Cincinnati Bengals: Takeaways from Week 12 loss vs. Browns

The Cincinnati Bengals suffered an ugly loss at home to Ohio rivals, the Cleveland Browns. Looking back at how it happened and what to take away.

The early goings of this season showed positive signs for the Cincinnati Bengals. Five games in, they were 4-1 with a handful of clutch plays locking up victories in impressive fashion as their offense showed off the sort of high gear needed to compete with the best teams in a year of explosive offenses.

Since then, things have fallen apart, but in an understandable way. Their defense took on a heavy dose of key injuries, and that side of the ball has been on a historically bad pace while allowing opponents to run roughshod and unhindered all across the field. 4-1 was soon followed by 1-4, leaving this team grasping for a foothold.

One could be pardoned for assuming Cleveland would provide a breathe of fresh air — an easy target to tear apart and devour for sustenance — to a flailing Bengals team that once appeared to be on the fast track to the 2018 playoffs.

Apparently, Damarious Randall knew that sort of belief in these Bengals was misguided and faulty.

He was proven correct: with Green again on the sidelines, Cincinnati was blown off their own field in what is very likely the most depressing loss in a season that’s accumulated a stunning amount of contenders for that title in a short period of time.

This does not all simply fall on the absence of Green, however; rosters are made of more than one person, and these other options have a duty to step up when called upon. In this game, the non-Green Bengals obviously didn’t step up in any meaningful way (at least not when the game was within a decent margin) and they were thoroughly defeated.

Here are some other takeaways from a sour and sullen afternoon for the Cincinnati Bengals.