THIS ARTICLE IS A CONTINUATION OF “THE HAUNTED HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL TOUCHDOWN KING: JAKE BROWNING”
Browning looked lost against the talented Baltimore defense, causing the news that he’s starting the rest of the season to demoralize the Bengals faithful. Browning was underwhelming yet again in the Bengals’ week 12 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Now at 5W-6L, the NFL was ready to write off the Cincinnati Bengals.
But then, like a skeleton in a horror movie, the high school football touchdown king came crawling out of his grave.
THE RISE OF JAKE BROWNING:
The Bengals entered their Monday night matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars at 5W-6L. Due to the large number of solid teams in the AFC, if Cincinnati wanted a shot at competing for a wildcard spot, they couldn’t afford to go two games under. That’s when the 2016 version of Jake Browning resurrected. Browning lit up the Jacksonville defense for 354 yards and a touchdown both in the air and on the ground. Trevor Lawrence and Jake Browning exchanged blow-for-blow and matched each other every time until Lawrence went down with an ankle injury, allowing the Bengals to win in overtime.
The following week the Bengals hosted the Indianapolis Colts. The Colts were another AFC team with a similar record, making the game very important for the Bengals’ wildcard odds. The Colts’ defense was no match for the high school football touchdown king. The first half went back and forth, before Browning scored two touchdowns in the 3rd quarter, putting the game out of reach.
JAKE BROWNING HAUNTS THE VIKINGS:
In August 2021, the Minnesota Vikings decided that Jake Browning was too far gone, and trying to resurrect his career would be a waste of time and resources. Therefore, Minnesota decided to quit on Jake Browning and cut him.
In October 2023, the Minnesota Vikings would come to regret that decision. In garbage time of their week 8 win over the Green Bay Packers, the Vikings’ star quarterback, Kirk Cousins, went down with a leg injury. Jaren Hall would come in to replace the injured Cousins, and his performance raised concern among the Minnesota staff. Hall looked flustered and overwhelmed, fumbling and missing a couple of easy opportunities. However, before their next game, the Vikings were able to complete a quick trade with the Arizona Cardinals, acquiring veteran backup quarterback, Josh Dobbs. Dobbs came in and instantly impressed, leading the Vikings to wins over the Atlanta Falcons and New Orleans Saints. Dobbs slowed down a bit in the Vikings’ week 11 loss to the Denver Broncos, before collapsing the following week. In week 12, Dobbs threw 3 interceptions during an embarrassing loss to the 3W-8L Chicago Bears. After their bye week, the Vikings headed to Las Vegas to face the struggling Raiders. The game was one of, if not the most embarrassing offensive performances in NFL history, on both sides. In the third quarter, head coach Kevin O’Connell had seen enough and replaced Dobbs with Nick Mullens. Mullens, now the fourth Vikings’ quarterback in the past six games, was just “not bad” enough for Minnesota to win 3-0.
Coming off their ugliest win of the decade, Minnesota named Nick Mullins their starting quarterback for their week 15 matchup against the Cincinnati Bengals. The matchup was between the team that didn’t need Jake Browning but believed in him and the team that needed Jake Browning but didn’t believe in him. Even though Nick Mullens played a very good game, nothing was going to come between Jake Browning and his revenge. Browning lit up the Minnesota defense all game but between a lack of production on the ground and a banged-up defense, Browning found his offense running onto the field, down by seven with three minutes left to play. On that very drive, Browning became possessed by the ghost of the franchise quarterback he once thought he would be. Browning completed 7 of 9 passes on the drive, for 72 yards, capped off by a game-tying touchdown pass to Tee Higgins. Browning proceeded to lead the Bengals into field goal range in overtime, setting up a game-winning kick by Even McPherson. After the Bengals walked it off, Browning found a camera on the sideline and let America know what he thought of the Vikings. For obvious reasons, I won’t write the quote but here’s the video.
MY ONE CONCERN:
Due to his electrifying run, Jake Browning is becoming a fan favorite. Over the past three games, browning has tallied a total of 982 yards and 7 touchdowns, but I have one concern.
Browning isn’t the only backup quarterback who’s made headlines this season. A handful of backup quarterbacks have been temporarily impressive before falling off this year. The two examples I chose are Zach Wilson and Josh Dobbs.
Zach Wilson:
After a rough start to the season, Zach Wilson and the New York Jets hosted a primetime matchup against the reigning Super Bowl Champions, the Kansas City Chiefs. Despite being a heavy underdog, Zach Wilson played his heart out. When the Jets found themselves in a 17-2 hole, Zach Wilson put the team on his back. Wilson led New York on an 18-3 run to tie the game with four minutes remaining. The defense was able to hold Pat Mahomes and the Kansas City offense to a field goal, giving Wilson a chance to lead a game-winning drive. Unfortunately, Wilson fumbled and the Chiefs hung on to win. During his post-game press conference, Wilson took accountability for the loss and went out of his way to give teammates credit, showing maturity he previously lacked.
Over the next three games, Wilson wasn’t necessarily great but did enough to win the games. Now on a 3-game win streak, the Jets were under the impression that Aaron Rodgers had helped Wilson improve enough to let the talented team around him help him be successful.
Wilson quickly debunked said belief. Despite playing against weak opponents, over the next three games, Wilson was horrible. Wilson’s offense scored a total of 24 points and only one touchdown, and he was inevitably benched before the completion of the third game.
Josh Dobbs:
As I previously mentioned, after Kirk Cousins went down, the Minnesota Vikings acquired Josh Dobbs. Due to Jaren Hall’s poor play, the Vikings subbed in Josh Dobbs at quarterback against the Atlanta Falcons, despite him being new to their offense. Dobbs scored three touchdowns in his Minnesota debut and led the Vikings to a 31-28 win. The very next week, Dobbs made his first start as a Viking, against the New Orleans Saints. Dobbs and his offense were lights-out in the first half, putting up 24 points and practically ending the game before halftime. The following week, the Vikings headed to the Mile High City to face the red-hot Denver Broncos. Dobbs was impressive yet again, but due to missing a couple of opportunities to pull away, Russell Wilson found Courtland Sutton in the back of the endzone for a clutch touchdown to slip away with a 21-20 win.
The Vikings tried to bounce back the following week by beating the horrible Chicago Bears. However, the game didn’t go as planned. Dobbs threw three picks, with a passer rating of 54.3, as the Vikings lost their second consecutive game. The Vikings tried to bounce back the following week by beating the horrible Las Vegas Raiders. However, the game didn’t go as planned either. After Dobbs completed only 10 of his first 23 passes, for only 47 yards, he was inevitably benched.
These quarterbacks’ sudden improvement followed by sudden downfall is confusing. The only explanation I can come up with is the following. These quarterbacks did mildly improve and/or added one aspect to their game, causing their preexisting film to become outdated. The opposing coaching staffs built their game plans based on what they saw in the said outdated film, causing their game plans to play exactly to what the quarterback wanted to do. After a couple of games of new film become available, the opponents start drawing up game plans based on the new film. This causes the quarterbacks to return to their old selves, maybe slightly improved. Here are the stats to back my theory:
Zach Wilson:
Aaron Rodgers taught Zach Wilson the importance of maturity on the football field. Zach Wilson’s opponents wanted to stop the run and play a deep zone defense. This would force Zach Wilson to have the patience to throw many check-downs instead of trying to make highlights, which is exactly what he learned from Rodgers. That’s exactly what Wilson did. In Wilson’s previous starts this year, he had completions of up to 68 yards, however in his following five he only threw one completion over 40 yards downfield. In Wilson’s previous starts this year, he had a 40% completion rate, however in his following five his completion rate was 60.65%.
Josh Dobbs:
Josh Dobbs added a mobility factor to his game, by working on his speed he made himself a running threat as well. Before knowing he was a threat to run, teams would bring extra men in the middle of the defensive line, to force Dobbs to leave the center of the pocket and make plays with his legs, which is exactly what he had been working on. Heading into this season, Josh Dobbs only had 1.75 rushing attempts per game and 9.37 yards per game. This year, Josh Dobbs has been taking off running 5.9 times per game (an increase of 237.1%) and has 32.4 rushing yards per game (an increase of 245.8%).
JAKE BROWNING WILL BE JUST FINE:
Jake Browning has only started four games this season. The small sample size fits the criteria of my concern. However, after spending a lot of time on pro-football-reference.com, I’ve determined that Jake Browning’s case is different for the following reasons.
TO BE CONTINUED IN “HOW JAKE BROWNINGGOT HIS SWAGGER BACK”
RELEVANT FOOTBALL REFERENCE PAGES:
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