Jaycee Horn put it simply in a somber visitor’s locker room at Paycor Stadium. Carolina’s defense knew what to expect from the Bengals on Sunday, but the group didn’t execute the plan. Horn said Carolina had prepared for “a lot of quick game” from Cincinnati’s offense and felt ready before the matchup started. But it quickly got away from the Panthers, who went into halftime down 35-0 and never put up a convincing fight in a 42-21 loss.”We got exactly what we knew was coming,” “Just didn’t do a good job stopping it.”
But the run defense was particularly bad. The Bengals blew past their previous season-high rushing performance (133 yards) before halftime, and running back Joe Mixon had one of the best days of his career. Cincinnati, which entered the day ranked 30th with an average of 81.0 rushing yards per game, put up 241 yards on the ground Sunday. Mixon finished with 22 attempts for 153 yards, the third-highest single-game total of his career. He also broke a Bengals franchise record with five total touchdowns four rushing, one receiving.
The Bengals were coming off a lifeless loss to the Browns on Monday night when they put up just 36 rushing yards on 10 carries.”We didn’t execute the way we wanted to,” Burns said. “They didn’t really do anything that we didn’t know was coming. It just comes down to execution, making tackles. There were a lot of missed tackles.”
