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“Disappointing” does not even begin to describe the Bengals home opener on Sunday. The Bengals gave up almost 600 yards on offense and only scored 10 points until Ross’ garbage time touchdown reception.
Fans started booing when the offense failed time and time again to convert on third down, and many even left during the third quarter when the game was clearly out of hand.
Adam Baum of the Enquirer spoke with the team about the fans’ reactions. They weren’t pleased about how the fans responded, but they acknowledged that they didn’t give them anything to cheer about.
“That’s definitely frustrating to see that,” said Joe Mixon. “We down 11 (points), I wanna say in the second quarter and then you see hella fans leaving and booing.
“At the end of the day, we wanna win, too. If they feel like they can do it better, then come try out.”
Mixon seemed to be speaking out of frustration, and quickly went to Twitter to try and backtrack, acknowledging his lackluster performance this season. So far in 2019, Mixon has rushed 17 times and only gained 27 yards.
To all my fans and Cincinnati fans I’m sorry for the performance that I displayed for the past two weeks. I promise I will get it right and we will be better! #WhoDey
— MoneyMakingMix (@Joe_MainMixon) September 15, 2019
“It’s one of those things where we want to put a good performance out there – something they can cheer for,” said Andy Dalton. “I’ve never understood booing. I don’t know what that accomplishes.”
Dalton addressing the offense’s poor play as a result of fans’ responses is probably what booing accomplishes, but either way, Dalton recognizes that he will have to do better.
”But, at the end of the day, we have to play better and give them something to cheer for. We want the fans behind us, and we want the city behind us. It only gives us an advantage. We want a home-field advantage. Unfortunately we didn’t play well today and didn’t give them too much to cheer for.”
Zac Taylor also had some words regarding the embarrassing loss at the hands of the 49ers.
“We were playing poorly in all three phases. It was not anything to be excited about if I was a fan in the stands that paid money to come to that game.”
This is a test for rookie head coach Zac Taylor. He has a chance now to put in some serious work in practice this week. The best we can hope for is that this week was a wakeup call for Taylor.
“It’s on us to fix the issues we have and play better and the fans will rally behind that. But right now, we didn’t give them a good enough product to be excited about.”