By Paul Dehner Jr., Tashan Reed, Vic Tafur and Tobias Bass
With a 3-5 record, Cincinnati’s playoff hopes seemed slim heading into Sunday’s game against the Las Vegas Raiders. However, they rebounded from last week’s loss to the Philadelphia Eagles with a 41-24 win at Paycor Stadium.
According to The Athletic’s playoff projection model, the Bengals had a 36 percent chance to make the playoffs and only an 8 percent to win their division before kickoff. Their chances improved slightly and they did it shorthanded.
Joe Burrow had one of his best games this season as he tied a career-high with five touchdown passes while completing 27-of-39 passes for 251 yards. Offseason signee tight end Mike Gesicki found the end zone twice as he caught his first touchdown in his new threads and finished with five catches, 100 yards, two touchdowns and another incredible Griddy dance.
Las Vegas has flip-flopped between quarterbacks this season between Gardner Minshew and Aidan O’Connell. With O’Connell out for 4-6 weeks with a thumb injury, Antonio Pierce opted to bench Minshew for Desmond Ridder in the third quarter.
Cincinnati will look to improve its playoff chances on “Thursday Night Football” in Week 10 against the AFC North rival Baltimore Ravens. As for Las Vegas, they will look to regroup during their bye week.
Burrow shines bright
No matter how much chaos or injury unfolds around Burrow, his presence alone will almost always be enough to beat the bottom-feeding teams of this league. Take Sunday for example. He had no Tee Higgins (quad), Jermaine Burton (healthy scratch), Charlie Jones (knee), Orlando Brown Jr. (knee), Zack Moss (neck) or Erick All Jr. (knee). Yet, he deployed about every other eligible receiver and found a way to use each one.
He went off-script four of his five touchdown passes to create scores out of broken plays for Chase Brown, Mike Gesicki, Drew Sample and Andrei Iosivas. Burrow completed passes to eight different players and all of those with a gain of at least nine yards. When he’s on one like that, a team like Las Vegas without a counterpunch doesn’t stand a chance. — Paul Dehner Jr., Bengals beat writer
Las Vegas’ nightmarish defensive performance
Raiders defensive coordinator Patrick Graham said on Halloween Thursday that he would be scared of someone showing up in a Burrow costume. Nightmares came true Sunday as Burrow threw five touchdowns in the Bengals’ win.
Take away a kneel down at the end of the first half and the Bengals scored on their first five possessions to take a 31-10 lead. The Raiders didn’t get much of a pass rush on Burrow all day, and when they did, Maxx Crosby was called for a late hit after the whistle blew and Burrow outran him for 10 yards on another play.
Burrow didn’t even miss the injured Higgins, as running back Chase Brown had five catches for 37 yards and a touchdown to go with 120 yards rushing. Burrow also threw to all four of his tight ends 13 times for 152 yards and three touchdowns as the Bengals improved to 4-5 and kept their playoff hopes alive. The Raiders defense gets next week off after the team lost its fifth straight game. — Vic Tafur, Raiders senior writer
No Higgins, no problem
Many eyes will be on the injury report this week with a critical Thursday night game in Baltimore up next. Erick All hurt his knee and BJ Hill his ribs, both underrated critical pieces on offense and defense for this team. Plus, Higgins (quad) and Brown (knee) will be trying to come back off their injuries. It’s hard to see Cincinnati pulling off the short-week upset without one or both of them. — Dehner Jr.
Raiders bench Minshew
The Raiders have a lot of issues besides quarterback, but there’s no disputing the fact that Minshew has had a rough season. He leads the NFL with 11 turnovers, isn’t able to push the ball downfield accurately, navigates the pocket poorly and has had erratic accuracy. The culmination is he’s been benched twice in nine games in favor of two different quarterbacks. Minshew had thrown two interceptions — including a pick six — by the time he was benched for O’Connell against the Denver Broncos in Week 5, but he was having a relatively pedestrian performance against the Bengals when he was benched for Ridder late in the third quarter on Sunday. He’d completed 10-of-17 for 124 yards for zero touchdowns and zero interceptions.
While Minshew wasn’t playing well, it seemed to be more of a product of the score — the Raiders were trailing the Bengals 31-10 at the time of his benching — and to see if Ridder could give the offense some sort of a spark. Spoiler alert: He didn’t. Ridder completed 11-of-16 passes for 74 yards and one touchdown, but was also strip-sacked to set up a Bengals touchdown. The Raiders went on to lose by three scores, anyway.
Ridder didn’t seem to play well enough to justify him supplanting Minshew and O’Connell won’t be eligible to come back from injured reserve until Week 13, so it’s possible that Minshew returns as the starter against the Miami Dolphins in Week 11. — Tashan Reed, Raiders senior writer
Bengals’ defense clamps Raiders
The Bengals’ defense has proven they know how to slow down bad offenses while getting scorched by good ones. They have five games against teams with an offensive DVOA in the bottom half of the league. They have allowed an average of 14.2 offensive points per game in those. In the other four games they have allowed 33.8 points per game. The good news for the Bengals is they only have one game remaining (Thursday at Baltimore) against an offense currently ranked in the top half of the NFL in DVOA. — Dehner Jr.
Required reading
- NFL Week 9, trade deadline live updates: Latest news, rumors, grades and coverage maps
- Why the Raiders are expected to stand pat at the NFL trade deadline
- As Raiders offense keeps struggling, pressure for change mounts
- Could Zac Taylor give up Bengals play calling or Lou Anarumo be on the hot seat?
- Bengals trade deadline: Why Cincinnati — and Tee Higgins — are content to stand pat
(Photo: Andy Lyons / Getty Images)
