The Cincinnati Bengals have perhaps the best wide receiver duo in the NFL depending what you think the Philadelphia Eagles (A.J. Brown and DeVonta Smith), Dallas Cowboys (CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens) or a handful of others. Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins truly are an elite pairing.
After that? Well, the cupboard is pretty bare in terms of third wide receiver options. Andrei Iosivas hasn’t had a ton of targets this year, but when he has gotten the ball thrown to him, it hasn’t gone well.
Iosivas has caught 11 balls on 20 targets this year for 170 yards. But, he’s also got three drops and zero touchdowns after scoring 10 touchdowns in his first two seasons.
“It’s fine. I just come and do the same thing everyday,” Iosivas said on Monday. “I work as hard as I can. The plays will come when they come and I’m just going to stay steady.
“Just staying composed. Being myself. I know that my best is good enough so I just gotta keep playing like that.”
His best is going to have to be better, because the Bengals now find themselves at 3-5 after a brutal 39-38 loss to the New York Jets. They are still only 1.5 games out of first place in the AFC North, but the 2-5 Baltimore Ravens are getting Lamar Jackson back and are now favored to win the division.
Andrei Iosivas needs to return to form
The Bengals have struggled to run the ball this year and it’s not difficult for defensive coordinators to key on Chase and Higgins, even if they can’t be stopped completely. Sure, it’s been tough without their superstar quarterback, but they really need a third receiving option in this offense.
“I think there’s certainly a couple plays that he wants back,” Bengals head coach Zac Taylor said. “There’s been some times he’s made some big plays for us as well, so I got a lot of faith in Andrei.”
If the third-option help doesn’t come from Iosivas, it would have to come from one or both of the tight ends, Mike Gesicki and Noah Fant.
Andreis Iosivas has to be what Jermaine Burton isn’t
The Bengals have been very patient with Jermaine Burton. Burton was a third-round pick last year and was counted on to be that third option in the passing offense. Not only has he not done that, he’s not even active on game days. Ever.
Back in late September when Burton was benched for a game against the Raiders, Bengals’ offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher did his best to put lipstick on a pig.
“He made a lot of plays early in camp. Jermaine’s best when you when you can get him in a true one-on-one matchup down the sideline,” Pitcher said, doing his best to sound positive. “He can track the ball in the air. He’s got tremendous ball skills, [he] didn’t have a lot of opportunity to show that the other night. The single word I keep coming back to Jermaine is just consistency, right? You don’t have a lot of opportunity the other night. How do we respond? How do how do we go about our day-to-day professional job? And that’s that’s we’ll just continue to be the emphasis with him.”
The bottom line is that the Bengals can’t expect much of anything out of Burton at this point, so the burden is going to fall on Iosivas.
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