CHARLOTTE, N.C. _ Joe Burrow talked about being more vocal last week in practice and Sunday he took it to the locker room when he gave a rare pregame speech to speak it into reality by quarterbacking the Bengals to their first win of the season in a 34-24 victory over the Panthers.
Burrow wouldn't elaborate after outpitching old friend Andy Dalton on two touchdown passes, 232 yards, and a 100.5 passer rating. But leading an offensive line that gobbled up 4.5 yards per 31 stubborn run calls by head coach Zac Taylor on 141 yards rushing, Bengals left tackle Orlando Brown Jr. did after his unit was given a game ball.
"Backs against the wall. Knowing, understanding the expectations," Brown said. "One-week seasons. He's spoken up in those kinds of situations like this before, after losses.
"I think he's done a great job being vocal throughout this season and since I've been here he's been more vocal.
Burrow made it sound like it was spur of the moment. But he agreed he did it because of the urgency to get to 1-3.
"It just felt right," Burrow said. "I'm not a big pregame speech guy. I get my mind right and try to keep myself as calm as possible because emotions are so high pregame. It's an intense league so I try to keep myself as low and as even-keel as possible."
JUMPING JOE
This is how fired up Burrow was.
On third-and-three from the Bengals 37, Burrow had plenty of time to hit wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase with his first target of the game seven minutes into the second quarter.
Running left to right through a zone, Chase got the first down then blew through safety Xavier Woods' attempted shoulder tackle and sprinted out of the attempted grasp of linebacker Charles Harris
By that time, Chase was steaming down the left sideline for 63 yards and his longest touchdown catch since the Dec. 4 Monday nighter in Jacksonville last year.
Burrow raced down field and happily launched into Chase as the Bengals were about to take a 14-7 lead. Chase said it was the most excited he's seen Burrow greet him since he hit him for a touchdown just before the half in Pittsburgh in Chase's rookie year of 2021.
"It was time for me to make a play like that on the run," said Chase after finishing with 85 yards on three catches. "Make a run like that after the catch. I think we both felt all the adrenaline and pumped up and all excited. It wasn't supposed to happen."
NO MOSS
The biggest play of the game was the last one of the first half and it was a huge-risk-huge-reward.
With six seconds left on the Carolina 1, Burrow flipped a swing pass to running back Zack Moss on the right perimeter and Moss slipped, and it looked the clock was going to run out with the Bengals not being able to kick a field goal.
But Moss scrambled to his feet and ran through old friend Nick Scott at safety to give the Bengals a 21-14 lead with one second left in the half.
"I trusted Zack to go make that play," Burrow said. "I thought he had enough space. Maybe not one of my best decisions, but it worked out for us."
It worked out because Moss overcame his surprise and found his feel.
"I had no intention of making that play in the moment. Unless it was a scramble drill or something like that," Moss said. "Usually that's something you don't want to do at that moment.
"I had my momentum going to the right. The ball caught me off guard … I saw the dude outside of me and then tried to launch it into the end zone."
It capped a monstrous 66-yard drive by Burrow that began with 69 seconds left in the half and saw wide receiver Tee Higgins draw two pass interference calls to go with his six catches for 60 yards, all in the first half.
One flag put the ball on the Bengals 8 when Burow beat the blitz lofting it to Higgins one-one with cornerback Mike Jones for a 17-yard flag. The next came in the end zone with cornerback Jaycee Horn draped on him.
But the decisive play in the day's biggest drive came on Burrow's 29-yard's sift job dropped perfectly down the middle of the field. It had to be thrown into a former Bengals sandwich of Nick Scott and cornerback Troy Hill and wide receiver Andrei Iosivas took a humungous shot that crumpled him. But he not not only held on, he didn't come out of the game.
HOMEGROWN STOP
The Bengals defense gave up 375 yards, 155 of them on the ground, but their goal-line stand on the first series of the game carried the day.
"It set the tone," Burrow said.
And the guy who made the stop on fourth-and-one was none other than rookie tackle Kris Jenkins Jr.. in the building he watched his father go to Pro Bows.
"Gives us some chills," Jenkins said. "I'll definitely talk some trash to my dad. Nothing crazy."
It's already crazy. Senior wasn't there, but a bunch of his teammates honoring his defensive linemate Julius Peppers were. And they remembered the little kid who grew up to be the Bengals' second-round pick.
"Seeing Pops' former teammates in the crowd who I used to see as a little kid … I saw some old fans and they said something," Jenkins said.
From what Jenkins could gather, the stop on running back Chubba Hubbard came about when "everyone just did their job and we got that push across the line." As for playing another game with a club to protect his surgically-repaired thumb, he said, "It's a work in progress, but I would probably say the same thing about two hands."
ANTHONY ANSWERS
His mates and coaches pumped up rookie safety Daijahn Anthony after the last-second flag in Kansas City two weeks ago by telling him he was going to make a big play for them soon.
Sunday, he did.
Make that a huge play.
Trailing, 28-14 late in the third quarter, the Panthers tried a fake punt on fourth-and-three. Long-in-the-tooth Panthers punter Johhny Hekker, who Bengals head coach Zac Taylor knows well from their days at the Rams, loves to throw.
"I've seen Johnny Hekker throw a lot of passes in my lifetime. It's something (the Bengals) talk about," Taylor said. "I told him in pregame, 'No passes today.' He didn't really give me information one way or the other what was going to happen."
Hekker pulled off another one when he floated a 15-yarder over the middle to tight end Feleipe Franks. Franks caught it, but he didn't come down with it because Anthony got a hand in there to knock it away
"Great job by Daijahn. Key play, key moment. Makes the ball come out," Taylor said.
VONN RINGS BELL
Last week someone told Bengals safety Vonn Bell he was going to pick off Dalton. And he did for the first interception Dalton has thrown against his old mate in four starts.
The pick came courtesy of another maniacal pass rush from the blistering Trey Hendrickson, who already came in with three sacks. On the Panthers' second possession in a scoreless game, Hendrickson grabbed Dalton's arm as he was throwing and Bell caiught the popup at the Panthers 48 and ran 32 yards the otjher way to set up the game's first touchdown.
The only way Hendrickson has been cooled off is when he suffered a neck injury with eight-and-a-half minutes left and had to leave for good. He left the locker room with an arm in a sling.
"I'm glad he was there," Bell said of Hendrickson. "It's a good feeling. It's tough to win in this league. Now We have to start stacking them."
"Must win. Guys running downhill, making plays, running around" Bell said of the goal-line stop. "There are some things we can clean up. Life in the NFL."
It was an eventful day for the secondary. No. 1 cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt ended up in a rotation with DJ Turner after Dalton made some big plays against the back end.. Turner came off the bench, played well, and had a pass defensed in the end zone
"Some of it's in game. Just as the game evolves," Taylor said of the rotation. "I think overall DJ Turner has really practiced well and very limited opportunities done well. He had the pick against Kansas City that got called back, so sometimes it's about guys deserving an opportunity, not so much about what's happening with other guys."
