It is not going to be an easy week for Andy Dalton, and it’s likely to get worse before it gets better.
Dalton has been a competent regular-season quarterback throughout his four years with the Cincinnati Bengals. It may seem like Dalton has been around a lot longer than that, but the Red Rifle was selected in the second round of the 2011 draft out of TCU, and he has been the Bengals’ starting quarterback ever since.
That’s what makes Dalton’s career so difficult to fathom. Quarterbacks who start as rookies are deemed to be touched by greatness, but Dalton has been a middle-of-the road guy.
He has been consistent as he has completed 61.6 percent of his passes throughout his career, and he has thrown anywhere from 19 to 33 TD passes in each of his four years. Meanwhile his interception total has ranged from 13 to 20 during those seasons.
The Bengals are a competent team these days, having made the playoffs each year with Dalton under center. That’s a far cry from the team that made the playoffs just once between 1991 and 2008 and suffered through 10 seasons with 10 losses or more.
So, in many ways, Dalton appears to be a Godsend for this franchise. The Bengals are one of four teams to earn a spot in the playoffs in the last four seasons, with the others being the Patriots, Broncos, and Packers.
That’s elite company, but nobody would dare call Dalton elite and that’s not going to change until he starts to find playoff success.
He has come up flat in each of those playoff games as the Bengals have been eliminated during Wild-Card weekend three years running. Two of those losses came at the hands of the Texans, while last year’s team was beaten in Cincinnati by the Chargers.
Dalton has looked like a scared NFL version of Clifford the Big Red Dog when he gets to the playoffs. He has been overwhelmed on the playoff stage, throwing just one TD pass and six interceptions.
It doesn’t appear a lot has changed in his fourth year. Dalton had the Bengals on the precipice of winning the AFC North title on Sunday night against the Steelers, but he just couldn’t come through when the game was on the line.
He missed open receivers at critical points throughout the game, as he was unable to connect with A.J. Green or Mohamed Sanu when the Bengals could have kept drives going that would have put significant pressure on the Steelers.
It wasn’t his fault that Green fumbled after taking in a key fourth-quarter pass that would have put the Bengals in a position to attempt a tying field goal, but there were other misses before that.
Here’s another issue for Dalton. Green suffered a brutal head shot on that play, and his status for Sunday’s game is questionable. Some teams and quarterbacks find a way to rally when key players get hurt and can’t play. The Bengals and Dalton have never left a clue that they fall in that category.
The other issue is intimidation. The Bengals have to go to Indianapolis, and that will bring back some bad memories for Dalton and his teammates. The Colts dispatched the Bengals 27-0 in Week 7, and it was just an awful day for Dalton.
He did not have Green in the lineup that game, as the receiver was battling a toe injury at the time. Dalton completed 18-of-38 passes for a measly 126 yards. The Colts sacked him three times, and he was skittish when he dropped back into the pocket.
There are plenty of reasons to believe that Dalton will fail again. He has a poor playoff record and even if he has his best receiver, Green won’t be at his best.
Great quarterbacks look at obstacles like history and injuries and just figure out another way to succeed. Dalton has never given any indication of greatness, and he knows how many times he has fallen short.
If he is going to turn it around here, he must battle the Colts and the demons living inside his own head and find a way to overcome.
It seems very unlikely.
