ANALYSIS: 5 takeaways from Bengals' 35-30 loss to Browns

Burrow threw 61 times and finished with 316 yards passing and three touchdowns, but the defense couldn’t complement the offensive production as the Browns ran for 216 yards and had early success from quarterback Baker Mayfield.

Here are five takeaways from the game:

1. Tackling still an issue

The Bengals struggled to wrap guys up throughout their two-win 2019 campaign, and those issues returned Thursday.

Nick Chubb finished with 124 yards and two touchdowns on 22 carries, and Kareem Hunt had 86 yards and one touchdown on 10 rushes.

“We’re just beating ourself,” cornerback William Jackson said. “They got some thick guys over there. They run pretty hard we just have to wrap up. Think we’re kind of lax on wrapping up today. We got to get back to fundamentals and get back to wrapping up.”

Cincinnati’s tackling problem was never more evident than the Browns' final complete drive. After the Bengals had made it a five-point game on Mike Thomas' 4-yard touchdown pass from Burrow with 5:55 left, the Browns took it to them and challenged the defense on the ground. Chubb and Hunt combined for all 75 yards on six carries to push the Cleveland advantage back to 12 points on Hunt’s 1-yard touchdown run and that sealed it.

The Bengals managed one last touchdown on a Tyler Boyd catch with 43 seconds left but they couldn’t recover the onside kick to finish the comeback.

2. Missed opportunities

The turning point in the game came in the third quarter. After the defense came up with a goal-line stop, Burrow fumbled when the right side of the line collapsed and Myles Garrett broke through to knock the ball out. Joe Jackson recovered to put the Browns right where they left off on fourth down the previous drive, and two plays later, Chubb was in the end zone for a 28-13 lead.

Burrow led the Bengals back down the field, and they thought they were about to cut the deficit to a touchdown, but Giovani Bernard’s 4-yard run into the end zone was reviewed and he was called down at the 1. Joe Mixon bounced out on first down for a loss of four. Boyd then dropped a third-down pass in the end zone and Cincinnati had to settle for a Randy Bullock field goal to make it 28-16 with 20 seconds left in the third quarter.

William Jackson intercepted Mayfield at the 2-yard line the next drive, but two touchdowns in the final six minutes weren’t enough with the Browns adding their final seven points in between.

“Losing isn’t very fun,” Burrow said. “This might be the only time in my sporting career that I have lost two games in a row. It doesn’t feel very good. I know that the guys in there are hurting. We are going to come back to work tomorrow and try to get this thing right. Losing is unacceptable to me, to everyone in there, to (Bengals Head) Coach (Zac) Taylor and to everybody in this organization. We are just going to have to get it fixed.”

3. Offensive line doesn’t hold

There were concerns the Bengals didn’t do enough to address the offensive line this offseason, and it’s already showing. Burrow was sacked three times and took another seven hits throughout the course of his second NFL game.

The Bengals don’t seem concerned whether Burrow can sustain that kind of pressure over 16 games, as Bengals coach Zac Taylor continued to put him in passing situations (61 times!) and even Burrow shrugged it off, saying he’s fine.

“I notice it (how often he’s hit), but Joe’s a football player, man,” Boyd said. “He’s physical and he’s hungry and this is the game. So he understands the in and outs of getting hit and playing football. He doesn’t get up with a drowsy face or a long face and act like he don’t want to continue to go. He hops right back up and continues to drive.”

Cincinnati was without right guard Xavier Su’a-Filo on Thursday. He was placed on injured reserve with an ankle injury suffered Sunday, and Fred Johnson – rather than Billy Price – started in his place Thursday. Taylor indicated Price was dealing with a little bit of an ankle injury, although it wasn’t on the injury report all week. Taylor didn’t want to assess the play of the line before watching the film, suggesting he might be too hard on the unit immediately after a loss.

4. Mayfield steps up

Mayfield looked like a completely different quarterback from Sunday’s 38-6 loss to Baltimore. He connected on each of his first six passes and led the Browns to touchdowns on the first two drives to open a 14-3 lead, and Cleveland never again trailed.

Included in his early success was a 43-yard touchdown pass to Odell Beckham, who he targeted 10 times Sunday and hit for just three catches. Beckham finished with 74 yards on four receptions and six targets Thursday.

Mayfield especially threw well outside the pocket, allowing him to use his athleticism and avoid the Bengals pass rush.

“I thought he did a nice job,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said. “We moved the ball. He had some explosive plays. He made some plays with his feet. I thought he was good on third down and made some really heady plays on third down.”

5. Missing characters

While the Bengals had some players step up on offense – Boyd had seven catches for 72 yards and Drew Sample had seven catches for 45 yards – the team’s two biggest weapons on offense had quiet nights.

Joe Mixon rushed for just 46 yards on 16 carries, and A.J. Green had three catches on 10 targets for 29 yards. Green opened the game with a 35-yard catch along the sideline on the first play from scrimmage but it was ruled incomplete upon review. Later in the half, he nearly had a touchdown catch in good coverage but couldn’t come down with it, but as the game went on, Burrow just couldn’t connect.

“They started playing more two-high,” Burrow said of what changed with Green. “He was playing well at the beginning of the game. I missed some throws to A.J. again. I am just going to have to fix that. I can’t keep missing throws to A.J. when he gets open like he does.”

In terms of the limited use of the Mixon, Taylor said trailing most of the game forced the Bengals to turn to the passing game.

“We felt like we had a lot of success in the pass game,” Taylor said. “We scored on three of our last drives. We were down two scores in the fourth quarter, and this is the same thing that kind of happens to us. You get down and you are throwing the ball, and we were having success doing it. We have a lot of faith in Joe. It is just the way that it played out.”

Defensively, the Bengals were limited up front with Geno Atkins and Mike Daniels out with injuries.