Cincinnati Bengals: 3 Takeaways from Week 3 loss vs. Panthers
By Kenn Korb
Let’s look back at the Cincinnati Bengals loss in Week 3 to the Carolina Panthers and observe some notable takeaways from the game.
After two wins to open the season 2-0, the Cincinnati Bengals were riding high and mighty. Even without their star linebacker Vontaze Burfict, the team looked as good as any AFC squad outside of Kansas City through two games.
It seems those first two outings may have been against inferior competition, however. The NFC has been expected to be the better conference this year, and if this game was any indication, they are exactly that. Cincinnati did manage to keep things relatively close for the majority of the game, but Carolina ultimately won, 31-21, in a pretty dominant effort.
Here’s how the loss came to fruition and what we need to take away from it.
Allowing Three-Straight First Half Touchdowns
In the early going of this contest, Cincinnati was in a good spot. Their defense forced Carolina into a quick three-and-out, and then their offense went on a long opening drive (11 plays, 75 yards) to take a 7-0 lead halfway through the first quarter. You could be forgiven for thinking this might be the makings of another surprising road victory for the Bengals in an unforeseen 3-0 start.
Unfortunately, their defense apparently didn’t get the memo, because they soon let Carolina score on their next three opportunities.
These drives Cincinnati allowed weren’t simply caused by a single busted coverage or an untimely penalty putting their opponent in excellent field position, either. Rather, in each case, the Panthers slowly ground the Bengals defense into a fine powder.
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All three drives took up at least seven plays, racked up at least 67 yards, and ate up a least 4:12 of clock time. Across those drives, the Bengals allowed Carolina to successfully convert four separate third downs. The Panthers also managed to rack up sizable plays along the way; on those three drives alone, the Panthers had seven separate plays of 10+ yards (headed by a 45-yard rush by Christian McCaffrey).
Cincinnati actually managed to keep the game close in this stretch (Carolina led just 21-14 after the third scoring drive), but those early scores left Cincinnati in catch-up mode for the entire second half — a mode which is rarely good for this franchise (and would yet again prove to be the case).