Lamar Jackson threw two touchdown passes in the second quarter and the Baltimore Ravens beat Cincinnati 34-20 on Thursday night after the Bengals lost their star quarterback Joe Burrow to a wrist injury.
The AFC North-leading Ravens (8-3) completed a head-to-head sweep of Cincinnati (5-5) and moved 2.5 games ahead of the Bengals, who are bottom of the division. And that’s far from Cincinnati’s only problem. Burrow left in the second quarter after throwing a touchdown pass and wasn’t able to return.
The Bengals were up 10-7 after that four-yard scoring toss from Burrow to Joe Mixon, but the Ravens answered when Jackson’s pass over the middle bounced off linebacker Germaine Pratt and straight to receiver Nelson Agholor, who caught the ball in stride and punctuated the 37-yard touchdown with a flip into the end zone.
Nelson Agholor flips his way into the end zone 🔟#CINvsBAL on Prime Video
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Jackson threw a 10-yard TD pass to Rashod Bateman with 23 seconds left in the half to put Baltimore up 21-10.
Jake Browning, a 27-year-old backup who had played in only one NFL game, came in for Burrow and was able to guide the Bengals to a field goal to start the second half. But that was all he could manage until he threw a two-yard touchdown pass to Ja’Marr Chase with 1:08 remaining in the game.
Jackson threw for 264 yards despite losing one of his top targets, tight end Mark Andrews, to an ankle injury on the first drive of the game.
Gus Edwards bookended Baltimore’s day offensively with three-yard touchdown runs – the first made it 7-0 and the latter 34-13.
Cincinnati have won the division the past two years, when late-season injuries