Week 4 of the season kicked off with a surprise team battle. Last year Cincinnati Bengals shocked tournament and pick up that momentum all the way to the Super Bowl. For three weeks in 2022, the Miami Dolphins claim that crown 3-0 with a big win over this year’s Super Bowl favorites, the Buffalo Bills. This confrontation in Cincy should be another horror movie for several reasons.
Usually, in a game where both teams use midfield pairings made in the same draft, that’s where all the attention goes. However, everyone is talking about the match between the wide receiver and the camera angle this time. Most notably Tireek Hill against Eli Apple. These two have been talking since last season when the Bengals beat the Kansas City captain twice within a matter of weeks.
Apple is known for its mouth, but after Cincinnati’s win over Hill and the captains in the AFC championship game, it was taken to another level. It doesn’t matter where Hill plays; he owes Apple after last year. Hill said as much to the media when he cut an advertisement about sports pro wrestling style “Macho Man” Randy Savage sunglasses.
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Of course, the semi-final event was the QB match between Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa. Burrow is the #1 overall pick in the 2020 draft, with Tua going to have four picks then in 5th. So they’ll be forever compared to each other. During the first two years of his career, Burrow’s productivity gave him an advantage, largely based on last season’s Bengals Super Bowl run. Although last year Burrow had more layoffs than any other QB, Cincy found the winning formula and almost took home a Lombardi trophy.
So far in this season, it’s a different story when Tagovailoa fueled the undefeated Dolphins. The distance between the two is getting smaller and smaller. Outside of Week 1, Burrow played not bad and even threw three touchdowns in the Bengals’ first win of the year last week against the lowly Jets. Burrow was back on track, even though he repeatedly took too many sacks; he was in the lead again this year.
Because Tassels, like he entered a whole new world this season. He’s got a new head trainer specializing in offense and a variety of weapons featuring the All-Pro expansion in Hill. Rewind finished the first two seasons with a QBR below 50, which is considered average. Through his first three games in ’22, Tua hit a QBR of 82.8. Although it is a small sample size, that is clearly extraordinary. You want to see Tagovailoa continue this all year but so far, so good. The confrontation between these young QBs will be discussed non-stop during this match. Don’t forget, you will need Amazon Prime to capture it.
Another thing to watch out for in this game will be the Bengals’ defense and how they defend the deep ball. When Hill was transferred to Miami for the off-season, people worried about Tua having a strong enough arm to get the ball to his landing field. Welp, the Dolphins, cleared any of our worries about that. They are leading the league in over 40 yard receptions with five games. This Dolphins offense also has 11 receptions from 20 yards or more, just two short of the league leaders. Team / Tua is second in the number of passing yards with 925 and third in the number of TD hits.
With Cincy, everything will be the same as it ever was. Protect Joe Burrow. Continuing the game on the ground is also important, but the more time Burrow has without defenders around, the better. That may sound obvious, but so far Cincy hasn’t done a good job of it. Last week, Burrow was fired only twice, and they won the game. In his first two games against the Steelers and Cowboys, Burrow was fired 13 times – seven times against Pittsburgh and six times against Dallas.
This game is going to be a lot of fun, with two of the best QB-WR duos in the NFL going head-to-head in Tua-Hill vs Burrow-Ja’Marr Chase. There will be plenty of points for those who enjoy that kind of excitement. Miami should win a close game and get to Burrow enough times to destroy him and Chase.
