Joe Burrow, the old All-State Ohio point guard, spread the ball to everyone against the stingy but susceptible Raiders and again made the pocket his own personal playground at Paycor Stadium during Sunday's 41-24 win he had called a must a few days before.
Burrow seemed to find everyone: From Ja’Marr Chase’s seven catches that put him in 11th place on the Bengals' all-time list with 323, to Mike Gesicki's 290th, a 47-yard touchdown that puts him 12th among all tight ends since 2018, to wide receiver Kendric Pryor’s first NFL catch, to Tanner Hudson’s first catch since the opener.
Then after Burrow hit eight receivers for 251 yards while throwing a career-best five touchdowns for the second time this season, he dished a captain's locker-room reality. Before they celebrated with the Who Dey Think Gonna Beat Them Bengals chant, Burrow jumped in after head coach Zac Taylor finished.
And guys from running back Chase Brown after the first 100-yard day of his career to defensive end Sam Hubbard after his 99th game were all ears.
"Joe said after the game, we needed to win that game 10 out of 10 times," Brown said. "I'm glad we got the win, but it's already 'Wednesday' today, so now we've got to get ready for 'Thursday.'"
Burrow, who has dabbled in the study of time travel, fast-forwarded the short week that culminates in Baltimore Thursday night (8:15-Amazon Prime) for another AFC North all-nighter. He reminded them they travel on Wednesday, so in a normal NFL week, that made the day of the Raiders game already a Wednesday.
Basically, Burrow told them don't celebrate. Go home. If the season is worth anything, Thursday is another must at 4-5 against the 6-3 Ravens.
"Like Joe said after the game, if we want to do anything with this season, we've got to win on Thursday," said Hubbard of his 100th game. "It's already Wednesday. Go home. Get sleep. Get your back. Quick turnaround be ready to go."
Gesicki, savoring the Bengals' first 100-yard game by a Bengals tight end that included multiple touchdowns in a decade, also got the memo. His two performances of "The Jersey Griddy," were now a distant postcard.
"That was three days ago," Gesicki said.
But it was recent enough for Gesicki, a veritable NFL vagabond who arrived in Cincinnati this year for his seventh season with almost the same number of quarterbacks in his huddle, to appreciate this quarterback
"That man is one of one and I mean that in the most positive way," Gesicki said of Burrow. "He's incredible with his demeanor. The way he carries himself, just his swagger. We go as he goes. Today five touchdowns, we go."
He was also telling them where he wanted them to go as he stalked off the field fuming even before Gesicki got into the end zone on his wide-open 47-yarder down the seam that made it 38-17 with 5:37 left.
For 54 minutes, Burrow had patiently sliced away at the Raiders' shifting zones and finally got that defense to allow its first 40-plus pass of the season while racking up his sixth 100-plus passer rating of the season.
And he looked absolutely miserable.
"We didn't exactly have a very good third quarter. There's just a combination of things that I felt like we didn't do good enough," Burrow said. "I'm not just going to ignore the bad and dwell on the great that we did today. I don't think that's a recipe for improvement. I don't think that's a recipe for getting better. I'm going to be hard on myself. I'm going to be hard on us to execute the way that I feel like we need to. And I feel like we didn't put ourselves in great positions in times of that game to finish off the right way. We ended up doing it. The defense came up big, but I think we could have done better."
He could have been talking about giving up the fifth career pick-six of his career to cornerback Jack Jones on a screen pass to wide receiver Ja'Marr Chase.
He could have been talking about Chase's dropped pass on third-and-two with 6:28 left down the right sideline that would have been his biggest play during a gritty 43-yard day the Raiders blanketed him.
Or he could have been talking about simply having to punt three times in the second half after scoring on all their drives in the first half.
"I think just how the season has gone, knowing what's ahead of us, knowing what we're going to have to do to get back into this," Burrow said. "One win isn't going to make or break our season. So, I'm going to strive for perfection every — every day and every game. So, until that happens, what's there to be happy about?"
Happiness is converting a fourth-and-three on the first drive, the biggest play of the game that's buried in all the plays that were to come in the following 53 minutes.
And it was consummate Burrow.
With another huge gathering of 65,962 stirring uneasily with the Raiders' 7-0 lead, Taylor read the room from the Vegas 20. Especially his quarterback.
Burrow was not surprised.
"That's where we are and specifically how they play," Burrow said. "There's going to be completions when you get the ball out quickly. So I felt confident in that situation. Especially early in the game. They had just gone down and scored. It would be tough to settle for a field goal in that situation."
This is what you wanted on fourth down last week, right?
Burrow scanning the field from the shotgun. Four wide. Gesicki, fellow tight end Tanner Hudson and wide receiver Andrei Iosivas split to the right. Chase left by himself one-on-one with cornerback Jakorian Bennett split to the left. Burrow got the snap and instantly looked for Chase. With Bennett close and the pocket collapsing, Burrow did what he does better than anybody and climbed through the maze to an opening up the middle and gunned on the run a seed to Hudson beating a very good nickel cornerback in Nate Hobbs over the middle for 11 yards.
With wide receiver Tee Higgins out with a quad injury and a game plan that was heavily edited Saturday when wide receiver Jermaine Burton was benched, Burrow used everybody. It was Hudson's third catch of the season and first since he fumbled at the goal line in the opener.
It foreshadowed Burrow's 11-yard touchdown to Gesicki off a semi-scramble drill when Burrow climbed out of trouble again.
"I knew I would have gotten it in a cover three or some kind of zone. I saw man coverage. I didn't think I was the answer there," Gesicki said. "Pre-snap, I told myself if I don't get this ball right out of my break, I'm going to the scramble drill immediately."
The fourth down to Hudson set up a third-down one-yard touchdown pass to Chase Brown on a scramble drill where Brown worked his own magic to stay in-bounds. That foreshadowed yet another scramble drill touchdown in the second half.
Burrow did what offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher loves him to do. He broke a cardinal rule smartly when he threw across his body back inside before stepping out on the right sideline for Drew Sample’s two-yard touchdown catch.
"I feel like (Burrow) doesn't get that a lot, the recognition he should for the way he keeps plays alive," Gesicki said.
It was more night-at-the-improv stuff by Burrow and Taylor and everyone on stage. With tight end Erick All Jr. in the locker room with what they fear is a serious knee injury, it was Sample's first touchdown catch of the season.
"Joe's the best," said center Ted Karras. "He wants perfection. That's why he is who he is."
Karras praised Chase Brown's hard running in a 120-yard effort that was their best individual day on the ground in two years and protection that allowed one sack.
"I thought we did a solid job. As solid as we've been all year," Karras said. "I always enjoy a win. It's hard to win in the NFL. It's hard to score 41 points in the NFL."
But he also knew it was Wednesday. He thought back to last month's overtime loss to the Ravens in which the Bengals had three 10-point leads.
"We let them off the hook," Karras said.
Burrow remembers. His career year continues. He stayed in the mix for the NFL passing title by jacking his rating to 108 and went into Monday night with 20 touchdown passes, tied with Baltimore's Lamar Jackson and one behind Tampa Bay's Baker Mayfield for the league lead as he bids to become the first Bengals quarterback to throw 40 in a season. No Bengals quarterback has done what Burrow has done with five touchdown passes twice in the same season.
But don't tell him that.
It's Thursday already.
"I'm going to have my standard of play, and I'm going to have my idea of the standard of what we should live up to as an offense," said Burrow before heading home. "The coaching staff, and myself, and everybody. When I feel like we live up to it. I'm going to let us know. And when I feel like we don't live up to it, I'm going to let us know, too."
