A win can fix a team’s record, but it does not always settle the questions raised by its performance. The Cincinnati Bengals left Miami with a much-needed result after two consecutive defeats, yet their Week 5 outing was far from clean. Against a winless opponent, Cincinnati let avoidable mistakes keep the game alive, giving quarterback Joe Burrow plenty to address afterward.
Watch What’s Trending Now!
Senior columnist Mike Petraglia shared Burrow’s postgame remarks on X, including a pointed assessment of the team’s performance:
“We did some good things,” Burrow said during the press conference. “I think I played well… We had good field position most of the day and, for the most part, we took advantage of it. But we had some dumb mistakes, and we’ve got to get those fixed if we want to be a great team.”
“We got to be smarter. Two fumbles in the red zone. A couple of personal fouls that hurt us, hurt our field position, gave them points on the board. We got to be smarter.”
The mistakes were not limited to the two fumbles Burrow mentioned. Head coach Zac Taylor also pointed to two personal fouls, a kickoff Cincinnati fielded at its own 4-yard line and a roughing-the-snapper penalty on a field-goal attempt that handed Miami a first-and-goal opportunity. The Dolphins scored a touchdown on that possession, turning a special-teams error into four extra points. Cincinnati also allowed Miami to rush for more than 200 yards.
“There’s a lot of frustrating things on our end. We had two personal fouls. We fumbled twice in the red zone. We caught a kickoff on the 4-yard line. We had a penalty on a field goal that led to a touchdown, gave them four points, and gave up over 200 yards rushing. Plenty to clean up. The bye hits us at a great time.”
Despite those problems, Burrow delivered when Cincinnati needed points. He completed 23 of 32 passes for 190 yards and four touchdowns, finding Mike Gesicki, Samaje Perine, Tanner Hudson and Ja’Marr Chase for scores. Chase’s 45-yard touchdown catch late in the third quarter pushed the Bengals’ lead to 28-10 and appeared to give them breathing room.
Miami, however, kept pushing. Quarterback Malik Willis connected with rookie Kevin Coleman Jr. for a touchdown and a two-point conversion pass to Greg Dulcich, then scored on a one-yard run with 45 seconds left to make it 31-24. Miami kept finding room on the ground, finishing with a season-high 217 rushing yards and making Cincinnati work for the win until the final minutes. The Dolphins’ last chance disappeared when their onside kick failed.
The result lifted Cincinnati to 3-2 and ended its two-game losing streak, while Miami dropped to 0-5. Still, Burrow wasn’t treating the win as a reason to overlook what went wrong. The Bengals now have their bye week to clean things up before meeting the Baltimore Ravens in Week 7.