Cincinnati Bengals Observations From Their 27-3 Loss to the Tennessee Titans

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — There was no rain in Nashville on Sunday, just blue skies and sunshine. And yet the Cincinnati Bengals somehow looked even worse than they did in their soggy season-opening loss at Cleveland, surrendering 27 unanswered points on the way to a 27-3 loss.

Here are three quick observations from the lopsided loss that dropped the Bengals to 1-3, their worst four-game start of the Joe Burrow era.

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Slow Start, Part IV

For the second week in a row, the Bengals won the coin toss and elected to take the ball to start the game in an attempt to jump-start their offense. And as well as things started, with Burrow hitting his first four passes for 45 yards and Joe Mixon carrying four times for 26 yards, there were signs of things to come.

Burrow nearly telegraphed a pick-six to Amani Hooker, but Hooker got too good of a jump on the pass and the ball went off his hands. That was on second-and-goal from the 6. On third-and-goal, Burrow had to call timeout with the play clock to expire. Coming out of the timeout, the Bengals took the play clock all the way down to a few seconds again, and Burrow checked into a run play that went nowhere.

The rest of the game was a disaster for the offense, with Burrow continuing to get hit, including one that resulted in a lost fumble near midfield late in the third quarter. And Tee Higgins suffered a first-half rib injury and did not return.

Burrow was just 20-of-30 for 165 yards and was sacked three times, one of which resulted in a fumble the Titans recovered.

The Bengals are the first team since the 2019 Jets to not score an offensive touchdown in the first half in their first four games of the season. The last Bengals team to do that was the 2002 squad that finished 2-14.

Defensive Concerns Arise Again

The Bengals were hopeful the 384 rushing yards they gave up in the first two games were an aberration after playing much better against the Rams on Monday night.

MORE: Cincinnati Bengals Depth Chart

But Tuesday, it was back to the bad, with Titans quarterback Ryan Tannehill and running back Derrick Henry repeatedly gashing them for chunks of yards at a time.

A telling snapshot came late in the first half when the Titans sent Tannehill out wide, moved defensive tackle Jeffery Simmons from fullback to tight end, and had Henry in position to take a direct snap. The Bengals called timeout to get things straight, then the Titans still ran the same play from the same formation, and Henry found tight end Josh Whyle wide open in the end zone for a 24-3 lead with 10 seconds left before halftime.

It's getting Whyle in here

📺: Watch #CINvsTEN on @NFLonFOX pic.twitter.com/jC9cfRm1Jf

— Tennessee Titans (@Titans) October 1, 2023

Tannehill hit little-used wide receiver Chris Moore, who was starting for the injury Treylon Burks, for a 44-yard gain to set up the Whyle touchdown. Tannehill also had a 38-yard pass to DeAndre Hopkins to set up Tennessee’s first touchdown.

And the Titans fooled the Bengals on a flea flicker where Henry took the handoff and pitched it back to Tannehill. But the quarterback’s deep shot for Hopkins was just barely overthrown.

Costly Penalty

Any hope the Bengals had of coming out of halftime hot went away when the Titans put together a 15-play drive that at 10:22 of clock.

The Cincinnati defense appeared to get off the field on the second third down when Ryan Tannehill threw incomplete, but safety Dax Hill was flagged for unnecessary roughness for the contact he made with Titans running back Tyjae Spears.

Instead of three-and-out, the Bengals’ defense stayed on the field and continued to move the ball and convert third downs.

There’s obviously no guarantee the Cincinnati offense would have converted the stop into anything, especially given the way it looked all afternoon, but that was really the team’s last-ditch hope for staging any kind of comeback.

The Bengals have been one of the least penalized teams the last few years, but Taylor has been lamenting how many flags have hurt the Bengals in the early going. Three of their first five Sunday, including the one on Hill, gave Tennessee a first down.