Jake Browning exudes calm. He has a soft smile, a sneaky joke and an easy laugh. Those defining traits of his personality are a significant part of why he has stuck as a quarterback with the Cincinnati Bengals.

The Bengals want quarterbacks who won’t ride the emotional roller-coaster of the season. Instead, pinpoint lessons and angles to win the next rep, the next drive, the next game.

Browning’s spotlight season in the wake of Joe Burrow’s toe surgery now depends upon his ability to use those skills to right the Bengals’ offensive derailment.

In short, the guy has to stop throwing interceptions.

He’s now thrown five in seven quarters, leading the NFL by a wide margin at an 8.5 percent interception rate.

You can run through all the practice reps you want. You can understand where the ball should go. But there’s no telling how you’ll react until you’re thrust into the pocket and the pressure starts coming. Browning is once again learning that lesson on the fly, as too many of his reactions to pressure have led to catastrophic turnovers that flip the game.

“Incompletions need to be incompletions; they can’t be picks,” Browning said. “I think that’s where the emotional part of it all comes in, where you have a tough game and there’s obviously too much blame or too much credit to the quarterback. Everybody is riding this emotional wave of wins and losses, so I think for me, focusing on what those things are and how to minimize these bad plays. My bad plays need to be incompletions. And that’s a big focus.”

That will be the focus under the spotlight of “Monday Night Football.” The Denver Broncos are tied with the Los Angeles Rams for the most in sacks (12) in the NFL and they lead the league in pressures (63). They bring five defensive linemen with pass-rush win rates over 14 percent. They hit Justin Herbert 14 times and sacked him five times in last week’s game against the Los Angeles Chargers. With each pressure, sack and hit comes a decision — make the aggressive play or live for another day.

Browning hasn’t made the right call enough so far. The margin for error with the Bengals is too thin to survive those mistakes. In what will be his ninth NFL start, he must find that feel.

“It’s knowing the time and place when you do need to be aggressive and when the risk is worth the reward,” Browning said. “I’ve never really been someone that throws a ton of picks. It’s also toeing the line of — don’t play not to mess up. That’s part of the mental challenge of the position.”

It’s also up to the Bengals staff and surrounding pieces to help make life easier on him. Coach Zac Taylor and offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher must evolve. The line must play better. The scheme must involve everyone and provide easy gains.

Then it’s up to Browning to find his balance and not make bad plays catastrophic.

“That’s part of playing quarterback in the NFL,” Taylor said. “You’ve seen him make a lot of great plays in the games he’s been in. A lot of them are really aggressive. Some of those are extended. We make a great play, we celebrate it. It gets tipped and goes the other way, you’re the worst. That’s the life of a quarterback. He knows that. We all know that. We’re supporting him. He’s still in his first couple games as a starter in his career. He’s done a great job managing it. We’ve got to take care of the football. We got to be great around him.”

That starts with keeping Browning out of pressure. Like most NFL quarterbacks, his efficiency dips dramatically when under pressure, but the splits are so cavernous for Browning that he stands out even among the average.

Now, consider the Bengals have been under pressure on 45 percent of dropbacks this year. In 2023, Browning’s number was 37 percent. Take Monday night’s opposing quarterback, Bo Nix; he’s seen pressure on just 27 percent of dropbacks.

Adding a league-average percent of dropbacks under pressure (36 percent) increases the number of quality plays and completions from Browning substantially and could help eliminate the turnovers.

Good luck snapping your fingers and assuming this offensive line will play better.

The Bengals need to focus on quick game or max protection opportunities to ensure Browning experiences cleaner pockets. When he does see pressure, it needs to look less like Sunday’s pick-6 by Isaiah Rodgers, tipped by Harrison Smith.

CRIBBED.@rodgers_isaiah

📺: @NFLonCBS pic.twitter.com/VRusxti1cT

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) September 21, 2025

“That probably stepped over the line from aggressive to reckless, in my opinion,” Pitcher said. “And I think he would agree. There was just a lot of bodies right there, and he’s trying to make a play in an extended situation. I told him after the game and again today, ‘If we’re gonna be the team we want to be and get to where we want to go, we’re gonna need Jake Browning to make some throws.’ We can’t just operate tightly and not go play freely. We have a lot of really talented guys to get the football to in the pass game. We don’t want to impose that on Jake. But Jake also knows that has to be balanced with taking care of the football.”

He’ll require an evolution similar to one Burrow took in 2022, when he embraced the checkdown. The gravity of Tee Higgins and Ja’Marr Chase running routes downfield makes that a potent weapon.

Browning used the checkdown on less than 10 percent of dropbacks, well below the league average, despite a league-high EPA/play when he does.

The same assistance could be found with screens. Since Chase Brown took an under-center, play-action screen 54 yards to the house against the Indianapolis Colts in 2023, hitting the second-fastest speed for a ball carrier that season, the Bengals haven’t tried a UCPA screen with him since.

Browning referenced his last appearance on “Monday Night Football” against the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2023. He went 32 of 37 for 354 yards, a touchdown and no picks in that dramatic overtime win. One thing he still remembers is how it started.

“I felt like we were able to not be one-dimensional,” Browning said. “The run game was good, we had a couple good screens that kind of helped me get into a rhythm.”

Joe Mixon caught a screen pass for 28 yards in the first quarter and another for 11 in the fourth.

Brown has taken the screen and checkdown game to another level. His effectiveness catching behind the line of scrimmage and breaking tackles has been a major part of what he provides. Browning and Taylor can lean on it more to avoid pressure while feeding a frustrated playmaker.

Monday could prove the best time to utilize that strategy against a Broncos team with arguably the best pass-rush in the league, but that has endured consistent problems tackling running backs catching passes out of the backfield.

Anything that could make life easier for Brown would be welcomed by the third-year back.

Brown’s frustration stems from the disastrous run game that must improve to keep Browning ahead of the sticks, so pass rushers can’t tee off on third-and-long. That’s another story (literally, here’s the link), but that starts with keeping the defense more off-balanced, in general.

One method could be an even bigger lean into moving Browning under center and utilizing play action.

The Bengals have run eight under-center, play-action snaps this season. The strategy has been an NFL cheat code on offense and one that keeps the linebackers guessing during the first second of the play.

The NFL average this season is 15.3 per team. The Rams (37) and Detroit Lions (32) lead the NFL.

Taylor showed a slight lean into the concept against the Minnesota Vikings, calling five such plays. Three were successful, with gains of 10, 9 and 6 yards. Another, an incompletion to Mitchell Tinsley, was because of a poor decision from Browning, forcing a sidearm throw around a defender despite having two receivers open in front of him.

The Bengals’ 60 percent success rate on UCPA is a top-10 rate in the league, yet they are in the bottom quarter in usage. On play-action passes alone this season, Browning is 9 of 13 for 92 yards with an elite 86.2 PFF grade. Those numbers correlate similarly to his 2023 stint (9.8 yards per attempt on play action).

Small sample sizes everywhere, but UCPA is something Browning does well, which could help the struggling offensive line and run game while producing easier throws. They should be closer to the Rams and Lions, and not in the bottom quarter of the league.

All of this adds up to a more efficient version of Browning and a less chaotic quarterback seeing his bad decisions lead to five picks. The Bengals must do their part to help.

Taking the emotion of the game and the situation out of the equation is central again. Browning sees that as playing to his strengths.  The logical approach to fixing the problem was Browning’s primary takeaway from last week in Minnesota. It will also go a long way to determining Monday in Denver.

“I got to survive the down,” Browning said. “When you look at my film as a whole so far, there’s been a lot of good and there has been not a significant amount of bad, but my bad plays have been detrimental to the team in the form of turnovers. I need to find a way to throw the ball away if it is just incompletions and learn to fight another day.”