Boyd caught eight passes for 150 yards and a 60-yard touchdown on the first drive that sparked a 21-0 lead in the first half.
“We’ve really gotten back to the basics in our passing game to be quite honest with you,” Taylor said Sunday. “Just cornbread and butter stuff that allows the ball to be split around, and just let T.B. (Tyler Boyd) — let us give it to Boyd there. They’re trying to help on Ja’Marr (Chase) and Tee (Higgins) as well on the outsides, so it opens it up for guys like Hayden (Hurst) and T.B. T.B.’s a special player, he’s a special locker room guy, and he makes the most of his opportunities. On cue, when the ball goes to T.B., he makes a play for us. … It was awesome to see him step up and play like we expected him to.”
Burrow has especially relied on Boyd in third-down situations in the past, and he’s been a reliable target. Even before his last two breakout games, he was leading the league with a 1.3 drop percentage (three drops in 227 targets) of the 116 players with at least 110 targets since the start of 2020.
On Sunday, Burrow targeted Boyd on two third-down plays, but one was negated by a penalty and the other was incomplete. All of his eight catches were on first or second downs.
“He’s gonna continue to do what he does,” Burrow said of Boyd last week. “He’s going to be open and make plays over the middle. And he’s a guy that I’ve leaned on over the years on third down. And so there’s probably more room to grow as far as getting him the ball more.”
Boyd said he knew early in the game it was going to be a good day for him, but even he was surprised by his final numbers. It didn’t take him long to see he would make an impact, though. His first catch was for the 60-yard touchdown, and he was wide open after burning the safety to get open down field.
“I felt that I was gonna have a big game,” he said. “I felt that way coming in because of how they play, how we would utilize me. So I knew once they came on and it was the looks we expected, I was expecting a game like this. But I didn’t think it was gonna go that (big).”
It was a big day for Burrow and the other two starting receivers as well. Burrow finished with 481 yards and three touchdowns, while Chase had 130 yards and two touchdowns on eight catches and Tee Higgins finished with 93 yards on six catches.
Burrow said he wants to take whatever the defense gives but he knows at least one of his receivers will always step up and make plays when one of them might be facing double coverage.
The Falcons just couldn’t figure out a way to stop all three.
“I mean, it’s very fun to play in games like that when Joe goes for 400 yards, but at the end of the day, it’s not easy,” Boyd said. “In the National Football League, everybody’s good, but we just took more advantage of our opportunities.”
Boyd hadn’t had a game that big since 2018 when he had 138 yards receiving against Tampa Bay in Week 8 – before Burrow was even on the radar for the Bengals. He had topped 100 yards once earlier this season, finishing with 105 yards on four catches in a win over the Jets in Week 3.
The seventh-year receiver said he took advantage of soft coverage in the Falcons’ Cover-2 defense to make plays Sunday, but he knew a performance like that would eventually come.
“We’re a well-connected team and we knew it was going to come,” Boyd said. “We knew how good, how connected this locker room is. We knew that throughout the stretch, there was a lot of football to be played. There was still a lot of football. So, we just go out there and the coaches put us in a great position to win, and we make the plays.”
MONDAY’S GAME
Bengals at Browns, 8:15 p.m., ESPN, ESPN2, 700, 1290, 1530, 95.7, 102.7, 104.7
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