Andy Dalton enters postseason as biggest question mark for Bengals

There are plenty of mercurial quarterbacks in the NFL today, but maybe the most iffy QB is Cincinnati Bengals signal-caller Andy Dalton, who has become a bit notorious for his inconsistency. He’s coming off of a regular season in which he threw nearly as many interceptions (17) as touchdowns (19), though he did at least complete 64.1% of his passes. Dalton’s 2014 season was undoubtedly below average, and he’s someone who is just as likely to scare opponents as he is his own team. A league-average quarterback, Dalton is capable of sinking his entire squad with a dreadful performance, but he can also elevate them if he catches fire, which he did during one memorable string of displays in the 2013 season.

We can pretty much say this about him at all times, but I think it’s even more apt as we head into the playoffs this season: Dalton is his team’s biggest question mark. The Bengals biggest weakness might actually be their run defense, but their biggest question mark has to be Dalton, who has even caused star receiver A.J. Green to be injured due to his errant throws. It seems like Dalton has been more erratic than usual lately, missing open receivers and resorting to check-down routes. Despite an amazing running game, courtesy of stellar rookie Jeremy Hill, Dalton has failed to take advantage of easier coverage against defenses who really have to respect the Bengals rushing attack.

I think the best way to illustrate the TCU’s inconsistent play is to go back to that historically bad performances in Week 10 against the Cleveland Browns. Since then, Dalton has been busy checking down, because he’s completed under 65% of his passes just once (a rough Week 15 outing against, you guessed it, the Browns) but has also averaged more than seven yards per attempt just twice. In both of those games, Dalton went off for over ten yards per attempt, multiple TDs, and no INTs against the New Orleans Saints and Pittsburgh Steelers (the earlier meeting).

Dalton crushed the Steelers the first time he played them, but he hasn’t been on a rich vein of form in the past three games with four interceptions in those contests. He threw for under 200 yards before facing the easy Steelers defense in Week 17, and he averaged under six yards per attempt before notching 6.4 against the Steelers on Sunday.

His Week 17 performance against a soft defense scares me, because it could be a sign of things to come for Dalton against the Indianapolis Colts in the first round of the playoffs. Aside from the fact that the Colts owned Dalton and the Bengals early in the season in 27-0 performance (past results don’t dictate future performance), a game against the Colts would be a similar situation for Dalton as the Steelers game.

He’ll face a poor pass defense, he should have a strong performance from his star feature back against a weak run D, and he’ll be forced to keep up the pace with a high-powered offense. The Steelers lost Le’Veon Bell to an injury last week, and this helped give the Bengals offense some leeway, in that they had less points to make up for against the Steelers explosive offense. Unfortunately, Dalton could only lead the team to 17, and that was never going to be enough.

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A.J. Green didn’t play his best game on Sunday and clearly wasn’t healthy before leaving the game with a concussion, but Dalton still peppered him with targets, only looking at Mohamed Sanu once. He needs to start playing smarter football, because he can’t get away with over-targeting his No. 1 wideout. It seems like Dalton only looks for his top option, whether it be Green or Sanu (if the former is injured), and that shows a troubling lack of maturity from a quarterback who is in his fourth season in the league.

Since Green has another injury to add to his bruised biceps, Dalton can ill-afford to ask too much out of him, especially since Green will most likely face off against Colts elite CB Vontae Davis frequently; that’s definitely a step above the guys Green faced on Sunday against the Steelers. The Colts don’t have much outside of Davis, so it will be up to Dalton to take advantage of other matchups on the field. Again, he’ll have to, because he’s competing with Andrew Luck, T.Y. Hilton, and an elite offense.

Dalton was 21st in the NFL in QB Rating during the regular season, and while that isn’t a foolproof stat by any means, it gives a good rough indicator that he had a subpar season and will have to play better in the postseason. He’s throwing interceptions at too high of a rate, focusing too much on his No. 1 target, and isn’t displaying the kind of maturity that you would expect out of a quarterback with mediocre physical tools. He isn’t a truly bad quarterback, but he hasn’t shown that he’s above the average.

He’s quite capable of having big games, but those have been few and far between here in the second half of the season. The streaky quarterback has been going cold lately and the way it improves is if he reinvents his game by spreading the ball around. Green’s injury prevents Andy Dalton from being in an ideal situation, but he does have a strong line, a great running game, and a No. 2 receiver in Sanu who has shown up well when asked to be the top guy. Asking Dalton to play smarter is a tall task, though, because he’s managed to throw 17 picks despite being in a run-based, conservative offense, and that has to be the strongest criticism of his game going into the postseason.

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