Bengals score 27 straight as penalties and a missed field goal sink Falcons 34-17 in Madrid

The Falcons flew to Madrid, played eleven good minutes in front of 78,660 at the Santiago Bernabeu, and lost 34-17 to a Cincinnati team that never had to do anything clever. Atlanta scored on its opening drive, led 10-7 after a quarter, and was outscored 27-7 from there. Joe Burrow went 24 of 29 for 271 yards and three touchdowns with a 140.1 rating. He was not pressured often enough to matter and he was not wrong often enough to matter either.

This was decided in stretches rather than on one snap, but if you want the moment Atlanta ran out of road, it came at 12:13 of the fourth quarter. Down 31-17, the Falcons had third and two at the Cincinnati 10 at the end of an 11-play drive. Kyle Pitts was flagged for offensive holding. Third and two became third and 12, Michael Penix Jr. threw a checkdown to Bijan Robinson for nothing, and Nick Folk missed a 38-yard field goal wide left with 11:31 to go. Atlanta's next possession began at its own 7, after Chris Blair was flagged for an illegal block on the punt return, and lost five yards. The one after that ended with Barrett Carter intercepting Penix at the Atlanta 43 on second and one.

Twelve penalties for 88 yards explains this afternoon better than any other number. Cincinnati had six for 43.

Offense

The plan was to hand the ball to Robinson and let Penix take what Cincinnati gave him underneath, and the first half of that worked. Atlanta ran 24 times for 157 yards, 6.5 a carry, and the opening drive covered 80 yards in seven plays with Robinson taking one carry 19 yards and another 21 on third and one. He finished with 19 carries for 100 yards and a touchdown plus six catches for 47, which is 147 yards from scrimmage on a day the whole passing game produced 162.

Which is the problem. Penix went 20 of 31 for 162 yards, 5.2 an attempt, one touchdown, one interception, a 74.9 rating. He was not sacked once, genuine credit to the protection, and he ran for 50 yards on three scrambles including a 23-yarder on third and five. But the ball went nowhere. Drake London caught all five of his targets for 68 yards and that was the ceiling of the operation. Pitts had three for 23 and a drive-killing hold. There was one explosive pass in the game, 28 yards to Robinson on third and six. There was not a second one.

The red zone is where the day went. Two for four, and the failures were discipline, not execution. In the first quarter Penix scrambled to the Cincinnati 1 on first and goal from the 7 and Matthew Bergeron was called for holding. Two plays later Jake Taylor false started on second and goal. Atlanta took a 31-yard field goal instead of seven. In the third quarter, on third and one at the Cincinnati 12, Bergeron false started again, and the touchdown came anyway only because DJ Turner was flagged for interference in the end zone.

Defense

Cincinnati ran 55 plays for 388 yards, 7.1 a snap, converted six of 10 third downs and three of four red zone trips, and did not turn the ball over. Burrow missed five throws all day.

Ja'Marr Chase was the matchup and the matchup was not close, at least not before halftime. He caught seven for 129 in the first half, including a 47-yard touchdown on Cincinnati's second possession with nobody within five yards of him down the right sideline. A.J. Terrell Jr. and C.J. Henderson had no answer, and twice the flag made it worse. Terrell's defensive holding on second and nine from the Atlanta 21 erased a nine-yard Gervon Dexter sack and handed Cincinnati a first down on an 88-yard touchdown drive. Henderson gave up 14 yards of interference on the first snap of the drive that made it 31-17. Tee Higgins caught five balls for 32 yards and scored on two of them, from four and eight, with the field compressed and Atlanta unable to take anything away.

There was work here, and more of it after halftime. Cincinnati gained 278 yards on its first-half drives and 10 points' worth of offense after the break. LaCale London had five tackles, a tackle for loss, a quarterback hit, and a six-yard sack of Burrow on third and one at the Cincinnati 37 with 10:13 left, which produced the only three and out of the second half. Zach Harrison had the other sack. Jessie Bates III led everyone with 14 tackles, 11 unassisted, which is a double-edged number: it means he was the last line a lot of the time. Chase Brown and Samaje Perine combined for 100 yards on 20 carries. Two sacks and six quarterback hits against a man who threw 29 times is not pressure.

Special teams

The return game was the best Atlanta unit on the field. Khalil Herbert took six kickoffs 157 yards, 26.2 a return, with a 39-yarder that handed the offense its own 40. Olamide Zaccheaus added a 28-yard return. Jake Bailey punted three times for 45.3 with two inside the 20.

The rest cost points and field position. Folk made from 31 and missed from 38, wide left, with a chance to cut it to two scores and 11 minutes left. Blair's illegal block moved Atlanta from its own 14 back to its own 7, the offense went three and out, and Cincinnati started at the Atlanta 48 and turned it into a 43-yard Evan McPherson field goal. Zaccheaus lost three yards on two punt returns. McPherson went two for two with a 57-yarder to end the first half.

Coaching

The team came out ready, which is worth saying because it has not always been true this year: seven plays, 80 yards, a touchdown, and Cincinnati facing third and five on its opening possession. The halftime work was real, too. Chase had seven catches for 129 before the break and three for 26 after it, and Cincinnati scored 10 second-half points. The defensive staff found something. By then it was 24-10, and an offense that produced 132 yards and seven points in the third and fourth quarters could not spend what the defense bought.

What cannot be explained away is the discipline. Twelve penalties for 88 yards, including a delay of game, two false starts inside the Cincinnati 20, and two pre-snap penalties from the same left guard. Three scoring drives were altered or ended by Atlanta flags and a fourth possession started at the 7 because of one. This is a theme at this point, not an incident.

The in-game calls were mostly defensible. Raheem Morris challenged a Chase catch on third and one in the second quarter and lost, costing a timeout on a drive that ended in a touchdown. Atlanta did not attempt a fourth down all day, which looks worse than it was: the three it faced were fourth and six from its own 35, fourth and 15 from its own 2, and fourth and 12 at the Cincinnati 20. Punt, punt, kick are the right answers. Two timeouts spent on Cincinnati's fourth-quarter field goal drive while down 14 bought 20 seconds the offense gave back on an interception.

What it means

Atlanta is 3-6, and 1-4 in games where it was the home team, a category that now includes a stadium in Spain. Two straight losses, 17 points across those eight quarters, after a 16-0 shutout at Tampa Bay. The three wins came at Green Bay, at New Orleans and against San Francisco, and the offense scored at least 29 in all three. In the six losses it is averaging just over 13.

Two things have now shown up for weeks. The penalties are the obvious one, and they are not getting better no matter how often they get addressed. The quieter one is that this passing game does not threaten anybody down the field. Penix had clean pockets for 31 attempts and no sacks, and the yield was 5.2 an attempt and one throw longer than 21 yards. That is not a protection problem and it is not a pass rush problem. The run game is real and Robinson is a weapon, but none of it travels while a defense can cover the whole field with six and still handle the run with five.

What is next

Kansas City comes to Mercedes-Benz Stadium next Sunday at 1 p.m. Eastern, and then Atlanta is on bye in Week 11. The question is the one Madrid asked: can this offense make a good defense defend the whole field. If the answer is another 20 completions for 162 yards, a back half that includes Detroit, Minnesota and two games with Tampa Bay will not be forgiving, and the season will be settled well before anybody wants it to be.