{"id":221289,"date":"2025-10-13T10:37:08","date_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:37:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221289\/"},"modified":"2025-10-13T10:37:08","modified_gmt":"2025-10-13T10:37:08","slug":"cincinnati-bengals-qb-joe-flacco-brought-signs-of-life-to-offense-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/221289\/","title":{"rendered":"Cincinnati Bengals QB Joe Flacco brought signs of life to offense."},"content":{"rendered":"

GREEN BAY, Wisc. \u2013 There was one play in Sunday\u2019s 27-18 loss at Green Bay that epitomizes the optimism and confidence the Cincinnati Bengals<\/a> will carry into their next, rapidly approaching game despite the insistence they would not be carrying any moral victories or silver linings out of Lambeau Field.<\/p>\n

With the Bengals trailing 24-10 with 4:17 remaining, they were facing a fourth and 5 at the Packers 19-yard line.<\/p>\n

Quarterback Joe Flacco, who had been a member of the team for fewer than five full days, and Ja\u2019Marr Chase, who barely practiced with his new teammates this week due to illness, hooked up for a moment of magic.<\/p>\n

Despite Chase enveloped in tight coverage with cornerback Keisean Nixon and safety Xavier McKinney closing fast, Flacco threw a dart toward the front pylon and Chase snared it with his left arm while his right arm was pinned.<\/p>\n

Forget that it was a touchdown and that meaningful ones have been a vanishing commodity the last month.<\/p>\n

And forget the play itself, despite how insanely good both the throw and the catch were.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s what happened a few seconds before that should spark some belief that this Flacco-led offense can shake off the recent funk and put the team back in position to win games.<\/p>\n

Asked to describe the play, Chase bought some time with a couple of long, drawn-out ummms, seemingly trying to decide whether he should spill the truth of what really happened.<\/p>\n

Why?<\/p>\n

Because he changed head coach Zac Taylor\u2019s play call.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was actually called another play, but I was telling (Flacco) to change it because they were jumping a lot of routes,\u201d Chase said. \u201cBut they ended up clouding me instead of running three buzz to my side. It just ended up working. He just threw it up to me, and I just make the catch.\u201d<\/p>\n

The point here isn\u2019t that Chase overruled Taylor\u2019s play call.<\/p>\n

It wasn\u2019t a first.<\/p>\n

He said he\u2019s done that, \u201cevery here and there.\u201d<\/p>\n

It\u2019s that Flacco trusted Chase to go with his suggestion and the two players who barely know each other showed flashes of the chemistry the receiver has built over years with injured quarterback Joe Burrow to create one of the most impressive scores of the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cI can’t even tell you the description of the route we ran there,\u201d Taylor said when asked about the touchdown in his news conference. \u201cIt was one of those, ‘Here’s what they\u2019re going to do, let’s do this” situations.\u201d<\/p>\n

And during the frenetic final few minutes when the Bengals were trying to claw back into the game, there were more instances were things were being made up on the fly.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not all stuff that is on the call sheet,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cWe were having to adlib a little bit as you explore how they are playing our guys. You have to adjust as the game goes, and I thought he did an unbelievable job of handling that, just a description of a play at times. <\/p>\n

\u201cHe just made it work and found ways to get balls to our guys,\u201d Taylor added. \u201cHe knows where to find Ja\u2019Marr and Tee. Whether they were single covered or double covered, he gave them a chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chase finished with 10 catches for 94 yards and a touchdown. Higgins had five catches for 62 yards, both of which were season highs.<\/p>\n

Flacco overcame one of the worst offensive first halves of the Taylor era to breathe some real life and hope into the team with strong throws and smart decisions, dirting balls or sailing them out of bounds when things broke down to fight another play.<\/p>\n

The Bengals had one first down in the first four drives.<\/p>\n

After that, 19 first downs and 18 points.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought as an offense we settled in, you know probably sometime in the second quarter,\u201d Flacco said. \u201cAnd I thought that we were able to get over the hump in that quarter but we came out and played a good second half. But usually against a good football team, playing one good half isn\u2019t going to be good enough. <\/p>\n

\u201cBut we gave ourselves a chance there at the end and did some good things but just not enough early on,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

No one wanted to point to Flacco\u2019s unfamiliarity with everything about the offense, from personnel to play calls, as a reason for the slow start.<\/p>\n

But it was a real wall to scale.<\/p>\n

Even when Chase wasn\u2019t changing plays, what came in from the sideline wasn\u2019t always what Flacco ran.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember one play, I think we ended up kind of getting what we wanted. I think they got the pass interference on Ja\u2019Marr or the holding or whatever they called,\u201d Flacco said. \u201cBut I definitely didn\u2019t call the right play. And I said, that\u2019s kind of why I signaled out toe Ja\u2019Marr. \u2018Hey, you just run this route. I know we can get that done.\u2019 But overall, I think it went pretty well.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flacco\u2019s teammates agreed with that assessment.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought it was pretty smooth,\u201d center Ted Karras said. \u201cI don\u2019t think we had an operation miscues. The communication was really good.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt didn\u2019t feel like he had just got here,\u201d running back Chase Brown said. \u201cDay 1, I was\u00a0 really impressed with, just with his ability to recite plays. And then today, he did a really good job of being clear with the calls and making sure everybody was lined up properly. I commend him for that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Going from arriving on Tuesday and playing Sunday made for a short, hectic week.<\/p>\n

Another short, hectic week awaits as the Bengals have the closest thing to a must-win in October as you\u2019ll ever see Thursday night with the 4-1, division-leading Steelers coming to Paycor looking to extend Cincinnati\u2019s four-game losing streak.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is a long season, and I know it\u2019s easy to be down on yourself in hard times, but you know, playing with confidence shows,\u201d Flacco said. \u201cSo we\u2019ve got to find a way to kind of get some of that back. I think we do have the ability to do that. <\/p>\n

\u201cListen, we\u2019ve got a big week coming up, and these division games are always good matchups and going in and playing a good game this upcoming week could help a lot with that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"GREEN BAY, Wisc. \u2013 There was one play in Sunday\u2019s 27-18 loss at Green Bay that epitomizes the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":220739,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-221289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=221289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/221289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/220739"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=221289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=221289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=221289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}