Bengals trying to find solutions for struggling offense

The Bengals travel to play the New York Jets on Sunday.

“It’s not being stuck in your ways, and again, it’s a small sample size, right now,” Taylor said Monday. “It’s two games, so that’s the part that we make sure we portray to our team, this is a very small sample size. We haven’t won so this is going to be what’s portrayed and you’re gonna have to deal with it until we change it. At the same time, you do have to be flexible in your approach. And maybe just because we’ve done something a certain way for a long time doesn’t mean that you can’t look at small ways during the week to tweak it. That’s a conversation we were having 20 minutes ago. Let’s just be open-minded as the week goes and find ways to help ourselves even if it’s all psychological, you just never know.

“But again, I think our team in a really good place. We’ve got really good leadership, and we have really good talent. And two games into the season, we’re not where we want to be, but we’re able to put this behind us and refocus on the Jets, and get back on track. And just one good performance really puts you back on track and finds you that rhythm and the confidence that you know you are capable of.”

Cincinnati fell behind 17-3 in the first half but climbed back with a pair of third-quarter field goals and a 19-play, 78-yard touchdown drive to tie the game in the fourth quarter. Dallas won on a 50-yard field goal by Brett Maher as time expired.

The Bengals finished with 19 first downs, but only seven of them were in the first half. The offense managed just 254 yards, including 84 yards those opening two quarters. Seven of the first down were on that lone touchdown drive in the fourth quarter. Fourteen of Joe Mixon’s 19 carries were in the second half.

Taylor pointed to first-down efficiency not being good enough, and four false starts didn’t help. Joe Burrow also was sacked six times – after taking seven of them in the opening loss to Pittsburgh – and center Ted Karras noted that communication on the line, which features four new starters this season, was a factor at times when free runners came through.

“I think we’ve just gotta be a lot sharper,” Karras said Monday. “I think communication was all right, we had a couple busts, but overall didn’t do enough to get the job done. So, you know, we’re back to work Wednesday morning, getting ready to go.”

Burrow has shown a tendency to start slow and finish strong in his previous two seasons, but offensive coordinator Brian Callahan said it’s something the staff has worked with Burrow to try to amend.

“I think for as good as he is at seeing the defenses and structures that are presented to him, there’s something about early in the game where it takes him a drive or two,” Callahan said. “I don’t actually have an explanation for it. I don’t know that he would say that that’s the case, it’s just whatever it is we got to find a way to score earlier and more often than we have for what feels like a while. We haven’t been a strong starting team. We’ve tried lots of different things to do that. Even last year, we weren’t particularly strong starting team. We were really great coming out of the second half team last year, or closing the first half. But I just think there’s an area to improve there.”

Neither Taylor nor Callahan believe Burrow looks uncomfortable in or out of the pocket early in games.

Callahan said part of the offensive struggles also come down to facing different schemes and different concepts than the team did last year as defenses have learned to adjust to a talented Bengals offense. Cincinnati is seeing more Cover 2 schemes to limit deep passing, but that was expected.

“Ultimately, we haven’t probably handled those things as well as we all would have expected, so (it’s) disappointing in some regard,” Callahan said. “Some of it is partially expected and another ultimately has to be a whole lot better than it has been.

“We’ll improve dramatically as the season goes along, I’m confident in that.”

SUNDAY’S GAME

Bengals at Jets, 1 p.m., Ch. 7, Ch. 12; 1530, 102.7, 104.7