The Cincinnati Bengals were able to avoid the dreaded 0-3 start, defeating the visiting Los Angeles Rams 19-16 on Monday Night Football to cap off Week 3 of the season. This is a position that the Bengals aren’t unfamiliar with, as they also started the 2022 season 0-2.

Also similarly to last season, Cincinnati is struggling mightily on the offensive side of the ball. Through three games they have scored only 46 total points, as their 15.3 average is 28th in the NFL. They are even worse in yardage, ranking 30th with only 733 total yards.

That puts the team in last place in yards per play through the first three games of the season. Alas, this is not out of the ordinary for the Bengals either. As pointed out by Doug Clawson of CBS Sports, this is the same position they were in last season.

That is certainly a concerning statistic to see. No team wants to get off to as slow of a start as the Bengals have, but if anyone can climb out of this early hole, it is them; they have already done it once.

However, things do seem a little different in Cincinnati this year compared to last year. The biggest concern is the health of Joe Burrow. There were no such concerns last season as he got his entire offseason body of work in. This year, that was not the case.

Burrow missed six weeks of training camp because of a calf injury he suffered in late July. That gave him about 10 days to prepare for the regular season and the rust has certainly been evident in the early going.

To make matters worse, the same calf injury was re-aggravated in Week 2 against the Baltimore Ravens. An ailing Burrow is going to make things very difficult for the Bengals, especially if he is not going to be able to raise his level of performance beyond what we saw in Week 3 against the Rams.

Through three games Burrow has not looked like himself, completing 55.4 percent of his passes for 563 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions. The Bengals are not pushing the ball down the field, partly due to his injury and the underwhelming performance of the team’s offensive line.

While there is still time for the Bengals to turn things around, this group doesn’t have the same explosiveness as last season. Until Burrow can get healthy, it is hard to imagine things getting much better in Cincinnati.