Monday night's matchup lived up to the Heisman hype at Paycor Stadium when the Commanders' Jayden Daniels needed an NFL rookie-record performance to fend off the Bengals' Joe Burrow in a 38-33 victory.
The two LSU quarterbacks who won the Heisman five years apart hugged after the game with Burrow pulling the younger man's head to him so he could hear him as they briefly spoke.
While the intoxicating Daniels ran the Washington fast break to miss just two of his 23 passes for his record 91% passing, Burrow returned to his stately self by becoming just the second quarterback this year to fire three touchdown passes and 300 yards (324).
"I'm watching him, he played great. I told him that after the game," Burrow said. "Congrats to him. Big-time performance. Credit to them. They played unbelievable. We didn't quite match their level of execution."
But it was the Burrow' best execution since the Bengals took down the 49ers on the road last October with a 134.8 passer rating. On Monday, Burrow sifted 29 of 38 passes for a 127.5, his second best rating over the last 22 games dating back to Halloween night 2022.
His touchdown lobs of 41 and 31 yards to both pylons to three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase marked Chase's first multiple touchdown game in nearly a year and receiver running mate Tee Higgins’ 2024 debut added two bone-crushing third-down conversions as Chase saluted "the good old days."
Burrow's eyes lit up when he saw Chase one-on-one on the first series, and he deposited the 41-yard touchdown pass down the left sideline. The next time the Commanders seemed to go man again was with 9:42 left in the game, and Chase beat it down the other sideline for a 31-yard touchdown. After a frustrating first two games where he was shut out of the end zone and his longest catch was 28 yards, Chase sensed the offense is back.
"They did a good job staying in the cloud and forcing me to move around and make it hard for me," Chase said. "It felt good to, honestly, make a play. It looks like Joe trusts me again and we'll keep going."
And then there was yet another wide receiver, Andrei Iosivas, catching his second fourth-and-goal touchdown pass in as many weeks. His 25 NFL catches include a very efficient seven red-zone touchdowns.
Throw in 124 yards sparked by Chase Brown’s career-high 62 yards on a monstrous seven carries and the Bengals offense operated with River Fest explosion before a crowd of 66,207. Their 436 total yards are their second most over this season and last year.
"That's how we want the offense to roll. That was really it," Chase said.
It was the first home prime-time loss for Burrow and head coach Zac Taylor, but the tenth biggest crowd in Paycor history got some history. Not only did they see Daniels and Burrow put on a Heisman show, but they also saw the first NFL game in 84 years in which neither team punted or turned it over.
The last time it happened, Paul Brown was coaching Massillon High School.
But it wasn't enough for Brown's last team because Daniels, born the year Paycor opened as Paul Brown Stadium, was lights out. Every time he touched the ball, the Commanders scored.
"He looked good. I'm not going to lie. He looked really good out there," Chase said. "He looked like Lamar Jackson, but he can throw it more. He's going to be good one day. A star."
The Bengals just couldn't corral Daniels on three fourth-down tries. His 30-yard catch-and-run shot to rookie wide receiver Luke McCaffrey on fourth-and-two on the first series set the tone for the game. His fourth-and-four flip against the blitz to tight end Zach Ertz on the last series sealed it.
"You can't just sit there and take the three and give the ball back to Joe Burrow,' said Washington guard Nick Allegretti. "Not a great idea. You've got to go win the game, and we did, and that was very cool."
It was run-and-gun at its coolest.
The Bengals' two failures to score touchdowns in the red zone proved fatal. They had a first-and-goal from the 8-yard line and had to settle for a field goal when Burrow took a sack, but Taylor was thinking of a drive that didn't reach the red zone and ended with no points when Evan McPherson hooked a 48-yard field goal.
It came after Higgins converted a third down with a 14-yard shot over the middle and he fumbled after his knee touched. The Bengals hurried up.
'We kind of wasted a possession. We thought there might have been a fumble, so we rushed the ball one time," Taylor said, "and then we ran a screen on the second-down play and the corner blitzed and blew it up. That's the one that kind of kills me there, because we had two plays that didn't get us yardage, and I felt like the other plays on other drives, we were pretty efficient. That was a tough one."
Daniels made it tough. He saved his best throw for his last with 2:10 left and facing a third and seven. Just as safety Geno Stone drilled him on a blitz, Daniels let it fly off his back foot and dropped a pearl to wide receiver Terry McLaurin in the end zone, who caught it even though cornerback Dax Hill was draped all over after catching up to his double move.
"I was off zero coverage," said Hill of the all-out blitz, "and he put the ball in his hands."
Burrow still answered with a touchdown drive as running back Zack Moss cut it to 38-33 with 40 seconds left when he bounced a one-yard touchdown run outside. It ended a most productive night for a running game that handled one of the league's top defensive tackle tandems in Daron Payne and Jonathan Allen.
"We knew that they were going to penetrate hard and we're going to take advantage of that, on some of the run schemes," Chase Brown said. "It opened up the passing game. And we're just going to look to continue this trend and keep being an explosive offense."
Burrow is liking how the running game is setting up coverages that can free Chase deep. The first one came on play-action with Burrow under center in a double tight end set one snap after Moss went for 15 yards behind the same set.
"We caught a couple, one in single-high coverage today. I'm not sure how much more we're going to see of that," Burrow said. "(Chase) caught it two times and we scored two touchdowns. We'll see if teams continue to do that. I hope they do. We're going to continue to try to take advantage of our opportunities.
"I liked the calls we had. We executed them. That was exciting to see. We'll watch the tape and see some red zone opportunities that we could have had."
If anyone wasn't surprised about what Daniels did, it was his Bayou ancestor Burrow. He almost got him in a classic on the river.
"We knew pretty early what kind of game it was going to be. For the most part, we answered," said Burrow, looking at Sunday's red zone in Carolina.
