CLEVELAND _ After defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins' 113th NFL game in his ninth season Sunday, someone said to him after his first Bengals' sack, "Welcome to the AFC North."
"I've watched a few. Football junkie," said Rankins, who missed the North opener a few weeks ago against Baltimore with a hamstring injury. "On Sunday nights and Monday nights. And I always noticed how hard fought and how they always come down to the end. They're just physical games. Especially as a defensive tackle. What more could you ask for?"
Indeed, what more could the Bengals want after the 21-14 win here over the Browns came right out of the division specifications kit? The defensive line heaved to take away Nick Chubb and the offensive line huffed to counter Myles Garrett. A gritty win courtesy of grinding effort, complete with some Ja'Marr Chase salty swag.
"It got me a little excited today," said Chase after his 18-yard touchdown catch halfway through the third quarter let everyone breathe again with a 14-6 lead and he let Browns cornerback Greg Newsome II know it. "It was the perfect moment to (talk)."
Quarterback Joe Burrow pocketed his first division win since the heady 10-game winning streak in 2022 with a Hermetically sealed game of no turnovers and two deadly touchdown passes (one in the red zone and another on third-and-four), two musts in the tight games of the North. A special teams blanket (tucked in with two more Tycen Anderson tackles) and a ramrod run defense did the rest. And that's where Bengals head coach Zac Taylor flipped the game balls in the postgame locker room.
"Just got to find a way to win in this league. It's not always going to be pretty. We did today," Burrow said after the first win of the year in the division eclipsed his first win ever in Cleveland.
"That's what you have to do. Great teams find ways to win. I think we have a chance to be a great team. We're not that yet, but there's a lot of season left to play. So come back, learn from today and come back on Wednesday."
The Bengals broke out of their division doldrums by playing the AFC North game to perfection. Thanks to wide receiver Charlie Jones' 100-yard opening kick return and four more punts inside the 20-yard-line by rookie punter Ryan Rehkow, they gobbled up more than half a football field in a return advantage.
Plus, they tamed their two biggest Browns' nemeses in the Burrow era by running the ball and stopping the run. They allowed their third-fewest rushing yards in a division game in the last three years with 77 and are 2-1 in those games.
They only netted 2.4 yards per in their own rushing attack, but Jones' return allowed them to play with the lead and hand it off 22 times. When they've been able to do it at least 22 times in a division game in the last three years, they're 4-3.
"Charlie Jones making that play to start the game took a lot of pressure off us to play with a lead," said left end Sam Hubbard, the Cincinnati Kid who got his first win in Cleveland and first NFL interception. "We've always been down and try to claw our way back up here against their great pass rush and crowd noise. To have that and the defense get some stops and run the ball like we did … there's still work to be done."
Browns running back Nick Chubb, playing his first game in more than a year following ACL surgery, didn't get near his seventh 100-yard against Cincy with just 22 yards on 11 carries. Despite left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. (knee) leaving early in the second quarter with a right knee injury, Browns edge rusher Myles Garrett saw his seven-game streak of at least one sack against the Bengals snapped as they rallied to backup left tackle Cody Ford.
Garrett would not be the big sacker Sunday. That was Bengals Pro Bowl sacker Trey Hendrickson. In his 100th NFL game, he logged two more sacks to put him on pace for back-to-back 17-sack seasons.
(In that race for most sacks in the 2020, Hendrickson now has 60, trails Garrett by two, and both trail leader T.J. Watt's 66.5.)
"Great football. Great game. As a defensive player you couldn't dial it up any better," Rankins said. "Just a hard-fought, physical rugged game. Being able to control this thing from the jump, limit their big plays, and not allow them to run the ball. All their rush yards pretty much came when 17 (backup quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson) came in there and pulling the ball and we were having to adjust our game plan a little bit to his skill set.
"We're proud of that, being able to neutralize their backs. Nick Chubb, obviously one of the better backs in the league. With him coming back, we didn't t want them to feed off the moment. That was big, neutralizing him early."
For the second straight game they had their four top tackles and four top edge rushers healthy, and the rotation seems to be working after holding the Giants and Browns to three touchdowns combined in the last two weeks.
While Rankins had a sack and B.J. Hill deflected another pass, Hubbard had an interception and a sack, Hendrickson had his 11th multi-sack game as a Bengal, and backup edge Myles Murphy had a pass deflected in the end zone.
"When I'm tired, I'm empty in the bucket, Myles will come in and play at a high level and I feel like I can make more of an impact," Hubbard said. "B.J., Sheldon, Kris Jenkins, you have to have depth up front and to be able to roll through and you can see how being fresh helps everybody and being tired and being worn down is not good for anybody."
As their defensive line held the Cleveland backs to 33 yards (Chubb didn't get a run longer than three yards until late in the first half), the offensive line held Garrett to one hit on Burrow. With Orlando Brown (knee) staying on the sidelines to help his longtime college buddy Ford, Ford got a little help from his friends.
But not all that much different than the plan.
"Our plan was to chip (Garrett) every chance we got," said running back Zack Moss. "When Orlando was in there, we were going to chip him a lot. When Cody came in, everyone was chipping the same way. Nothing really changed there. We had some calls where (the backs) lined up on the side he was. When you've got a guy like that, one of the best pass rushers in the league, you have to have a plan for him."
Garrett, the reigning NFL Defensive Player of the Year, had a plan, too, but it didn't work. On the touchdown pass Burrow floated to Chase's back-shoulder at the front left pylon, Garrett was stymied by two rookies. He tried rookie right tackle Amarius Mims, but rookie tight end Erick All Jr., chipped Garrett on the way out for a pass before Mims engulfed him.
"He visited me quite a few times," Mims said. "When you play a guy like that, it's chips, licks, and everything to go along with that. You have to be able to find a way to neutralize their best player and I feel like we did a good job doing that. (Ford) is a ballplayer. Chipping and being physical."
On Burrow's third-and-four touchdown pass to wide receiver Tee Higgins from 25 yards out that gave them a 21-6 lead late in the third quarter, Garrett tried to go inside Ford, but Ford cut him off and got help from left guard Cordell Volson.
"I thought the linemen gave us plenty of enough to win," Zac Taylor said. "There will be some sacks on their resume, but ultimately I thought they gave us a performance that we could lean on to win a game like this."
For the second straight week, the Bengals churned out a complementary game. Slot cornerback Mike Hilton vowed it won't be the last with his defense off the hot seat and just plain hot.
"You tell me. Because, for the first five weeks, I'm pretty sure everybody's idea was 'this defense can't get it together,'" said Hilton after his team-leading 40th AFC North game had all the elements. "We've been playing well the last two weeks. I like the direction we're headed but we still got to get better."
