Tom E. Curran and Mike Felger weigh in on Boston Sports Tonight about how the Patriots upsetting the Bengals on opening night could change the narrative for the Patriots heading into the season
Each week this season, as the Patriots work their way through their first year under Jerod Mayo and Eliot Wolf, we'll take a look at their latest opponent and see if there's an aspect of their football operation worth imitating as the new regime in New England works to mold its team into a contender.
This week we're looking at the Bengals, whose prolific passing attack with Joe Burrow, Ja'Marr Chase and Tee Higgins is likely the envy of every team in the NFL but one. (The Chiefs have done OK for themselves.)
When it comes to what the Patriots should try to imitate, the obvious answer would be to surround Drake Maye with the types of high-end pass-catchers Burrow has been able to work with the last several seasons. Higgins was drafted in the second round in the same year as Burrow (2020). Chase, who played with Burrow at LSU, was taken at the top of the first round the very next year.
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Not surprisingly, their passing game took off.
The Patriots have already ticked one of those boxes by taking a rookie wideout in the second round to pair with their rookie quarterback.
Ja'Lynn Polk is a different type of receiver than Higgins. He's not the prototypical "X" who will live along the sideline and make his money on jump balls. But Polk can make contested catches himself, and he has the route-running chops and toughness that Wolf and Mayo felt made him worthy of the No. 37 overall choice. He'll be part of what's expected to be a four-wideout rotation Sunday in Cincinnati, along with DeMario Douglas, K.J. Osborn and Tyquan Thornton.
So... take another wideout at the top of the draft in 2025 and mission accomplished, right?
That would be the easy answer. And it's a path the Patriots may still prefer depending on where they end up in the draft and the talent available to them.
But the aspect of the Bengals offense that may be more adaptable for the decision-makers in Foxboro is Cincinnati's offensive adaptability under head coach Zac Taylor.
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Taylor arrived in Cincinnati fresh off a two-year stretch as an assistant to Sean McVay, who as a branch off the Mike Shanahan tree ran an offense that featured plenty of under-center passing concepts. Taylor also cut his NFL teeth in Miami for four years under head coach Joe Philbin, who worked for dyed-in-the-wool West Coast disciple Mike McCarthy in Green Bay, where under-center play was highly valued. (Patriots offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt and offensive assistant Ben McAdoo are both former McCarthy assistants.)
When Burrow was drafted No. 1 overall, instead of putting him under center frequently and operating a more traditional West Coast plan of attack, Taylor did what was best for his quarterback and played him in the shotgun. A lot.
In Burrow's first two seasons, per Sports Info Solutions, the Bengals ranked third (2020) and second (2021) in spread dropbacks from the shotgun. Coming from a spread system at LSU that led to a historic 2019 for Burrow and a Heisman Trophy, that kind of turn for Taylor made sense. Soon, with the addition of Chase, the offense flourished. Burrow led the league both in completion percentage (69.9 percent) and yards per attempt (8.6) in 2021 while chucking the ball an average distance of 8.2 yards down the field.
In 2022, Taylor pivoted again. Even with his bevy of explosive weapons, opposing defenses used two-high safety shells to protect against Burrow's deep shots. The answer? Throw short.
The Bengals continued to rank near the top of the league in shotgun spread attempts (second behind only Washington), but Burrow's average depth of target dropped by more than half a yard (7.6) and his yards per attempt dropped over a yard (7.3). Still, he remained one of the most efficient passers in football, ranking second in yards (5,195) and completion percentage (68.0).
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In 2023, the Bengals showed a willingness to pivot once again. Though still erring on the side of playing from the shotgun prior to Burrow's season-ending wrist injury, they appeared to start to lean toward mixing in more under-center looks to diversify their attack.
Burrow only dropped back to pass three times from under center in Week 8 against the 49ers, but the Bengals ran 11 times from under center and showed they could be effective against one of the best defenses in football by mixing up their attack with Burrow crouched behind Ted Karras. They went under center on four of their first 10 plays that day -- something even the team's website noted was an outlier after the fact -- and one resulted in a 15-yard pass play to Chase. They rode their shaken-up attack to a dominating 31-17 win on the road.
Burrow's injury didn't allow for the Bengals to show what they could be as an under-center offense for long, but they continued to work in under-center looks with Jake Browning in at quarterback. They ranked in the middle of the pack (18th) in under-center attempts between Weeks 11 and 18, and in that span they ranked 10th in yards per pass attempt when under center (10.1 yards).
The Bengals got Burrow comfortable early in his career by getting him weapons and sticking him in the shotgun. They asked him to launch it deep. Then short. Then they toyed with getting him under center.
Though there may be some stubbornness in Burrow's game when it comes to his preference of playing from the gun, Taylor has shown a willingness to both cater to his best player while pushing a diversified attack and tweaking his scheme from year to year.
Taylor's weapons have helped his offense find success. And his quarterback has operated with machine-like efficiency. But the head coach's open-minded approach has helped Cincinnati remain among the elites when it comes to offensive football for several years now, and it's one worth studying for the Patriots.
