Bengals Greatest Offensive Season Echoes '88: Finding Boomer's Open Man | GAME WITHIN THE GAME 

When Joe Burrow’s three-yard arrow to wide receiver Tee Higgins Saturday night at Paycor Stadium gave them the walk-off touchdown win over Denver, it officially certified them as the greatest Bengals offense of all time.

We already knew it. If Ja’Marr Chase’s run for the NFL receiving Triple Crown run didn't tell you that, then Burrow's weekly statistical duels with Pro Football Hall of Fame busts did.

But it was that touchdown that gave them 453 points, five more than the 1988 Bengals and their Cincinnati pops of an offense conducted by Boomer Esiason.

"It shows you how good we were," says Norman Julius Esiason, still firing from the hip like he did in '88 when he led the NFL in passing and the Bengals to the Super Bowl.

The team record for 16 games had withstood turn-of-the-century rule changes tilted to offense, the drafting of two overall No. 1 quarterbacks and new stadiums built as yardage greenhouses. And they still needed Saturday night's chain reaction of improbability to get to that last play of overtime in the 16^th game of the year to do it.

To the applause of their 1988 distant cousins.

And make no mistake. They're watching this Saturday night's season finale (8-Cincinnati's Channel 9 and ESPN) in Pittsburgh that the Bengals must win. With the footnote that they need eight points to break the 2021 team record for points in 17 games.

"The reason I like this team is they remind me so much of us," says Tim McGee, one of Esiason's receivers. "We knew we could only stop ourselves. I love it. There's just not enough corners. Pick your poison."

Esiason doesn't want to come off like the old guy on the lawn. After all, he's the guy who wanted a statue of Burrow on the riverfront green space before they even drafted him.

"It's still football. Different rules for different players mean different outcomes," Esiason says. "You can still get hurt on every single play. It's still extremely physical and it's right there have been changes for player safety."

Or, as McGee says, a game not better or worse. Just different.

The Bengals led the league with 448 points and more than 6,000 yards in 1988. This year they're sixth in points and sixth in yards. Four teams hit 6,000 yards, and the Ravens are leading the league this year with more than 700 yards than the '88 Bengals.

And the Jets' Al Toon led the league with 93 catches, the Rams' Henry Ellard with 1,414 receiving yards and the Dolphins' Mark Clayton with 14 touchdown catches. Chase had those numbers halfway through December.

But there are enough similarities to the offenses of 1988 and 2024 to get Esiason thinking.

Fun to watch. Score at any time. If head coach Sam Wyche was unpredictable, these Bengals of head coach Zac Taylor seem to come up with any game at any time.

"Same dynamic. It feels that way," Esiason says.

Charismatic quarterbacks?

"That guy was a jackass," says Esiason with a laugh.

But the quarterback play is what ties these two teams together.

"You can just tell about certain people," says McGee, who calls Esiason the most underrated leader of all-time. "There have been a lot of great quarterbacks. But who can command the position, an offense, a team, an organization? When you look at Joe Burrow and look at Boomer, it's scary what they did. I was part of it. Now I'm actually seeing it. Boomer knew what the damn defense was doing before the defense knew what it was doing."

That's the stuff you hear about Burrow and you don't have to be at Paycor every day to see it. Jim Anderson, the Bengals running backs coach then, saw how intricately Esiason worked with Wyche piecing together the no huddle offense.

"Burrow is the guy orchestrating everything. He gets them in the right spots doing the right things," says Anderson, who believes that defined the '88 offense. "The communication aspect of it. Boomer was the head guy, the orchestra leader. We had very few bad plays. That's the same thing. Eliminate the bad plays, stay even with the sticks, and sometimes the quarterback has to make a play with his legs."

Esiason loves how Burrow orchestrates. That's the one similarity he sees.

"Get the ball to the open guy. Let him make a mistake or be the hero. Don't force the issue," Esiason says. "When he needs a big play, he likes to go to Ja'Marr, but the thing that reminds me the most of our '88 team is that a lot of people get involved."

And this is why Esiason loves Burrow.

"Go back and read the stories you wrote when he was getting drafted. Just go back and read what I told you then," Esiason says. The intangibles. The ability to see the game. He was an all-state point guard, right? That game moves fast, just like football. He knows how to read defenses. I don't think he plays favorites. He likes to throw it to Ja'Marr, but I think he reads a defense and is prepared to throw the ball around. That's the biggest compliment you can give any quarterback."

Like the sport in 1988, the Bengals were more balanced. They were 11^th in passing and first in rushing. This year, they're first in passing, 29^th in rushing.

"Our offense was based on play-action," says Jim McNally, the offensive line coach who teamed with Jim Anderson to form that No. 1 running game. "That's the biggest difference. We ran it a lot more and didn't throw it three-quarters of the time. But that's the game now. Boomer would fake it. He was very involved in the offense with Sam. He was outstanding and we had great running backs. Think about it. Stanford Jennings was our fourth running back."

Rookie running back Ickey Woods rushed for more than 1,000 yards, and James Brooks almost did. Fullback Stanley Wilson had a 100-yard rushing game. The running backs room then is like the wide receivers room now. Anybody can break out. (Note No. 3 receiver Andrei Iosivas’ best two games have come the last two weeks with 59 and 53 yards.)

"What's missing today is the fullback," Anderson says, "but they do a great job with their tight ends doing that, and getting the ball to the tight end.

"They have so many weapons. I look at how many guys they hit with passes. He spreads the ball around like we did. We had Eddie Brown and Tim McGee and Rodney Holman."

Last Saturday night, Bengals tight end Mike Gesicki matched Holman's club record for most catches by a tight end in a game with 10. It also marked the first time in Bengals history they had three receivers with at least nine catches, Elias says. A very 1988ish stat.

Holman was the all-around Pro Bowl tight end made for the 20^th-century style of play. A third blocking tackle, really, who could stretch the field and was the second-leading receiver with 39 catches for the '88 team led by Pro Bowl wide receiver Eddie Brown's 53 catches. But they also had a three-time Pro Bowler in Cris Collinsworth and a future Pro Bowler in McGee.

"You stop Eddie or stop the run, then Tim or Cris gets you," McGee says. "No matter how much time was on the clock, if you gave us a minute and gave us the ball, there was not a person on the offense or the defense or in the stands, or you as a writer who did not think we weren't going to score. And if we didn't, you were disappointed because that's what you expected. That's the biggest similarity between the two teams."

And there's this:

This Saturday night, the Bengals are playing their fifth prime-time game on the road, a record for a season. That's nothing. With the last vestiges of the '88 team, the blond-bomber quarterback and his Bengals played three road prime-timers in October of 1990. Long before flexing, but right smack in the middle of the multi-purpose stadium era, and the wire-to-wire Reds needed Riverfront Stadium for the World Series.

Esiason, the long-time NFL Today studio host who isn't there this season for the first time in a quarter-of-a-century, still has ties to the networks.

"They love us," Esiason says.

Then and now as the points flow.