The Cincinnati Bengals spent much of the offseason trying to add another dimension on offense. The team has primarily majored in shotgun sets throughout the Joe Burrow era, but the hope was to add more under-center looks to bolster the run game and take some pressure off of Burrow.
Through the team’s first four games, that experiment has looked pretty rough.
According to Bengals analyst Joe Goodberry on X, Cincinnati has run 69 plays from under center with Burrow in 2026. Those plays have produced just 3.3 yards per play, a 37.7% success rate, and -0.15 expected points added per play.
The interesting thing about Goodberry’s analysis is not just how poorly the numbers look with Burrow in 2026. It’s that other Bengals quarterbacks who have played meaningful snaps in the Joe Burrow era have had much more success under center.
Take Joe Flacco in 2025. According to Goodberry, his numbers under center looked much better, producing 7.0 yards per play, a 50.6% success rate, and +0.11 EPA per play. Jake Browning also fared considerably better during the 2023 season, averaging 5.7 yards per play with +0.09 EPA over 105 under-center snaps.
These are not massive samples, and they fall across different seasons, different NFL landscapes, and different opponents. Still, the differences are so stark that they raise the question: why is Joe Burrow struggling so much under center?
Bengals Invested Heavily in Joe Burrow Under Center
Many teams around the league spent the offseason talking about going under center more in 2026. The Bengals were no exception.
Burrow himself told Bengals.com before the season that the added dimension could help Cincinnati become more adaptable depending on how defenses chose to attack the offense.
“There will be defenses that we do want to get under center and run it and play action and throw the ball down the field,” Burrow said. “It kind of depends on the team that we’re playing, the front that we’re playing, how they choose to attack you on defense, and that’s part of being in a better spot as a team where we can be multiple in that way.”
Burrow acknowledged before the season that playing under center required a different process than operating from shotgun.
“You really have a different mindset when you’re under center vs. the gun. Different concepts that you can run,” Burrow said. “You’re kind of playing a different game.”
He added that one of the challenges is taking a pre-snap picture of the defense, turning his back during the play-action pass, and then quickly finding that picture again afterward.
So far, the results have not been encouraging as Burrow and the Bengals offense have struggled more than they’ve succeeded under center in 2026. That came to a head in a disappointing loss to Jacksonville last Sunday. The Jaguars took the run game completely off the table as the team mustered just 23 rushing yards. Burrow recorded 54 passing attempts, mostly out of the shotgun formation.
Joe Flacco, Jake Browning Produced Better Under-Center Numbers
Goodberry’s numbers make the contrast difficult to ignore.
With Flacco in 2025, Cincinnati’s under-center offense averaged 7.0 yards per play and generated an explosive play on 18.7% of its snaps. Burrow’s 2026 group has averaged 3.3 yards per play with a 9% explosive-play rate.
The difference also shows up in first downs. Flacco’s under-center plays gained a first down 33.8% of the time, compared with 24.6% for Burrow.
Browning’s 2023 sample landed between the two but still comfortably ahead of Burrow’s current numbers. Goodberry charted Browning at 5.7 yards per play, a 43.8% success rate, +0.09 EPA per play and a 33.3% first-down rate.
Head coach Zac Taylor has seemed to lean into his quarterbacks’ strengths more than force them to play a certain way. Bengals.com specifically noted in 2023 that Taylor mixed up shotgun looks and focused more on the run with Browning at quarterback.
With Burrow, Taylor seems to opt for more of a drop-back passing attack. Burrow himself has been successful with that style of offense in 2026, completing 71.3% of his passes for 1,171 yards through four games this season, according to NFL.com.
The team results have been more mixed, however, as the Bengals have lost two close games in a row to fall back to 2-2. The run game has largely been nonexistent through four games in 2026, which is part of what the under-center package was supposed to support.
What’s Next for Burrow and the Bengals?
Overall, Cincinnati shouldn’t panic, and they shouldn’t ditch their under-center experiment just yet. They are far too talented on offense to allow defenses to control how they play and what they do on offense. They must find a version of their offense that takes some pressure off of Burrow (both literally and figuratively), and still allows him to use the traits that make him one of the NFL’s best QBs.
The Bengals might want to look at what worked with Flacco and Browning under center as they search for answers with Burrow. The Bengals will hopefully look to establish more balance in an important road matchup in Miami this weekend.
Why Has Joe Burrow Struggled So Much Under Center?