Bengals could be AFC elite if they keep playing like they did in Spain

The Cincinnati Bengals showed they can do it! And on the world stage, no less.

They actually can run a balanced offense.

And it happened when the Bengals needed it most in Sunday's impressive, 34-17 victory against the Atlanta Falcons in Spain.

The Falcons had stopped the Bengals out of halftime. Then Atlanta marched down the field to cut its deficit to one score, seemingly giving the Falcons momentum midway through the third quarter. Every Bengals fan from Madrid to Madeira tensed up. Here we go again.

This is the situation where Bengals quarterback Joe Burrow typically would want to shoulder the load and pass, pass and pass some more to try to regain momentum − and especially in a game where he and Ja'Marr Chase were putting on the show they had promised on the world stage.

But the Bengals surprisingly decided to mix it up, and Burrow orchestrated perhaps the most impressive drive of the season.

The last three plays: 11-yard run by Chase Brown, 19-yard run by Brown, 8-yard touchdown pass over the middle to Tee Higgins. The drive was a 7-play, 73-yard thing of beauty. Four runs. Three passes. A clinic in how to run a balanced offense, and it gave the Bengals a commanding, 31-17, lead with around four minutes left in the third quarter.

Those long run plays, in which Brown broke through the line and showed his speed and shiftiness in space, were back-breakers for the Falcons' defense. Atlanta had already been demoralized by the Bengals' magic elixir of Burrow-to-Chase. The duo connected for 155 yards and a touchdown. The Falcons now had to account for Brown gashing them, too.

"If the Bengals can run the football like this, good luck stopping them," NFL Network analyst Louis Riddick said.

Preach.

And loudly enough for coach Zac Taylor and Burrow to hear it.

Run. The. Ball. Good things happen when teams do it effectively. For the Bengals, it could make one of the NFL's most prolific passing games even more lethal. Football 101: Run the ball effectively, defense's have to adjust to stop it and it opens up the passing game.

Burrow and Chase got the headlines for this game. But the Bengals ran for 123 yards. Season high. They got 5.1 yards per rush. Season high. It's a combination of Burrow, Chase, Tee Higgins and the running backs that'll help to elevate the Bengals from a solid team to a potential Super Bowl contender.

"The sky's the limit when we play like this," Ja'Marr Chase told NFL Network after he and Burrow played in the first international game of their career.

Hand it to Taylor for having the Bengals better prepared to play after sluggish starts the previous two games. This could've been another slow start, given the 4,100-mile trip and having to spend most of the week away from the creature comforts of home. The Bengals were coming off an exhausting, overtime win against lowly Tennessee two days before they took the 8-hour flight to Spain.

But the Bengals' offense immediately went to what it does best: Burrow-to-Chase. They connected on a 47-yard TD for the Bengals' first score. Cincinnati scored on all of its first-half possessions, giving the Bengals a 24-10 halftime lead. Then they mixed it up on that third-quarter drive.

Extra impressive about the drive: The Bengals didn't need Chase to help them zip down the field. He didn't have a catch on that drive, although he was targeted but the pass was incomplete.

The Bengals have a 6-2 record and are undoubtedly taking advantage of a weak schedule, a gift that came with their third-place finish in the AFC North last season. All of Cincinnati's wins are against teams that came out of the weekend with a losing record.

But this is exactly what the Bengals should be doing, banking wins ahead of a first-place showdown against the Pittsburgh Steelers next Sunday night at Paycor Stadium and games in Cleveland and against Kansas City looming.

The Bengals now need to show they can be consistently balanced on offense. If they can perform against the Steelers like they did in Madrid, perhaps it'll be time to start considering the Bengals as one of the legitimate top teams in the AFC.

Contact columnist Jason Williams at jwilliams@enquirer.com

This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Bengals could be AFC elite if they keep playing like they did in Spain