The Bengals opened the 2026 season with a win, and for once, the defense had a lot to do with it.
There were some familiar warts along the way, but Cincinnati made enough plays to hold off Tampa Bay, 33-27, at Paycor Stadium.
Whew. A Week 1 game that actually ended with the Bengals on the happy side of things.
Here are the best and worst from Cincinnati’s season-opening win.
The Good
The defense came to play
Well, hello there.
After everything we heard about Cincinnati’s rebuilt defense during the offseason, we finally got to see it against an actual NFL offense. And the unit immediately made its presence felt.
The Bengals forced fumbles on three consecutive Tampa Bay possessions in the first half. Myles Murphy strip-sacked Baker Mayfield, and Demetrius Knight Jr. scooped it up and returned it 27 yards for a touchdown.
Then Bryan Cook forced a fumble from Bucky Irving, with Boye Mafe recovering. A few plays later, Joe Burrow found Mike Gesicki for a touchdown.
On the next Tampa possession, Barrett Carter forced another Mayfield fumble near the goal line, and Cook recovered it in the end zone.
Three straight possessions. Three turnovers.
Cincinnati eventually forced four fumbles and recovered all four, while also sacking Mayfield four times. The Bengals turned those takeaways into 24 points.
That’s a pretty good way to start a new defensive era.
Mike Gesicki was exactly what Cincinnati needed
Ja’Marr Chase and Tee Higgins weren’t exactly having their usual Sunday. So, naturally, Mike Gesicki decided to have a day.
Gesicki caught five passes for 78 yards and a touchdown on seven targets, leading Cincinnati in receiving. He also came up big late in the first half, catching three passes for 52 yards on the drive that ended with an Evan McPherson field goal.
The Bucs spent plenty of attention on Chase and Higgins, and Burrow simply went somewhere else with the football.
That’s what makes this offense so interesting. If defenses want to take away Cincinnati’s two star receivers, there are going to be opportunities for guys like Gesicki to make them pay.
Chase Brown and the run game
This was not the old-school Bengals running the ball 40 times and winning 17-13. But it was a much more balanced attack.
Cincinnati ran the ball 27 times and threw it 35 times, and Chase Brown finished with 16 carries for 56 yards and a touchdown. He also caught five passes for 23 yards.
More importantly, the Bengals showed a willingness to use the run as something other than a change of pace.
Brown’s five-yard touchdown run capped an 80-yard, 12-play drive in the second quarter and pushed Cincinnati’s lead to 21-3.
If Dan Pitcher’s offense really is going to lean into a more balanced approach in 2026, Sunday was a pretty encouraging first look.
Money Mac is back
Evan McPherson had himself a day. Four field goals. Four makes.
Twenty yards. Thirty-two yards. Fifty-five yards. Fifty-eight yards.
Those last two are particularly important because Tampa Bay had started to make things uncomfortable. Cincinnati wasn’t consistently finishing drives with touchdowns, but McPherson kept adding points.
He accounted for 12 of the Bengals’ 33 points and gave Cincinnati some breathing room when the offense wasn’t quite clicking.
Oh, and the 58-yarder was just ridiculous. It’s nice having that in your back pocket again.
The offensive line quietly did its job
This probably won’t generate nearly as many headlines as a scoop-and-score or a 58-yard field goal, but it might be one of the more important things to come out of this game.
Joe Burrow was sacked just once.
He finished 25-of-35 for 254 yards, one touchdown and one interception, while completing passes to nine different receivers.
There were still some issues, but Burrow generally had enough time to work through his reads. Considering how much of Cincinnati’s success ultimately depends on keeping No. 9 upright, that’s a pretty significant development.
Sometimes the best thing an offensive line can do is make you forget it’s there. Sunday was one of those days.
The Bad
Joe Burrow’s pick-six
There’s no way around this one. Burrow had a pretty solid afternoon overall, but his third-quarter interception was brutal.
With Cincinnati leading 27-13, Burrow tried to hit Andrei Iosivas, and Tampa Bay linebacker Josiah Trotter stepped in front of the pass and took it 27 yards for a touchdown.
Just like that, a 14-point game became a seven-point game. It wasn’t the kind of mistake that cost Cincinnati the game, but it absolutely gave Tampa Bay life when the Bucs needed it.
Burrow finished with 254 yards and a touchdown, so this wasn’t some disaster of a performance. But that interception was a bad one, and he’ll know it.
The good news? The Bengals responded.
The defense still missed too many tackles
Four forced fumbles and four sacks will get you a lot of attention. But this wasn’t a flawless defensive performance.
Cincinnati missed tackles, and Tampa Bay was able to move the football despite the turnovers. The Bengals also committed multiple offsides penalties, which is the kind of self-inflicted stuff that can become a real problem against better teams.
That’s the tradeoff with an aggressive defense. You want guys flying around trying to make plays. You also need them to know where the line is.
Cincinnati found that line a few times Sunday—and stepped over it.
Ja’Marr Chase was basically a decoy
Two catches. Twelve yards. Four targets.
That’s it for Ja’Marr Chase.
Obviously, this isn’t going to happen every week. Tampa Bay made a concerted effort to take Chase away, and Burrow responded by distributing the ball elsewhere.
That’s actually a positive development.
Still, there’s a difference between taking Chase away and simply not getting him involved. The Bengals didn’t need Chase to win this game. But there will be Sundays when they absolutely will.
The offense left some points out there
Cincinnati scored 33 points, so complaining about the offense feels a little ridiculous.
Still, there were stretches where the Bengals had opportunities to put Tampa Bay away and couldn’t quite do it.
The Bengals went 2-for-5 in the red zone, according to the game statistics. That’s an area that could come back to bite them against a team that doesn’t hand them four turnovers.
The offense did enough. But it didn’t exactly leave the Bucs’ defense picking up the pieces.
The Ugly
That pick-six made this way too interesting
This is where things got uncomfortable.
Cincinnati was up 27-13. Tampa Bay had struggled to protect the football. The Bengals’ defense was flying around.
Then Burrow threw the pick-six. Suddenly it was 27-20.
The Buccaneers had momentum, the crowd had gotten a little quieter, and everybody watching was thinking the same thing:
Please don’t do this.
Fortunately, McPherson answered with a 58-yard field goal, and the defense eventually forced its fourth turnover of the afternoon.
But Cincinnati turned what could have been a comfortable fourth quarter into a game that required some actual late-game execution.
Tampa Bay wouldn’t go away
Credit to the Bucs. After falling behind 24-10 at halftime, Tampa Bay kept hanging around. The Buccaneers cut the lead to seven in the third quarter, and Baker Mayfield eventually ran for an eight-yard touchdown with 3:19 left to make it 33-27.
That’s when Cincinnati finally got the kind of close-out drive it has been looking for. The Bengals possessed the ball for the final 3:19 and didn’t give Tampa Bay another opportunity.
So, yes, it got ugly. But Cincinnati actually finished the job.
And honestly, after some of the fourth-quarter endings Bengals fans have endured over the years, I’ll take an ugly close-out over another meltdown every single time.
Outlook: Week 1 was fun—Now comes the hard part
The Bengals are 1-0.
The defense looked different. The offense showed some balance. McPherson looked like McPherson again. Burrow made some good throws, made one really bad one, and Cincinnati still walked away with a six-point victory.
That’s a pretty good starting point. But there’s plenty to clean up.
The missed tackles need to improve. The penalties need to stop. The red-zone offense needs to be better. And Burrow probably isn’t going to get away with throwing a pick-six every week.
Then again, that’s why you play the games. For one Sunday, at least, the Bengals looked like a team that could win in more than one way.
Now let’s see if they can do it again.
