The Cincinnati Bengals didn’t need long to settle in at the Bernabéu. After falling behind on Atlanta’s opening drive, Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase took over the first half, and Cincinnati beat the Falcons 34-17 in Madrid on Sunday for its fourth straight win.
Burrow completed 24 of 29 passes for 271 yards and three touchdowns, ran for another score and didn’t throw an interception. The Bengals are now 6-2. Atlanta falls to 3-6.
Chase owned the first half
Atlanta landed the first punch. Michael Penix Jr. capped a 73-yard opening drive with a 1-yard touchdown pass to tight end Charlie Woerner, and for a few minutes the Falcons looked like a team ready to put last week behind them.
Then Chase got loose. With 8:49 left in the first quarter, Burrow hit him for a 47-yard touchdown, Burrow’s longest completion of the season. That was the start of a half that Chase will remember: eight catches for 142 yards before the break, a career high for a single half and the 12th 100-yard half of his career.
He finished with 10 catches for 155 yards and the score. His seventh touchdown of the season leads the AFC.
Cincinnati scored on all four of its first-half possessions. Burrow plunged in on a 1-yard sneak early in the second quarter to give the Bengals a lead they never gave back. A 4-yard touchdown pass to Tee Higgins made it 21-10, and Evan McPherson drilled a 57-yard field goal with 29 seconds left in the half. Cincinnati went into the locker room up 24-10.
Higgins finishes, McPherson keeps rolling
Chase got the yards. Higgins got the end zone.
Higgins caught only five passes for 32 yards, but two of them were touchdowns. His first was the 50th touchdown catch of his career. His second, an 8-yard grab with 2:09 left in the third quarter, pushed the lead back to 31-17 right after Atlanta had cut it to seven. It was Higgins’ second straight game with multiple touchdown catches, a first for him.
McPherson added a 43-yarder with 4:41 to play to close the scoring. He has now made 23 straight field goals, the longest streak in Bengals history and the longest active streak in the NFL. The 57-yarder was the 35th kick of 50-plus yards in his career.
The Bengals’ defense handled the rest. Linebacker Barrett Carter intercepted Penix late in the fourth quarter, his first pick of the season and the second of his career, and that ended any thought of a comeback.
The numbers behind Cincinnati’s run
This is what a hot offense looks like:
| Stat | Bengals |
|---|---|
| Record | 6-2 |
| Winning streak | 4 games |
| Straight games with 30+ points | 4 (ties franchise record) |
| Points per game | 29.6 (2nd in NFL) |
| Burrow-Chase TD connections | 55 since 2021 |
The 30-point streak ties a franchise mark last reached by the 1997 Bengals. Only one team in the league is scoring more than Cincinnati’s 29.6 points a game: the Buffalo Bills, at 33.3.
The Burrow-to-Chase connection keeps climbing, too. Sunday’s touchdown was their 55th together, the most by any quarterback-receiver duo since Chase entered the league in 2021. Burrow came into the week leading the NFL with 20 touchdown passes and added three more.
Before the trip, head coach Zac Taylor gave a lot of the credit to his quarterback’s consistency: “I think we have the most accurate and process-driven quarterback that exists.” On Sunday, Burrow missed on just five throws all day.
What went wrong for Atlanta
The Falcons did plenty right on the ground. Bijan Robinson ran 19 times for 100 yards and a touchdown and added six catches for 47 yards. His 1-yard run capped a 14-play, 65-yard drive in the third quarter that made it a one-score game at 24-17.
The problem was everything after that. Atlanta couldn’t get a stop when it needed one, and the passing game never found a rhythm. Penix finished 20 of 31 for 162 yards, with one touchdown and one interception. Nick Folk also pushed a 38-yard field goal attempt wide left in the fourth quarter, taking points off the board when Atlanta needed every one.
It’s been a rough stretch for Penix. He threw a career-high four interceptions in a 16-0 loss at Tampa Bay a week earlier, and the Falcons have now dropped two straight with an offense that has scored a combined 17 points.
At 3-6, Atlanta is running short on time to get back into the NFC playoff picture.
A big day for the NFL in Spain
The game was the NFL’s second regular-season game ever played in Spain, and Madrid showed up. Marca reported a crowd of 78,660 at Real Madrid’s home stadium.
For Cincinnati, it was also history: the Bengals’ first regular-season win on international soil.
What it means in the AFC North
A month ago, the Bengals looked like a team still searching. They opened 2-2, with a 30-27 loss at Pittsburgh in Week 3 and a 22-17 home loss to Jacksonville in Week 4. Since then, they’ve won four in a row, and the offense has gone from good to overwhelming.
Sunday’s win pulled Cincinnati even with Pittsburgh at 6-2 atop the division. The Steelers spent Week 9 on their bye after winning four straight of their own, which sets up the obvious: the Week 10 meeting at Paycor Stadium is a fight for first place, and Cincinnati gets a chance to erase that early loss on its home field.
The difference now is balance in the passing game. Defenses that roll coverage toward Chase are getting burned by Higgins near the goal line, and the two are feeding off each other. Higgins came into the week second in the NFL with 726 receiving yards. When both of them are rolling, there isn’t a single matchup that solves the problem.
The one thing Cincinnati hasn’t fully shown is a defense that can close out tight games against good offenses. Atlanta’s 14-play touchdown drive in the third quarter was a reminder that this unit can still be worn down on the ground. The Steelers will test that.
What’s next
The Bengals head home for a big one. They host the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday Night Football in Week 10, Nov. 15, at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC, a division game that will say a lot about where Cincinnati stands in the AFC North.
The Falcons return to Mercedes-Benz Stadium to face the Kansas City Chiefs on Nov. 15 at 1 p.m. ET on CBS. They’ll need a much cleaner day from Penix to keep their season from slipping away.
Sources: Bengals.com recap, Local 12 (WKRC), ESPN, Yahoo Sports, CBS Sports, Yardbarker
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