The Bengals’ much-maligned defense appears to have fixed most of its issues in recent weeks, holding Cincinnati in a tight battle with Pittsburgh before the Bengals fell in the fourth quarter of their 34-12 loss in Week 11. A week later, that same defense performed extremely well to give the Bengals — who finished with six points — a chance to win six. Patriots.
On Thursday night, the defense forced a season-high five turnovers, giving Cincinnati’s offense plenty of opportunities to bury Baltimore. With Burrow back in the lineup, the Bengals did just that, shaking off a disjointed first half and outscoring the Ravens 20-7 over the final two quarters for the win.
Burrow completed 24 of 46 passes for 261 yards and two touchdowns, scoring both goals in a second half that showed a noticeable uptick in accuracy for the quarterback. As Burrow explained afterwards, he graduated from being “a bit jittery” in the first half to “more comfortable” in the second half and the results spoke for themselves.
“I kept in the second half, I started to put it more where I wanted. I settled a bit,” he said. “I definitely missed some throws that I normally make. But after that I felt pretty good out there. I thought the O-line did a great job, we ran it well. Obviously the defense played great. I’ve just got to keep getting better.”
Burrow took a challenging road to return to the field this season, undergoing surgery and aggressively attacking his rehabilitation to give himself a chance to play again. At 4-8, the Bengals are still two and a half games behind the division-leading Steelers (6-5) with five games remaining, meaning there’s certainly a chance they could salvage their season if things go their way outside of Cincinnati.
Burrow admitted he took a moment to reflect on his 2025 journey after the win and expressed pride in himself and the organization for making the comeback possible. Because he’s back, the Bengals may also believe their season isn’t quite over.
“There’s no better feeling than that,” Burrow said. “To put in the work for a long time and go out there and it pays off, there’s just no feeling like going out there in front of the world with a bunch of guys that are working really hard to try and win games. To go out there and put on a good performance and win that game.”
“Obviously we’ve got a lot of games left, but we’re going to enjoy this one. We’re having a bit of a bye weekend. Everybody’s going to go home and have Thanksgiving with their families, smile and eat and feel good about it.”