There were always going to be growing pains for this Cincinnati Bengals coaching staff.
The Bengals brought on a first-time coach in Zac Taylor and he turned right around and hired a largely inexperienced staff. It was clear from the jump things would take time.
One of those things was understanding the value of the running game, which he now freely admits, as he did with Bengals.com’s Geoff Hobson:
I thought it was significant that you stuck with the run game in overtime despite how they were playing it.
We’ve learned our lessons. You can’t just abandon it. It’s happened early in the year. Those are things we learned from.
Now plenty might argue the ground game isn’t so important. But it varies by team and in Cincinnati’s case, abandoning the run meant cutting out the team’s best offensive weapon — Joe Mixon.
Last year’s leading rusher in the AFC, who happens to have plenty of skill through the air, too, didn’t carry the ball more than 15 times in seven of his first 10 appearances this year. He has in five consecutive games now and is 25 yards removed from 1,000 yards.
This isn’t advocating for a pitch count. But it was painfully clear the coaches were going away from Mixon at inopportune times often and it played a part in the miserable start.
Alongside some subtle changes in approach to blocking itself, it should at least be comforting to hear the coaching staff has learned from the misguided approach here.
With this misuse potentially in the rearview, the next impasse with Mixon could be even more problematic — he’s going to need an extension soon.
[vertical-gallery id=26303]