Cincinnati Bengals: Big takeaways from Week 11 loss to Ravens

Meanwhile, The Bengals Can’t Run At All

While the Ravens ran all day, the Bengals couldn’t do much of anything on the ground. To have their best chance at winning though, that’s unfortunately the opposite of what they needed to have happen.

With Ravens-killer A.J. Green missing the matchup due to a toe injury, Cincinnati was clearly going to be missing a few gears in their passing game; a good showing from their run game would’ve been a great way to counteract their issues through the air.

It was going to be a tough mountain to climb in this matchup regardless (Cincinnati entered at No. 15 in rush offense DVOA, while Baltimore entered at fifth in rush defense DVOA), but what ended up happening was about as bad as things can get.

In a matchup of average rush offense versus great rush defense, the latter won handily: 16 rushes for 48 yards. They did have a rushing touchdown, but little else. They picked up less than five yards on all but one single attempt — and that was a scramble by Dalton, not a planned-out rushing effort.

The Cincinnati passing attack even without Green or a rushing attack was good enough to keep this game competitive, but sans Cincinnati’s star receiving option the Ravens were winning with physicality on the outside often (with Green out, Tyler Boyd and John Ross were the top guys available; they would catch just six of the eighteen passes thrown their way).

A successful rushing attack would’ve helped immensely along the scope of the game, and really could’ve been a game-changer in Cincinnati’s final efforts. Cincinnati’s second-to-last drive had Joe Mixon attempt two runs where he picked up a measly two yards; the second put his team in a third-and-8 which killed the drive (an incompletion and long field goal miss followed).

The final drive started strong with two completions for 27 combined yards, but with 2:00 and a timeout left, the Bengals never even tried to run and saw all their final three plays fall incomplete to secure the loss.

It’d be a tall task to expect these Bengals to run well against a Baltimore team ready to stop it, but to have the group be this ineffective on the ground left a short-handed team with even less ability to move the ball.