Bengals 20, Texans 6 — Week 2: Four Fourth Downs, Four Stops

Fourth and one at the Cincinnati 18, six 58 left in the second quarter, no score. Houston reported an extra lineman as eligible and handed the ball to David Montgomery over right tackle. Dexter Lawrence dropped him for a loss of one. 10 points of win probability left Houston's side on that snap, one of the two biggest swings of the game. The Bengals took the ball at their own 19, went 81 yards in seven plays, and Joe Burrow hit Ja'Marr Chase deep right for 32 yards and the first points of the game. Cincinnati won 20 to six in Houston, never trailed, led for about 34 minutes, and did it with a defense that gave up 413 yards and not one touchdown.

Start with that defense, because the yardage and the scoreboard tell opposite stories. 413 yards allowed is 20-seventh of the 28 teams that have played this week; only Detroit gave up more. 353 of them came through the air, the most any defense has allowed so far this week. And by expected points added, this was the third-best defensive day of those 28, behind only Carolina and New England. Expected points added is what a snap was worth given the down, the distance and the field position, and on defense a negative number is the good direction. Houston's 58 pass plays and 18 rush plays were worth −18.8 between them. Six points allowed is fourth-fewest so far this week. The way those two things fit together is where the yards stopped. Four times Houston snapped the ball on fourth down without kicking it, one of them out of field goal formation, and four times it came up short. It ran 10 snaps inside the Cincinnati 20 and scored no touchdowns. On third down the defense got off the field on 12 of 17, fifth-best of the teams that have played.

The run defense is the cleanest number on the sheet. Three of Houston's 18 rush plays were successful, meaning they kept the offense on schedule. That is one in six, the lowest rate any run game has managed so far this week, and by expected points per rush play no defense among the 28 has been better. The total was −9.7. At the rate Cincinnati allowed runs last season, when it ranked 20-ninth, those same 18 plays would have been worth about +1.6. 60 rushing yards allowed ties the Chargers for second-fewest so far this week; only Tampa Bay allowed fewer. And three quarterback scrambles gained 29 of the 60. The other 15 rush plays gained 31 yards. 12 of the 18 gained three yards or fewer. The one that mattered most after the Lawrence stop: third and one at the Cincinnati 40, eight 19 left in the third quarter, Bengals up 10 to three, Woody Marks over right guard for nothing, Tedarrell Slaton on the tackle. Houston sent out the field goal unit on fourth and one and the 58-yarder came up short.

Against the pass the yards were real and so were the stops. 58 pass plays, 353 yards, no touchdowns, and −9.1 expected points, which is fourth-best in total and sixth-best per play of the 28 teams so far. At the rate this pass defense allowed last season, when it ranked 20-eighth, those 58 plays would have been worth about +9 and a half. The difference was third and long. Houston needed seven yards or more on 12 of its 17 third downs and converted two of those 12. Through its first 13 third downs of the game Houston had converted twice; the other three conversions came on the final drive, inside the last two minutes, down 14. The pass rush arrived late and all at once: four sacks, every one in the fourth quarter, including Houston's last snap of the game, fourth and 17 at the Cincinnati 19 with 19 seconds left, a Cedric Johnson sack for −19. What the defense did not do is take the ball away. No takeaways, a week after forcing four.

The offense was a handful of throws and a lot of punts. 10 of Cincinnati's 36 pass plays were successful. That 28 percent success rate is the lowest of the 28 teams that have played this week. The expected points came out close to even anyway, about minus half a point, eighteenth so far this week, because the few that worked were big. Four completions of 20 yards or more gained 99 of the 207 passing yards. The first touchdown drive shows how it worked: third and eight from the Cincinnati 21, Burrow to Tee Higgins over the middle for 18; then third and four from the Cincinnati 45, Higgins over the middle again for 23, the other of the game's two biggest swings at +10 points of win probability. Chase scored on the next snap. The second touchdown was third and six from the Houston 18 with three 12 left in the third quarter, Burrow to Chase deep right, 10 to three becoming 16 to three. For scale: at the rate Houston's pass defense allowed last season, when it was the best in the league, 36 pass plays would have been worth about −6.7. Cincinnati also took five sacks.

Third down tells the same story from another angle. Five of 15, tied for nineteenth so far this week, and all five conversions came on scoring drives. Nine of the 15 needed seven or more, and the Bengals did much of that to themselves: 12 penalties for 78 yards, five of them false starts. One second-quarter drive went from second and 10 to third and 26 on a sack between two false starts. A holding call in the first quarter erased a 26-yard Chase Brown run to the Houston 19, and that drive ended in a punt after a false start in field goal formation. Eight punts, three three-and-outs.

The run game did not help much either. 22 rush plays, 86 yards, −4.8 expected points, 20-first per play of the 28 teams so far. Last week the same unit was ninth in the league per play, at +2 and a half in total. Two runs reached 10 yards. With a 14-point lead and three 15 left at the Houston 41, three runs gained two yards between them and Cincinnati punted. The points the offense did not get in the end zone, Evan McPherson got from distance: 51 yards in the third quarter, 57 in the fourth.

Now the thread, for anyone new to this team. Cincinnati went six and 11 last season, and the defense was the reason: 20-eighth against the pass by expected points per play, 20-ninth against the run, bottom six in third-down stop rate. In Week 1 the Bengals beat Tampa Bay 33 to 27 at home with four takeaways, and the defense ranked eighth of 32 against the pass and eleventh against the run, but it got off the field on only five of 10 third downs. This week it is sixth against the pass, first against the run and fifth on third down among the teams that have played, on the road, without a single takeaway to lean on. That is the opposite of last season's team for the second week running. The honest caveats: Houston's run game ranked thirtieth in the league last season, the Texans moved the ball between the twenties all day, and two games do not settle what a defense is. But two and oh with the defense carrying a sputtering offense is not a sentence anyone wrote about this team a year ago.

Cincinnati is at Pittsburgh next Sunday afternoon. Watch the pass game's success rate, and watch whether the defense can keep winning the downs that end drives.

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_Data via nflverse._