If it seems like Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow has been hot the last month, he has. According to Pro Football Reference, no quarterback has a better passer rating or completion percentage since he and his strained right calf found an oasis in the desert during the 34-20 win in Arizona on Oct. 8.
In those four games, Burrow has rung up a 111.2 passer rating and completed 75.8 percent of his passes. And, only the Lions’ Jared Goff has thrown for more yards (12) than any quarterback who has played four games in that stretch.
“He’s playing football at a really high level right now,” said offensive coordinator Brian Callahan Monday afternoon as the coaches continued to deconstruct the 24-18 win over the Bill at Sunday night here at Paycor Stadium.
He’s even hotter than the marvelous rookie quarterback who opposes him this Sunday at Paycor (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Local 12), when the Texans’ C.J. Stroud comes in fresh off his rookie-record 455-yard game against Tampa Bay. Stroud’s rating since Oct. 8 is 105.5, tied with the Cowboys’ Dak Prescott, behind only Burrow, and ahead of Kirk Cousins (103.2), Patrick Mahomes (100.2), and Tua Tagovailoa (100).
Burrow’s rounded off completion percentage of 76 in that stretch is ahead of the second-place Mahomes’ 71.7. On Sunday night Burrow followed up his 88% against the 49ers when he darted the Bills on 70.4%, hitting 31 of 44 passes for a season-high 348 yards.
“Hard to play much better. Truthfully, he was fantastic Tough game from their defense,” Callahan said. “They did a really nice job varying the looks, disguising the coverages … They made it challenging on him and it didn’t really seem to faze him at the end of the day.
“Just to see him handle that in his traditionally calm and cool collected way, it was pretty awesome. But he played about as good a game as you can play. (If not for) two batted balls, he was going to be over 80% again, which is pretty remarkable.”
Sunday’s play they put up on the bord to review Monday was the last big one, a 32-yard shot to wide receiver Tyler Boyd on the first snap after the Bills cut the lead to 24-18 with 3:32 left in the game. Suddenly in a one-score game, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor went aggressive.
As they did 30% of the time Sunday, the Bills blitzed, up from their normal 21% during the season but comparable to the 33% they brought it in last year’s AFC Divisional. Working against a six-man pressure, Burrow knew he had one-on-one coverage as running back Joe Mixon fought off linebacker Dorian Willliams, right tackle Jonah Williams jumped linebacker Tyrel Dodson and left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. and left guard Cordell Volson negotiated a stunt between edge A.J. Epenesa and tackle Ed Oliver. Burrow got it out just in time with Boyd clearly beating slot cornerback Taron Johnson.
“One of the things that we stressed is that if we protect and Joe has man coverage, like we’re going to have, they’re going to have a hard time covering us,” Callahan said. “It was a great, great rep of protection by Mixon, great job up front on a play that we’ve run from day one, an install play. So we know it well. Joe just had time and TB won the route and he threw a great ball.
“It was an aggressive call in the moment, but we needed to be aggressive there because we didn’t want to give the ball back to those guys. And we’re trying to gain some field position on top of it.”
Point taken. According to Pro Football Focus, Burrow hit 10 of 14 for 158 yards against the blitz.
2023-11-07 03:15:24
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