Why This Might Be The Year That Joe Burrow, Bengals Get Over The Hump

Are Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals really back? Needing overtime to get past the Tennessee Titans isn’t the greatest endorsement, but Cincinnati is 5-2, and Burrow is off to the best start of his career, and an easy remaining schedule could set them up for a big return to the NFL playoffs after a three-year drought. Burrow threw three interceptions Sunday, but was able to offset that by throwing for 462 yards and five touchdowns, giving him 13 touchdown passes in the last three weeks. His league-high 20 touchdown passes are three more than he’s ever had after seven games, and he also has the most passing yards (2,115), highest passer rating (111.6) and best completion percentage (an NFL-best 73.0) he’s ever had at this stage of the season. Burrow leading a prolific offense is nothing new, with arguably the best 1-2 receiver combo in the league in Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins. Tight end Mike Gesicki is having a career year at age 31, with touchdown catches in six of Cincinnati’s seven games to already match a career high in touchdowns. Perhaps the most encouraging thing for the Bengals, though, is the progress they’ve made on defense, which had truly limited their success in recent years. A year ago, Cincinnati gave up 30.7 points per game at this point, but the 2026 Bengals are a full touchdown better, allowing 22.7 points per game, jumping from 30th to 14th in the league. Their red zone defense is dramatically better: After giving up touchdowns on 63% of opposing drives inside the 20 last year, they’re down to 42% this season, jumping from 24th in the NFL to fifth. Even more dramatic is the way they’re getting to opposing quarterbacks. Last year’s Bengals ranked 23rd in the league in sacks, with Myles Murphy leading the team with 5.5 sacks. Free-agent addition Boye Mafe has already matched that total with 5.5 of his own. Defensive tackle Dexter Lawrence, acquired from the Giants for the No. 10 overall pick in this year’s draft, has five as well. His latest sack helped the Bengals send Sunday’s game against the Titans into overtime, coming in a clutch moment. They’re third in the NFL with 23 sacks and they’ve already had their bye week, putting them on pace for a franchise-record 56 sacks. Then, there’s the schedule. Only four of the Bengals’ 10 remaining opponents have winning records, and two of those are the Cleveland Browns. The Bengals lost their first meeting with Pittsburgh, so getting a home win against the Steelers next weekend is a must, but they still have three games against NFC South teams and another against the fire-selling Indianapolis Colts. Burrow has never finished higher than fourth in MVP voting, but if he stays healthy, he’s in good shape to do better than that. As it stands, he has the third-best odds to take home MVP honors, behind only Buffalo’s Josh Allen and San Francisco’s Brock Purdy. The Bengals’ next win will match their total from last year (6-11), and it’s possible they’ll challenge the franchise record of 12 wins. Cincinnati hasn’t hosted a playoff game beyond the wild-card weekend since 1988, but if the Bengals just take care of lesser opponents as they have, they could have a chance to do that in January. There were so many strange stats from Sunday’s Falcons-Buccaneers game, which Tampa Bay won 16-0 without completing a single pass, the first NFL team to do so in 52 years. One you might not have noticed: Falcons receiver Drake London had more tackles than receptions. London, defended well by the Buccaneers, had just one catch on six targets for 8 yards, but he also had two tackles after interceptions thrown by quarterback Michael Penix Jr. The NFL calls tackles by offensive players after turnovers “miscellaneous tackles,” and the Falcons have had enough turnovers that London already has six this season, twice that of any other NFL player. It’s an odd skill to have. Bengals receiver Ja’Marr Chase led the NFL in 2024 and 2025 in such tackles, and has a forced fumble this year as well. If the Falcons keep turning the ball over, London has a chance to be just the second player in 25 years to have double-digit miscellaneous tackles in a season, following Eagles receiver Jeremy Maclin, who had 11 in 2014. London is only in his fifth NFL season, but he already has 17 tackles as an offensive player. Those aren’t coming on special teams, either. The Las Vegas Raiders’ Dylan Laube had the first kickoff return touchdown of the season on Sunday, so it took the league eight weeks to find the end zone for the first time in the third year of the new “dynamic” kickoff model. That puts the NFL on pace for a significant dropoff in kickoff-return touchdowns. There were seven in the first year with the new format in 2024 and six last year. It would seem the league’s coverage units are outsmarting the returners, with more and more kickoffs aimed short, trusting the coverage units to be able to keep the return short of the 35-yard-line given on a touchback. In 2024, 30 of 32 NFL teams had at least 30% touchbacks, with 19 over 60%. Last year, the Rams led the league with a 56% touchback rate as one of three teams over 30%, and this year, the Dolphins lead the NFL at 44% as the only team over 30%. That means more kickoffs are being returned, but far fewer are breaking through the initial wave of tacklers. This year has had 1,218 kickoffs, but just 42 of them went to midfield or further, just 3.44%. And it’s no surprise that Laube would get the first touchdown. He leads the NFL with a 34.1-yard average and has five returns of 40-plus yards, two more than any other player. Buffalo’s Ray Davis led the league with six returns of 40-plus yards last season, and had one of the six touchdowns as well.