations at 3.3.
That struggle has pushed Cincinnati back toward the alignment it knows best. The Bengals have used shotgun on an NFL-high 72.3% of their offensive plays, a number that climbed sharply during last week’s 22-17 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars.
Run game remains central issue
Against Jacksonville, Cincinnati ran for only 23 yards on 15 attempts, its fewest rushing yards in a game since 2012. With the ground game stalled, Burrow dropped back 58 times, the fourth-highest total of his career, while the Bengals operated from shotgun on 85.5% of their snaps.
Burrow initially suggested that a struggling run game could require Cincinnati to throw even more often. But he later stressed that the Bengals must find better balance over the remaining three quarters of the season.
“We need to be more balanced from here on out, and the running game is a major piece of that,” Burrow said.
The quarterback does not believe the answer is to scrap the under-center package. Instead, he said the unit must improve enough to make it a viable and valuable part of the offense.
“We have to improve there,” Burrow said. “We’ll continue doing it and putting the reps into it. I believe it has real value, so we need to make it work. But we have to play better.”
Play-action depends on a respected rushing attack
For Burrow, the connection between the running game and under-center play-action is straightforward. If defenses do not have to honor the run fake, edge rushers can attack immediately and put the quarterback under pressure.
“That isn’t a recipe for success,” Burrow said.
Head coach Zac Taylor had said before the Jacksonville game that Cincinnati was close to breaking longer runs that could open up the offense. The Jaguars, one of the league’s stronger run defenses, kept that from happening.
The matchup with Miami could offer a more favorable chance to establish the ground game. The winless Dolphins are 29th in the NFL in points allowed per drive through four games.
Coaches evaluating offensive identity
Offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said Cincinnati cannot simply discard concepts that have not produced early in the year. The challenge is to improve those areas while identifying the approach that best suits the club for the rest of the season.
“We have to get better at those things; we can’t just throw them out,” Pitcher said. “We have to determine what our identity will be over the final three quarters of the season.”
Taylor offered a concise measure for whether the Bengals’ under-center offense is working: “Putting points on the board.”
Pitcher said the staff will continue adjusting based on game flow and the team’s larger season evaluation.
“As coaches, our responsibility is to assess where we are at any point, whether that is during a game or during the season, and choose what gives us the best opportunity to move forward,” Pitcher said.
