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Geoff Hobson
On the last Sunday of 2025 in September weather, the Bengals offered a snapshot of what they’re planning for next Opening Day in their 37-14 walkover victory against the Cardinals.
The league’s most lethal and diverse offense. (Nine receivers catching Jioe Burrow”s 305 yards.) A fast, alert defense that gets the ball back for them. (Six three-and-outs.) A surgical-strike special teams. (A 57-yard field goal and 43-yard punt return.)
And keeping it together: Head coach Zac Taylor’s player-centric approach in a locker room that knows how to laugh and when to not with a core that’s been to the Super Bowl looking to show the kids how to get back.
It may be the first team that plans to ride paleontology rather than chemistry to championships.
What other sports team in the Cenozoic, or any other era, has a quarterback who gifts his offensive line fossils during the holidays?
“We did just about everything you can hit,” said center and captain Ted Karras after the Bengals eased to 429 yards. “Screened it Trick play Holy What we have? Forty minutes time of possession?”
Forty minutes and 56 seconds to be exact. Their most in regulation in 22 years. Plenty of time to see the wish list unfold, always topped by a healthy Joe Burrow completing a state-of-the-art 77% of his passes to a bottomless vat of options, ranging from generational talents to gadgets.
(Exhibit A: On a day Bengals All-Pro wide receiver Ja’Marr Chase did something no one ever did in their first five seasons by recording his seventh touchdown to go with 117 catches and 1,316 yards, Chase Brown quietly upped his own record with his 65th ball of the season for the most catches ever by a Bengals running back.)
While Burrow found six receivers for a catch of at least 18 yards, a situational suffocating defense anchored by two gifted cornerbacks gave the Cardinals’ best player, record-breaking tight end Trey McBride, a longest play of an 18-yard touchdown after the game’s two-minute warning.
“We put our two best guys on their two best guys,” said Bengals rookie linebacker Demetrius Knight Jr. “That’s how you do it.”
Cornerbacks Dax Hill and DJ Turner II had help, of course. The 6-foot, 195-pound Hill was able to run with and muscle the 6-4, 246-pound McBride on the early downs while dime cornerback DJ Ivey and a selection of zones stalked him on third down.
McBride’s ten catches were enough to break the NFL’s single-season record for catches by a tight end. But after Hill knocked down a deep pass underthrown by backup quarterback Jacoby Brissett on the sidelines on the first series of the second half, McBride had just two catches for 18 yards on four targets. When they got the ball back, it was Bengals, 30-7.
Meanwhile, Turner, the Pro Bowl alternate, made sure the Cards’ leading receiver, Michael Wilson, did nothing more than a 38-yard catch-and-run touchdown. He had four catches for 51 yards on nine other targets.
“We just keep on improving,” said Turner of a defense that has allowed 42 points in the last ten quarters. “I tell everybody, if you make a mistake, just don’t make it again. I made mistakes in the league. I learned from them. I improved That’s what I tell all the boys.”
Turner loved the Cody Ford play. The locker room did. When Taylor gave him another target and threw him a game ball for his 21-yard catch, the “Cody, Cody,” chant was as loud as the one that erupted in Paycor when he made his play late in the third quarter.
Ford, all 6-3, 346 pounds of him, a backup offensive lineman who started at four spots last year, found himself in another one last Tuesday when offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher approached him with the play.
They didn’t know if tight end Noah Fant (ankle) could play (he ended up being active), so the Bengals wanted to make sure they had another body available for their big personnel groups.
“Just to keep the guys in the O-line room, keep that energy sky-high. Not that I need to create anything to do that,” Taylor said. “But we practice it, he caught it during the week, and I felt like (it was) the right moment to get it called.”
The route was a hitch. Not only that, he would be split wide. Not only that, the greatest receiver of his time, Ja’Marr Chase, would be in the progression.
“I thought he was joking,” Ford said. “Then we practiced it. Then we practiced again. And I began thinking, they’re going to run this.”
It’s a glimpse of why the Bengals are still playing hard for Taylor with no playoff tiebreakers in the offing. Down deep, he’s still the Cynthia Circle commissioner back in the Norman, Okla., cul-de-sac organizing all the backyard games.
“It was a positive,” Turner said of the Ford play. “I was happy for him.”
Taylor has modeled his program on one main tenant. He takes care of his players. Mind and body. All he asks in return is that they don’t hurt the club. It was a nice kick to a holiday week. Word came down Saturday night to Ford. If they had enough points, they were rolling him out. It turned out a 23-point lead with 18 minutes left was enough.
“I’m so happy for him,” said left tackle Orlando Brown Jr., his college teammate at Oklahoma. “He’s one of these guys that works his butt off every day. And it’s his (29th) birthday.”
Taylor had no idea about a birthday. But Brown knows Taylor gets. Taylor knows Brown, a captain, gets it. A lift in a season without many. But rarely lacking Taylor’s coveted energy. No, Brown said. He was not surprised at Ford’s 17-yard YAC.
“Not many people know he’s a crazy athlete,” Brown said. “Big pitcher in high school. We’d go play basketball at the summer rec in Oklahoma. No names. But there were NBA players where he was just taking their shots off the backboard. Let’s just say Cody got the best of them.”
Then Brown and Ford were doing the interview bit with Brown holding the microphone. Somebody interrupted and asked what Burrow fossil Ford had chosen. Burrow had invited the O-line to his home last week and told them to choose which ones they wanted.
Ford, Brown, and right tackle Amarius Mims went with a cave bear skull.
“It was one of the biggest ones there,” Ford said. “I would love to have a bear skull at my house.”
Brown’s toddler boys also loved it.
“That’s who Joey B. is,” Brown said. “He’s always going to get you something really cool. Something you never really expected. Which is really cool. I loved it. I thought it was awesome.”
A peek at 2026.
“I’m always for fun stuff like that,” Burrow said of his ninth receiver. “No. 1, it keeps the defense off balance. No. 2, it was just fun.”
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