Bengals run game continues early season struggles

The Cincinnati Bengals knocked off the New York Jets on Sunday, as Joe Burrow led the team to their first victory.

With an impressive defensive performance alongside Burrow slinging it around the yard, the one place that continued to struggle was in the run game.

With Joe Mixon and Samaje Perine just about splitting carries in Sunday’s win, and totaling 71 yards on the day the duo struggles to establish a consistent run game.

Perine was impressive overall though as he totaled 47 yards on nine carries, while averaging just over five yards per carry.

Mixon on the other hand, struggled once again, as he totaled 24 yards on 12 carries in the win.

Paul Dehner Jr of The Athletic also pointed out that the team also failed to record a run longer than 10 yards in the game.

With a matchup looming with Miami on Thursday night, the question now becomes; will Mixon and this running game return to form?

History indicates from Mixon’s career that it will, but for a league and an offense that relies heavy on play-action, it needs to get going sooner rather than later.

Some of this also comes down to the offensive-line as well. With a talented, but overall new unit, there is still room for the chemistry to build. When it does, this will be a topic to come back too.

For the time being, we need the running game to take a huge step forward, if we hope to bounce back from this 0-2 start.