Brett's Cowboys Corner

Bill Parcells once said, “You are what your record says you are.” At 4-8, this is not the reality that the Cincinnati Bengals want to accept.

This Bengals team on paper looks really good, they were in the Superbowl three seasons ago. They should be competing for at least the AFC North title, and that is slipping away very quickly.

Cincy has a lot of weapons, they are dangerous but haven’t been hitting on anything. There loses are close games and their wins are against no one impressive. 7 games against .500+ teams and 7 losses.

OFFENSE

Zac Taylor: The Bengal’s HC since 2019, he has seen two deep playoff runs including a Super bowl appearance. But other wise, some subpar seasons. Recently the talks have been floating around about the Cincinnati head coaching position being opened this spring. Taylor might be on the hot seat, and the Bengals may need to win out here to save his job.

Joe Burrow

The last time Burrow and the Bengals stepped into AT&T Stadium was week 2 of the 2022 season, where ironically they played Cooper Rush. Though the Bengals saw a tough Dallas D and loss the game 20-17. I don’t think they want to experience that again.

Burrow has played well this year, more notably the last few weeks. But as a quarterback if your team is 4-8, are you really having a good season. Joe Burrow has the most losses (5) with 300+ passing yards and 3+ passing touchdowns in a single season in NFL history.

Burrow can throw a lot of yards in a game and will lead some high scoring contest. Cincinnati has been narrowly losing them. The Bengals offense tends to favor outside and in breaking routes, quick reads. Burrow tends to find his best plays when receivers are working toward soft spots in the middle of the field.

Burrow already has 30 passing touchdowns on the year and just five interceptions. He doesn’t turn the ball over often. His biggest flaw is taking sacks. The Cowboys are a sack heavy team, and Burrow has been sacked 30 times.

Now that is just 10th most in the NFL but if you watch those sacks, they are avoidable. What happens is his first read is covered he tucks the ball and tries to move around the pocket, this is almost always a recipe for disaster and will lead to a loss.

The Offensive Problem

Why does that sack problem happen? Lack of protection.

The Bengals have gone through a fair share of offensive linemen this season, with little to no bright spots. We will either see Cordell Volson if healthy at left guard, if not Cody Ford. On the right side, Trent Brown suffered a fibula injury, so Armarius Mims the Georgia rookie will get the start on the right side.

Orlando Brown will be the left tackle, he let up 12 pressures in the game last week and will see Micah Parsons for most of the night.

The guard play has not been good, Alex Cappa at RG has let up a lot of interior pressure this season, and is usually the main cause of Burrow having to tuck the ball and eventually eat the sack.

This will be a big opportunity for Osa and Mazi Smith to create some havoc on the interior.

Cowboys need to create pressure, and cover for just long enough.

The X-Factor

Ja’Marr Chase is the ultimate weapon for this Bengals offense. As the run game doesn’t have great numbers. No tightend help, and the other receivers haven’t shown up much either.

Chase can be a problem if he gets hot. We saw poor coverage on him against Baltimore, though the Ravens pulled through in the end. Ja’Marr Chase caught 11 of 17 targets for 264 yards and 3 touchdowns in Week 10 against the Ravens.

Chase currently leads the league in yards (1142), touchdowns (13), receiving yards over expected (+326), and yards after catch over expected (+222).

Who will be in guarding Chase? Well depends who’s available to play. The Cowboys have had 7 different cornerbacks play at least 50 coverage snaps this season, the most in the league.

DEFENSE

Trey Hendrickson: A shining point on an otherwise lackluster defense. Hendrickson has been a monster on the defensive line the past few years. He will be going against Terrence Steele, who has had his struggles in 2024. Bengals edge rusher Trey Hendrickson has generated 63 pressures (2nd-most) and a league-high 31.8% of his team’s pressures. Trey currently sits at 11.5 sacks on the season.

The Weak Point

You need defense to win in the NFL. The Bengals don’t really have much of it. They are losing close games from not being able to get stops. They have lost by a score or less in 5 games, losses to good teams that they took to the wire too. Like the Chiefs, Commanders, Chargers and Ravens twice.

Linebacker Logan Wilson, who will miss the remainder of the season with a knee injury, was an effective tackler for the Bengals, generating negative EPA for the offense on a team-high 7.2% of his tackles.

In the Bengals first game without Wilson this season, they allowed a season-high 168 yards and a touchdown on passes to the middle third of the field.

You’ll See

The Bengals are a man coverage heavy team.

The Bengals defense more than doubles their use of man coverage on late downs (54.6%, 6th in NFL) as compared to early downs (20.2%, 19th).

Corners Josh Newton (75.0%, 2nd), DJ Turner II (64.7%, 4th), and Daxton Hill (55.6%, 9th) all rank top 10 in tight window percentage (< 1 yard of separation) among outside corners with at least 5 targets in man coverage this season.

We saw with Dak now Rush, the Cowboys throw into the most tight windows in the NFL. The receivers are not getting a lot of separation, they will have their work cut out for them this week.

A Strength

Rico Dowdle had his first 100+ yard rushing game in his career, last Thursday against the Giants. But this week he will be facing a very different run defense, a much better one at that.

The Cincinnati Bengals are holding opponents to just 3.8 yards per carry on designed rushes between the tackles, the 2nd-fewest in the league. They are hitting opposing rushers behind the line of scrimmage on 49.3% of such carries (3rd-highest).

The Cowboys will go into Monday night, with a better record than the Bengals somehow. Honestly looking at this game back in August, I figured this would be a MNF classic against two teams fighting for first in their division. Now these two teams have their records flipped.