The Cincinnati Bengals were demolished on their own field by the Cleveland Browns on Thursday night. Andy Dalton played the worst game of any NFL quarterback this season and the Browns used three running backs effectively. Brian Hoyer made throws when he needed to and Cleveland’s defense was dominant. None of that impressed Bengals rookie Jeremy Hill.
Hill, who was drafted in the second round out of LSU, was asked after the game if the Browns are a better team than he thought.
“Oh no, not at all,” Hill said, via ESPN.com’s Cole Harvey. “They’re probably worse than I thought, to be honest with you.”
Hill said the Browns deserve “respect” for winning the game, but that is all he was willing to give them.
“Those guys, they’re not that good,” he added. “It was on us [Thursday]. We gave them the game, in my opinion. They didn’t do anything special. We just gave them the game. They just sat back with coverage the whole day.”
While I don’t agree with Hill for saying it, I don’t necessarily disagree with his assessment. As I mentioned on Thursday night, I picked the Bengals this week because I’m not a believer in the Browns. The fact that the Bengals were able to stay within two scores for so long given how Dalton had played was baffling to me. An above-average team would have been up 37-3 after three quarters.
You can understand why Hill — who threw his helmet in anger at one point in the fourth quarter — was frustrated. He was the lone bright spot for the Bengals on a horrible nigiht, rushing for 55 yards on 12 carries. After he lost a fumble, Cincinnati abandoned the run against the second-worst run defense in the NFL. Dalton was horrible, and so was the game plan. The Browns aren’t suddenly Super Bowl contenders.
