Joe Burrow stopped just shy of throwing Bengals teammates under the bus

If you only watched the Cincinnati Bengals play offense against the Philadelphia Eagles on Thursday night, then they looked magnificent. Unfortunately, there are two sides to the game of football and the defense was pretty unwatchable for the Bengals.

Their secondary was torn apart by Eagles backup quarterback Tanner McKee in the 34-27 loss at Lincoln Financial Field, which drew criticism from their very own passer.

"We got to be better," Joe Burrow told reporters after the loss (h/t ESPN). "Too many procedural penalties, too many errors. Things like that are going to happen, but I think it just wasn't clean enough across the board."

But when it came to his own play, he had just a little bit more grace.

"Today was average," Burrow continued. "But overall, I'm happy with where I'm at. Next week I'd like to be a little better."

Joe Burrow's criticism of his own teammates rubs the wrong way

Granted, Burrow did play nearly flawless in the limited action he saw on Thursday. He completed nine of ten passes for 123 yards and two touchdowns. Only his first toss of the night went errant, which he owned up to as "a bad throw" on his part to wide receiver Tee Higgins.

Normally you'd hear some tone of confidence in the whole team getting things started, especially in the first week of preseason, or an overall message of needed improvement. Burrow essentially said he did fine but everyone else needs to step it up.

Again, it's just the first week of the preseason so take it all with a grain of salt. The Bengals' locker room chemistry has not shown many if any cracks to date and this likely won't be the start of one.

Cincinnati will face the Washington Commanders on Monday, August 18 in their second preseason matchup. Burrow could get more time on the field or head coach Zac Taylor could choose to give his starter a rest with the regular season just around the corner. Burrow clearly doesn't need much of a tune up.