During the Cincinnati Bengals’ 5-2 start to the 2021 season, they lived on explosive passing plays. The Bengals were second among all teams in explosive pass rate through Week 7. Those haven’t connected quite as often since. From Weeks 8-13, Cincinnati ranks just 23rd in explosive pass rate as they’ve gone 2-4.
Lacking those big plays has slowed the Bengals’ offense in general. From Weeks 1-7, the Bengals averaged 0.17 EPA per pass attempt and 50.7% of their pass plays produced positive EPA, per Sports Info Solutions. Since then, Cincinnati has averaged -0.17 EPA per attempt with a 45.3% positive play rate.
So much of the explosiveness came from production on downfield throws. That production was a nice improvement over what the Bengals had throwing deep during Joe Burrow’s rookie season in 2020. Part of that came from concerns over Burrow’s arm strength.
As accurate as Burrow can be, he doesn’t have the cannon some of the other quarterbacks in the league possess. In 2020 when the Bengals were figuring out their offense, Burrow’s best deep attempts came on back-shoulder throws. That allowed Burrow to take advantage of his accuracy but limited the upside of those passes.
On 45 deep attempts in 2020. Burrow had just one touchdown pass. Over those first few weeks of the 2021 season, Burrow was able to sling it. He matched that touchdown total on his first deep completion in Week 1 and surpassed it in Week 2.
He was fifth in yards per attempt on deep passes from Weeks 1-7 and a league-leading 24% of his deep passing attempts went for a touchdown.
During that span, it was common to see plays like this deep touchdown to Ja’Marr Chase in Week 2 against the Pittsburgh Steelers.
From Weeks 1-7, Burrow completed almost as many of his deep passing attempts (48%) as he had on-target during the 2020 season (50%). The early season success in 2021 wasn’t just that more deep passes were getting caught.
There was a big improvement in accuracy on those throws. Burrow’s on-target rate for the first half of 2021 was the sixth-highest in the league at 64%.
Of course, there wouldn’t be much of an article here all of that stayed the same and everything was great. In the opening paragraph, we noted how Cincinnati’s explosive pass rate has dropped significantly over the most recent stretch of the season.
That’s partly due to a big disconnect on the deep ball, where the completion percentage has dropped to a 2020-like 21.1% since Week 8.
Joe Burrow Deep Passes, 2021
| Weeks | Attempts | Comp% | On-Target% | YPA | TD% | INT% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-7 | 25 (11.8%) | 48.0% | 64.0% | 19.2 | 24.0% | 8.0% |
| 8-13 | 19 (11.4%) | 21.1% | 63.2% | 7.4 | 10.5% | 10.5% |
The good news is the on-target rate has stayed relatively the same. In fact, over the full season, Burrow ranks third in on-target rate on deep passes among 32 quarterbacks who have thrown at least 20 such attempts, behind only Kyler Murray and Russell Wilson. The below graph is stacked and sorted by on-target rate with the quarterback's completion percentage filled in.
So, then, what exactly has gone wrong lately? If the passes are accurate, why isn’t there more production? The most recent image that sticks out to highlight this problem came in Week 13 against the Los Angeles Chargers.
Early in the game, Burrow had Chase open down the sideline and hit the receiver with a perfectly led pass that popped out of Chase’s hands and into those of Michael Davis, which turned a likely touchdown into an interception.
That might seem like an extreme example of what’s gone wrong on these passes… but not really. In Week 9 against the Browns, Burrow went 0-for-5 on deep passes but SIS charted four of them as on-target. That included this throw to Chase down the sideline that hit the receiver in the hands…
…and this throw into the end zone, which also hit the receiver in the hands.
Some of these are also passes that are technically on-target but don’t exactly have the highest completion probability. Earlier in the Cleveland game, Chase was aligned outside to the left. With interior pressure after the snap, Burrow bailed from the pocket to his right as Chase crossed the field.
On the run, Burrow fired a strike to Chase, but cornerback Greg Newsome was able to stay close and knock the ball away. The pass was accurate, but had little chance of turning into a completion.
Against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 11, the Bengals tried to manufacture a deep shot off play-action. Many of Chase’s big deep plays to start the year came when the rookie receiver simply ran past opposing defenders.
On this snap, Chase ran a double move while Burrow booted to his right. The move was enough to freeze the cornerback, but gave enough time for the deep safety on the opposite hash to come into play and deflect the pass. Again, an accurate throw that was never going to turn into a completion.
In that same game, the Bengals tried another shot to the end zone, similar to the look against the Browns. But on this play, Chase wasn’t able to get far enough behind the corner to create separation, which forced a contested-catch opportunity. Chase made a great effort to bring the pass in, but the ball fell to the ground.
It’s tough to fault Chase for those tight plays, but he was making some of them during that successful early stretch of the season and there has been a clear dropoff in production when targeting Chase deep over the past few weeks.
Ja'Marr Chase Deep Targets, 2021
| Weeks | Tgts | Catchable | Rec | Drops | Yds | aDOT | Air Yards | YAC | TDs |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-7 | 14 | 10 | 9 | 0 | 375 | 33.4 | 286 | 89 | 4 |
| 8-13 | 7 | 5 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 36.7 | 0 | 0 | 0 |
Chase has stated he believes his positioning and defenses’ ability to double cover him has led to the downswing, but it’s hard to see where that’s really the case. Chase is still getting open and the opportunities are there. The only deep incompletion that was close to double covered was the double-move against the Raiders that invited the safety over with the time it took the route to develop.
More so, it’s not as if Chase is the only deep option the Bengals have. During the recent stretch, Tee Higgins has made the most of his opportunities. He’s out-targeted Chase on deep throws 9-to-7 since Week 8 and has caught four of them for 124 yards and two touchdowns.
That includes one against the Chargers, where Higgins made a great play at the catch point up the seam over two LA defenders.
There’s no one thing going wrong for the Bengals on deep passes and there really isn’t much to fix. The plays are close. As easily as Chase took off to start the season, he could just as easily take off again. That could be the case as Cinncinnati enters a favorable stretch of opponents to test vertically.
The Bengals will only face two defenses ranked in the top half of DVOA against deep passes for the rest of the season, Denver in Week 15 (13th) and Kansas City in Week 17 (16th). Their other three opponents are 20th or worse, including divisional matchups against Cleveland (24th) and Baltimore (20th).
Their Week 14 opponent, the San Francisco 49ers, is the worst of the bunch at 27th.
Cincinnati put itself in the playoff race early thanks to the explosive pass plays that got them off to a hot start. If the Bengals can get those back — and it shouldn’t take too much effort to do so — they could make themselves a dangerous team into January and possibly beyond.