Michael Penix Jr. had a better day than he had in Tampa, and it still wasn't close to enough. He finished 20-of-31 for 162 yards with 1 touchdown and 1 interception. That's an improvement over 8-of-24 with 4 picks, and the dry indoor setting did help some. But 162 yards is not how you chase a team scoring in the 30s. The Bengals' front was without Cashius Howell on IR and had DT Landon Robinson inactive, and it still held Atlanta's passing game to dink-and-dunk.
Ja'Marr Chase did most of the damage: 10 catches, 155 yards and a touchdown. Coming into the game, the question was whether his ankle would hold up. He finished as the game's leading receiver by a wide margin. Tee Higgins caught 2 touchdowns, which makes 4 TD catches over his last 2 games. Atlanta played without CB Billy Bowman Jr., who was inactive, and without Robert Longerbeam, and its secondary had no answer for both of them at once.
Atlanta started well. It went up 10-7 after 1 quarter, the only stretch where the Falcons looked like the team that beat San Francisco 29-20 two weeks ago. Then Cincinnati scored 17 in the 2nd quarter while Atlanta went scoreless, and the Falcons trailed by 14 at halftime. They traded touchdowns in the 3rd and got shut out in the 4th. Across the final 3 quarters, Atlanta scored once.
The preview said Atlanta's run defense, which gave up 310 yards at Tampa, was the thing to watch. Cincinnati mostly didn't test it. Burrow threw only 29 times and the Bengals still scored 34, and the box-score coverage from this game leads with the passing game. Chase and Higgins decided it, which is how the preview said Cincinnati wins. The Falcons' run-defense problem never mattered because the Bengals never had to run into it.
Cincinnati is 6-2 and has won 4 straight, and the defense's biggest worry going in, a thin pass rush, didn't cost it anything. Atlanta is 3-6 and has lost 2 straight. Over those 2 weeks it has scored 17 points total, including a shutout. The Falcons now have to fly back across the Atlantic and figure out how to score again.
