Cincinnati Bengals Must Rediscover Running Game to Keep Undefeated Streak Alive

The last thing the Cincinnati Bengals need is change, right?

Maybe. After Sunday's 16-10 escape against the Pittsburgh Steelers on the road to move to 7-0, a mark no Bengals team had ever hit before, it's hard to argue that head coach Marvin Lewis needs to change things up.

But Lewis might want to get back to the team's run-first ways to keep the streak alive.

Look at Sunday: Offensive coordinator Hue Jackson had Andy Dalton sling it 38 times, compared to just 16 rushes by running backs. Dalton was under consistent pressure all day, looking sluggish on his way to completing 23 passes for 231 yards and a score while also throwing two picks and suffering three sacks.

Those passing numbers might have been better if the Bengals had stayed committed on the ground, where Jeremy Hill flashed hints of his old self with 15 carries for 60 yards. In fact, he capitalized by blasting off two of his best runs of the season, as Cox Media Group's Jay Morrison pointed out:

The coaching staff also inexplicably ignored Giovani Bernard, who has been running better than Hill all season. Surprise—Bernard took his one carry for 12 critical yards in the fourth quarter to set up a scoring situation before a Dalton interception.

After that rush down to the 5-yard line, the Bengals ignored the running game again by throwing three consecutive passes, the last of which Steelers defensive back Antwon Smith picked off and returned for 42 yards, with offensive tackle Andre Smith suffering an injury in the process.

So what's going on?

Maybe the Bengals are outthinking themselves. Pittsburgh entered Sunday's contest with one of the most exploitable secondaries in the league, so it made sense to take to the air. When the pockets weren't holding strong and the running game was working, however, it seemed as though the team stuck to a predetermined, set-in-stone strategy instead of adapting.

To be blunt, the Bengals got away with one.

Ben Roethlisberger gift-wrapped two interceptions (all right, one was a great play by Shawn Williams) on two consecutive drives in the fourth quarter.

Not every team will allow the Bengals to slip by with poor play-calling—or design, for that matter—especially when Cincinnati decides to ignore the run.

If the Bengals are going to get back to the basics, to what many presume the team still wants its identity to be, it needs to start on Thursday Night Football against the Cleveland Browns.

On a short turnaround, a simplistic run-first approach might be what the doctor ordered for the Bengals against a Browns defense that entered Sunday allowing an average of 151.0 rushing yards per game.

Then again, the Bengals have to look only to last year's two encounters with the Browns, their approach and the ensuing, borderline-predictable results for this to hit home:

Week	Pass Attempts	Rush Attempts (YPC)	Result
10	39	22 (3.9)	L, 24-3
15	24	45 (5.4)	W, 30-0

That Week 10 loss also came in a Thursday night game that followed a win in the previous week.

The point is simple: The Bengals have more healthy weapons through the air this year than they did over the past few years, and Dalton—at least before the game in Pittsburgh—has looked like a different player.

Don Wright/Associated Press

Lost in all of this hype and the pass-heavy offense is the fact that Cincinnati might also have the best one-two punch in the NFL on the ground behind Dalton. Furthermore, the team doesn't need to pigeonhole either Hill or Bernard into a role—not after the former took a slick pass for a touchdown earlier this year and the latter has seen plenty of between-the-tackles success.

It's a matter of rediscovering an identity for these Bengals. Not every game will call for the team's traditional run-first approach, but it likely would have helped in Pittsburgh on Sunday. On a short turnaround, the Bengals don't seem to have a choice Thursday.

This might be nitpicking an undefeated team, of course. But as A.J. Green put it after the game, per Joe Danneman of Fox19 in Cincinnati, these Bengals are "new," and they are "going to keep punching until someone gets knocked out."

To keep this goal and march to 8-0, it will be all about the ground game Thursday in another AFC North showdown.

Stats courtesy of NFL.com and accurate as of November 1. All advanced metrics courtesy of Pro Football Focus.