Late in an eventual overtime classic win over the Denver Broncos, Cincinnati Bengals running back Chase Brown slid (and got hurt) instead of scoring a touchdown.
Clearly, the idea was for the Bengals to burn the rest of the clock, score at the end of regulation, and secure the victory.
But that’s far, far from what happened—without burning much clock at all, Joe Burrow dove head-first into the endzone. The Broncos then marched down the field and tied the game, sending things to overtime.
After the game, Bengals head coach Zac Taylor revealed that the coaching staff instructed Brown to slide. However, the injury timeout “changes everything” for the approach.
Taylor went on to say that “nothing was easy” for the offense in the red zone against that Denver defense. So, while draining Denver’s timeouts and the game clock and trying to score on later downs might’ve worked, they were content to go ahead and just score.
Still, situational game planning has been a recurring problem for the Bengals. This wasn’t the only instance on Saturday, either — kicking a field goal on a third-and-three that wound up missed while taking the ball out of the MVP-caliber Joe Burrow’s hands was just as bad.
Things worked out for the Bengals this time. But a breakout running back getting hurt while being instructed to slide, only for the coaching staff to risk the franchise passer on a sneak to score right after, is never going to escape criticism.