The Bengals have shown an ability to weather storms on the big and small scales over the last couple of weeks.
Joe Burrow’s season-ending wrist injury forced Jake Browning into the lineup at quarterback and a loss to the Steelers in his first NFL start moved them to 5-6 on the year. That put them on the fringes of the AFC playoff picture, but back-to-back wins have brightened the picture in Cincinnati.
Both of those wins have shown the team’s ability to bounce back from bad situations. The Jaguars jumped ahead 28-21 with a pair of touchdowns in a couple of minutes late in the third quarter of Week 13 and the Colts went from being down 14-0 to tying the game 14-14 before halftime on Sunday. The Colts wouldn’t score again in the second half and right tackle Jonah Williams said after the 34-14 win that the Bengals have proven themselves to be a resilient bunch.
“We’ve had a lot of adversity as a team,” Williams said, via the team’s website. “We’ve faced both sides of it. Both sides of momentum swings. It’s nothing to us. We know how to handle it. It’s one of the qualities of this team. Yeah, we’re not undefeated right now, but we know how to handle some uphill battles and how to overcome them and that’s what we were able to do today.”
The Bengals will get a chance to keep the playoff push going next Sunday against a team that has gone through some similar things this season. The Vikings are also 7-6 after losing their starting quarterback and they may be going with a new starter after Nick Mullens replaced Josh Dobbs in Sunday’s 3-0 win over the Raiders, so the resiliency narrative will be tested on both sides in Week 15.
