The Cincinnati Bengals still have a significant uphill climb to make anything of their season, but with Joe Burrow back in the lineup — and after a surprising road win in Baltimore — there might be hope yet in an underachieving AFC North.
We’ll break down Burrow’s return in this week’s Quick Outs. Other topics to discuss:
- Did the Bills find a winning formula they can replicate?
- Carolina’s nifty fourth-and-2 touchdown against the Rams
- Miami wins, but in spite of a nightmarish Tua Tagovailoa performance
QB charting: Joe Burrow
Ignore Burrow’s box score from his return to action against the Ravens.
Those simple numbers would tell you Cincinnati’s quarterback completed barely half his passes for just under six yards per attempt. He didn’t throw any picks and was only sacked once, so it’s clear to see he didn’t make many mistakes despite taking half-a-hundred dropbacks. The consistency and big-play ability doesn’t really pop out, though.
The fine-comb process of charting Burrow’s throws shows his performance in a much more favorable light.
Let’s start with the handful of incompletions that weren’t Burrow’s fault. I charted Bengals pass catchers with five drops in this game. On one, a player “caught” the ball but didn’t get his feet in bounds. A couple of others were contested-catch situations made tougher by good defensive back play.
Still, by my estimation, that’s five balls that should have been caught.
Burrow also needed to knock off some rust when it came to communication and chemistry with his receivers. Mitchell Tinsley, for instance, just stopped running a vertical route early in the second quarter. It would have been a completion, and a touchdown, had he kept going.
And the play before that? Ja’Marr Chase was running a little stick route to the left side, and Burrow threw it expecting Chase to settle in the zone void right out of his break. But Chase kept running — incomplete. Burrow also had an incompletion in the red zone right before the half, when Noah Fant converted a quick out into a wheel route down the sideline, despite Burrow clearly ripping the quick out throw right away. Again, incomplete.
Burrow had a pair of throwaways, as well. Those count for two more “inaccurate” passes, but you can absolutely live with them given the pressure he was facing.
Joe Burrow’s Week 13 numbers
| Comp | Att | TD | Drops | WR Adj | Pass Def | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
Accuracy total |
30 |
45 (2 throwaways) |
2 |
5 |
1 |
4 |
|
Under pressure |
7 |
11 (2 throwaways) |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
|
Out of pocket |
6 |
9 (1 throwaway) |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
5-plus pass rushers |
6 |
9 (1 throwaway) |
1 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
|
Man coverage |
15 |
22 (1 throwaway) |
1 |
4 |
1 |
2 |
|
Zone coverage |
13 |
20 (1 throwaway) |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
|
Tight-window throws |
10 |
18 |
2 |
3 |
1 |
2 |
|
Open-window throws |
18 |
22 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
Outside of one or two throws when he was missing a few MPH, Burrow looked like himself against the Ravens. He was confident, accurate and fearless under pressure.
Truthfully, I was worried that Burrow had rushed back and wouldn’t look stable in the pocket right away. That couldn’t have been further from the truth. Burrow far outplayed his simple counting stats. Maybe it’s too little, too late for that version of him to turn the Bengals’ season around, but it’s nice to see him play at that level nonetheless.
Scramble drill: Bills showed who they should be in win over Pittsburgh
The Bills ran the ball 51 times Sunday. Starting running back James Cook handled a career-high 32 carries, and backup Ray Davis took nine, bowling over Steelers defenders for a successful gain on five of them. Even quarterback Josh Allen got involved with eight carries, split almost evenly between scrambles and designed runs in short-yardage situations.
Wire to wire, Buffalo mashed Pittsburgh’s old and expensive front seven to bits, despite being down both of its starting tackles.
What stands out isn’t just that the Bills ran the ball so well, but also that they had such a clear identity in doing so. They loaded up with big bodies and tight formations to create scrums that the Steelers’ defense never showed the ability to slow down.
James Cook brought the juice in Week 13 🧃 pic.twitter.com/KXvTn00IFU
— NFL (@NFL) December 1, 2025
On 20 of their 51 rushing plays, the Bills had tight ends Dawson Knox and Jackson Hawes on the field together. They often placed Tyrell Shavers — a well-built wide receiver at 6-feet-4 and 211 pounds — next to them, near the core of the formation. Offensive coordinator Joe Brady called runs behind those three beefy bodies time and time again.
The Bills sported a 50 percent rushing success rate on those two-tight-end runs, according to TruMedia. They popped five designed runs of at least 10 yards, including a 31-yarder by Cook, while only being stuffed or tackled for loss on two occasions.
Considering how volatile the Bills’ pure dropback passing game has been this year, it’s imperative that they find ways to grind defenses down like this as often as they can. They don’t have the receiver talent to live as a dangerous passing offense, especially with the offensive tackles not at full strength. It’s cool that Allen can go into superhero mode and paper over this team’s other passing-attack deficiencies, but it’s not a healthy way to live.
All of the Bills’ best and steadiest performances this year have come when they have run the ball at will on their opponents. Sunday’s game was just the latest proof.
Anatomy of a highlight: Panthers’ fourth-and-2 TD
In a majority of cases, this section of the column is reserved for X’s and O’s. It’s about peeling back the layers on how a team schemed open one of its receivers, got an explosive run to pop, or freed up a rusher on the quarterback.
Bryce Young’s monster fourth-and-2 touchdown to Tetairoa McMillan to take a fourth-quarter lead against the Rams requires some different care.
Tmac and the T is for Touchdown
Tetairoa McMillan x #ProBowlVote
📺: FOX pic.twitter.com/fN5tchb342
— Carolina Panthers (@Panthers) November 30, 2025
From a passing-design standpoint, the Panthers aren’t doing anything crazy here. McMillan is running a deep crossing route from the left side while Xavier Legette runs the same route from the right side. The hope is that they create a bit of traffic over the middle and lose one of the defensive backs in one-on-one coverage — but again, it’s nothing revolutionary. You might have told your cousins to run this exact concept in the front yard at Thanksgiving.
Instead, the point of interest is why the Rams’ Emmanuel Forbes ends up so out of position.
The short answer is that he’s gambling by trying to undercut this route.
In a majority of cases, quarterbacks want to drive the ball when throwing this deep crossing route. They want to pin it on their receiver’s outstretched hands and keep them sprinting toward the sideline, where they can hopefully turn up the field and make something happen. It’s a bet that the cornerback won’t be able to win a simple foot race across the field.
Defensive backs like Forbes know this, however, and may take the liberty of undercutting the route. Without any safety help over the top, it’s a risk, but the reward is an interception with the defensive back running at full speed as he snags the ball — prime pick-six conditions.
Young understands there isn’t any safety help over the top, though. There’s no reason to rip this ball in front of McMillan and lead him to the sideline, because he’s got so much grass to play with vertically. That’s not to say Young anticipates Forbes trying to jump this route, but he does realize that the best way to get the ball to his 6-4 receiver is to just lay it up the field and let him go get it.
Forbes bets wrong; McMillan adjusts to the vertical throw. The Panthers take the lead, then hold onto it and secure their seventh win of the season.
Stat check: Tua Tagovailoa’s 8.1 QBR vs. Saints
Just two weeks ago, Cleveland Browns quarterback Shedeur Sanders won his debut NFL start over the Las Vegas Raiders with an 8.5 QBR. He made two big throws down the field and got a box-score boost on a screen touchdown by running back Dylan Sampson. Otherwise, he was asked to do very little and still barely completed half his passes.
That marked the worst QBR for a quarterback in a win all year. Nobody else to that point had won a game with a QBR below 10.
Jump forward a single week later, and Tua Tagovailoa outdid the rookie.
Tagovailoa posted an 8.1 QBR on Sunday, completing 52.2 of his passes and taking four sacks for a total of 23 yards lost. Not once did Tagovailoa find the end zone. In fact, he missed Darren Waller wide open on the back line in the fourth quarter, and the Dolphins had to settle for a field goal three plays later. Tagovailoa also threw a duck of an interception to Kool-Aid McKinstry, and he nearly had another on his first pass in the fourth quarter.
Thanks to their run game and defense, the Dolphins won anyway, 21-17. But to get a handle on how bizarre it is for a quarterback to win despite a performance like this, look no further than the other two quarterbacks who produced a sub-10 QBR this week: Max Brosmer (5.6) and Aaron Rodgers (6.2). Brosmer’s Vikings got shut out; Rodgers’ Steelers scored once, but only because the Bills fumbled inside their own 40.
Two weeks before that, Jared Goff’s disastrous, weather-influenced game against the Eagles scored a 9.4 on the QBR scale. That’s the kind of quarterback production we’re talking about here.
So, shout out to the Dolphins for escaping with one of the more improbable start-to-finish wins we’ve seen all season.