The Cincinnati Bengals spent a lot of money to improve their offensive line this off-season.
Unfortunately for the Bengals, it looks like that money wasn’t money well spent — at least based on what we saw in the first half against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow had a disastrous half against the Steelers, quickly throwing multiple interceptions and taking a couple of sacks.
Part of the problem is bad decisions by Burrow.
Joe Burrow is having a rough daypic.twitter.com/vmFurmSaIV
— Dillard Barnhart (@BarnHasSpoken2) September 11, 2022
Burrow, however, will be fine. This is mainly a result of the poor play by the offensive line.
And the bad thing is that you can’t point to just one player — it’s everyone on the offensive line.
As a result, Burrow is feeling pressure to make plays happen.
He’s forcing plays that aren’t there.
And that’s when he actually has time to force something down the field (which hasn’t been often).
The Bengals had poor offensive line play last season.
But this is even worse — and it appears to be due to a lack of chemistry.
That was always going to be a concern — overhauling an offensive line with a bunch of new faces isn’t always the answer.
It’s almost like Cincinnati tried to do too much.
Of course, you can hardly fault the Bengals for “doing too much”.
Had they done nothing — or just signed one offensive lineman — they would’ve been crucified by the media.
It’s still early. Maybe the offensive line watches the tape and looks better next week against the Dallas Cowboys.
For now, though, it’s hard to be optimistic about Cincinnati moving forward.
