Cincinnati Bengals, Jake Browning Accomplish Rare Feat With Player of Week Award

Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Jake Browning has been named the AFC Offensive Player of the Week for his performance Monday night in the 34-31 overtime road upset of the Jacksonville Jaguars at EverBank Stadium.

Browning completed 32 of 37 passes for 354 yards and a touchdown to become the third Bengals player to win the award this season.

Wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase won it in Week 5 for his 192-yard, three-touchdown performance at Arizona, while quarterback Joe Burrow captured the honor in Week 8 after throwing for 283 yards and three touchdowns at San Francisco.

Bengals Accomplish Rare Feat Not Seen Since 2011

With Burrow and Browning each winning the award, the Bengals are the first team since the 2011 Green Bay Packers to have two different quarterbacks named Offensive Player of the Week in the same season.

MORE: Cincinnati Bengals Depth Chart

Aaron Rodgers won the award three times that year and then took a seat on the bench for the Week 17 finale, with the Packers having already clinched the No. 1 seed with a 14-1 record. Matt Flynn got the start in Week 17 against the Detroit Lions and threw for 480 yards and six touchdowns in a 45-41 barnburner.

Flynn parlayed that performance into a three-year, $19.5 million contract with the Seahawks, but he would only throw eight touchdown passes the rest of his career, none of which were for Seattle.

YEAH THAT'S RIGHT 👏 pic.twitter.com/r08B39yDf9

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 6, 2023

Even if Browning continues to play well, he may not be able to cash in as quickly as Flynn because he’ll be an exclusive rights free agent at the end of the season, which means the Bengals can extend a qualifying offer to prevent Browning from negotiating with other teams.

Still, Browning knows what ultimate is at stake.

“I mean, I’m not oblivious. I’m not dumb,” he said in his first news conference after Joe Burrow was ruled out for the season. “I’ve seen this happen for other guys where it goes well or it doesn’t. I think you can never just act like it hasn’t crossed your mind at least once. But I think as time goes on and you kind of get into the week; there’s a lot of game planning that goes on throughout the week where you can’t just constantly be in La La Land, like, ‘What if this goes well?'”

While Browning and Burrow are the first pair of quarterback teammates to win a Player of the Week award since 2011, they are the first to do it in the AFC in nearly a quarter of a century.

The last time it happened was 1999, when Buffalo’s Doug Flutie won in Week 9, and Rob Johnson won in Week 17.

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