The Bengals clinched a playoff spot before they took the field on Saturday, but that didn’t do anything to lessen their effort against the Patriots.
Joe Burrow threw three touchdown passes and their defense has allowed just 70 yards through the first half. The Bengals are up 22-0 as a result and it’s hard to imagine them taking a page from the Colts’ book and blowing this one.
Burrow is 28-of-36 for 284 yards, which puts him on pace to break the NFL’s record of 45 completions in a single game. The score and mismatch between the teams makes it unlikely that he’ll have to throw that much in the second half, however.
Wide receiver Trenton Irwin has caught two of the touchdowns and Tee Higgins has the other for a Bengals team that’s well on its way to its seventh straight victory. The one big negative was the loss of right tackle La’el Collins to a left knee injury that led him to be immediately ruled out for the rest of the day.
The Patriots have run just 17 offensive plays, including a kneeldown on the final play of the first half. That came after Bill Belichick called a timeout with four seconds left and the sequence of events may be even harder to explain than what the Pats were thinking on the final play of last Sunday’s loss to the Raiders.