Bengals vs. Dolphins: Joe Burrow's Four TDs and Jordan Battle's Two Picks Keep Miami Winless in Week 5

Ja'Marr Chase missed practice time this week after a concussion. On Sunday, he looked like a guy who had spent the week rehearsing one specific highlight. Joe Burrow stepped up and let a 45-yard rainbow fly, and Chase, with cornerback Jason Marshall Jr. draped all over him, bobbled the ball, pinned it against his arm and kept it in the end zone. Cue the slow-motion replay and the dramatic soundtrack.

The Cincinnati Bengals beat the Miami Dolphins 31-24 at Hard Rock Stadium, and the seven-point margin is doing some heavy lifting. Burrow threw four touchdown passes, safety Jordan Battle intercepted Malik Willis twice, and the Dolphins fell to 0-5 even after a frantic 14-point fourth quarter made the last minute interesting.

Sweat Equity: How Cincinnati Built Its Cushion

The Bengals scored 57 seconds in. Dohnte Meyers brought the opening kickoff back 81 yards, Burrow needed only three snaps from the Miami 10, and Mike Gesicki celebrated his 4-yard touchdown against his old team with a Griddy. Petty? Sure. Earned? Also yes.

Miami's reply was pure leather-helmet football. The Dolphins ran it, ran it again and kept running it, covering 60 yards in 11 plays without a completion before Ollie Gordon II plunged in from the 1. Cincinnati helped, too. A Dexter Lawrence II unnecessary roughness penalty wiped out a Riley Patterson field goal and handed Miami a fresh set of downs at the 6.

Samaje Perine's 6-yard touchdown catch on third-and-goal finished a 13-play, 58-yard march, and then the second quarter became the Jordan Battle Show. He picked off Willis on back-to-back possessions, the first tipped at the line by Boye Mafe, the second on a scramble-drill heave. Chase Brown fumbled away the first gift at the Miami 7, but Burrow cashed in the second with a 2-yard score to Tanner Hudson, and it was 21-7 at the break.

Miami's best push came in the third. Rookie Chris Bell ripped off a 26-yard run, Gordon churned to the Cincinnati 1, and then everything went sideways: Gordon lost 2, linebacker Barrett Carter sacked Willis for a loss of 8, and Miami walked away with a 29-yard Patterson field goal. "If we have a blade of grass, we will defend it," Mafe said.

Chase's circus catch came with 39 seconds left in the quarter, making it 28-10. Miami pulled within 28-18 on a 14-play, 80-yard drive fueled by a 39-yard Willis scramble and finished by Kevin Coleman Jr.'s 3-yard catch and a two-point toss to Greg Dulcich. Then defensive tackle Jonathan Allen strip-sacked Willis at the Miami 5 and recovered it himself, setting up Evan McPherson's 26-yard field goal with 2:09 left. That kick mattered. Willis scored on a 1-yard run with 45 seconds to go, Patterson's extra point banged off the left upright, and the onside try rolled out of bounds.

Burrow, Battle and the Supporting Cast

Burrow's line (23 of 32, 190 yards, four touchdowns, no interceptions, 126.3 passer rating) won't break anybody's fantasy app, but it was surgical. His four scoring throws went to four different players, and the AP counted completions to nine different receivers. Cincinnati converted 9 of 13 third downs on an afternoon that, per Bengals.com, tied for the hottest game in Bengals history at 90 degrees.

Chase finished with six catches for 77 yards and declined to rank the latest gem: "I'll just let ya'all rank them at this point." Burrow was even more blase. "Obviously, an unbelievable play. You don't want to take it for granted, but we're used to it at this point," he said.

Battle added two passes defended and seven tackles to his two picks. Earlier in the week he had said he'd spotted a tell in how Willis handles the ball before throwing, which is either elite film study or a villain monologue. Afterward he played it cool. "You study players and see things," Battle said, "but it's just trusting the game plan and putting me in position to make plays." Bengals.com noted it was his first two-interception game since he did it for Alabama against Mississippi State.

Perine (14 carries, 68 yards) was the sledgehammer Burrow called "Mr. Reliable," and Carter piled up 11 tackles. For Miami, Gordon ran 18 times for 88 yards and a touchdown, and the Dolphins rolled up 217 rushing yards. Willis added 74 on the ground, but he completed just 15 of 27 passes for 137 yards with two picks, three sacks and a lost fumble.

Battle Reads the Script

At 14-7, Miami had just hit Jalen Tolbert for 22 yards and sat at midfield with a chance to tie. Two snaps later Battle was running the other way. About five minutes of game clock after that, he did it again, and the Bengals turned the second pick into Hudson's touchdown. It's a heist movie where the safecracker announces the plan on a podcast and the vault still opens.

Zac Taylor saw the other side, too, and listed the receipts: "We fumbled twice in the red zone. We caught a kickoff on the 4-yard line." His defense bailed him out late, with Allen's takeaway producing the field goal that, in Taylor's words, "gave us three extra points that made it a 7-point game."

Numbers From the Sauna

• 217: Miami's rushing yards, at 6.4 per carry. It still lost.
• 10-0: Points off turnovers. Cincinnati turned Miami's three giveaways into 10 points; Miami got nothing out of Brown's red-zone fumble.
• 9 of 13: Bengals third-down conversions.
• 81: Meyers' opening kickoff return, which set up a touchdown before some fans found their seats.

An Early Bye for a Grumpy Winner

The Bengals snapped a two-game skid, losses to Pittsburgh and Jacksonville, and hit a Week 6 bye at 3-2. Nobody was planning a parade. Asked to assess the team after five games, Burrow went full Belichick: "Gotta be better. Gotta be better."

Miami has the opposite problem: fight without results. The Dolphins had not topped 13 points in any of their first four games, so 24 counts as progress, and they outgained Cincinnati 331 to 307. But 0-5 is 0-5, and Willis, the offseason free-agent addition, gets a bye week to stew on it. "We've just got to go back to the drawing board," he said.

Check the Weather Report, Man

Taylor's summary was peak coach-speak: "Plenty to clean up. The bye hits us at a great time." The best line, though, belonged to Burrow, asked exactly how hot it was out there: "I'm sure you can check the weather report, man." A team that wins in a sauna and still sounds annoyed about it isn't in crisis. That's a team with standards.

Stats from the official box score via ESPN. Postgame quotes as reported by the Associated Press and Bengals.com.