It’s not good for any NFL team to lose its starting quarterback in the second game of the season, but it’s especially bad for a Cincinnati Bengals team to see Joe Burrow go down. He was already being counted on to cover for the many flaws of this football team, and now Jake Browning might exacerbate them.
Browning was decent in mop-up duty in Week 2, but he was pretty awful in a 48-10 shellacking to the Minnesota Vikings on Sunday. Browning was 19-27 for 140 yards, one touchdown and two interceptions, one of which was taken to the house.
“Yeah, we got to protect the ball, number one,” Bengals’ head coach Zac Taylor said. “That was – we came into this game, we got to protect the ball. So he had two turnovers, and then we’ll watch the tape and assess from there. I thought he did a great job managing the pre snap operation. That was significant going into this game, getting us into the right call, getting the protection calls, operating within the clock. I thought he did a great job mentioning that, and we’ll watch the tape and make an assessment where it is.”
Taylor’s “praise” of Browning was tepid at best and for things he’s supposed to do anyway. That said, he stopped well short of putting the entire whooping on him.
“But again, nobody was good, nobody can say, ‘I played great, man. I did everything I could to support Jake and do my part.’ There’s none of us that are gonna be able to say that, so that’s on all of us,” Taylor said.
Jake Browning says there is a lot he can learn from this loss
Following the game, Browning was asked by reporters if he felt like the game snowballed away from the Bengals.
“Yeah, I mean, definitely did in the first half,” Browning said. “I think when you have that many turnovers in the first half, you’re going to play from behind the whole game, and never really got into a rhythm. And they stuck it to us today, that was bad.”
As expected, Browning was also asked about the interception that Vikings cornerback Isaiah Rodgers took to the house.
“Takeaway from the pick six is just knowing when to throw the ball away,” Browning continued. “Thought I saw Chase, he (Harrison Smith) got a hand up on it last second. And, yeah, I think for me, it’s just finding ways to survive those plays with incompletions and throwing the ball away.”
Jake Browning has a lot to think about moving forward
Is it too soon for the Bengals to start thinking about calling about Jameis Winston or Jimmy Garoppolo? It’s never too early to start thinking about it, even if they aren’t ready to pull the trigger.
But, Browning talked about how he’ll move forward following this game.
“I think you got to sit in it,” Browning said. “We got worked today, and you got to sit in it. You got to go through those emotions of like, just being miserable, and then you got to watch the tape and find your key things that you need to focus on for me to do my part and making sure that we move the ball better on offense and don’t turn the ball over and get some points up on the board. And so yeah, it’s kind of the same process whether you win or lose, but obviously it’s just much more painful when you lose, especially the way we did.”
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