Over his last four games, Andy Dalton has a completion percentage barely topping 50, and a touchdown to interception ratio of two to six.
Yes, the Bengals have won two ofthose games, against Jacksonville and Baltimore, but lost the othertwo by a combined score of 51-3.
In some ways, it feels like Dalton is fading a bit in this offense. But his best friend on the team, guard Andrew Whitworth, begs to differ.
"I don't think he's at a critical point," Whitworth said, via the Cincinnati Enquirer. "He's played a lot of good football. He himself said he didn't play his best. We all have games like that. He's a guy that at the end of the day, his character and who he is will always prevail in the end. He'll find a way to fix what he needs to fix and do better because it means the world to him."
Right now, Dalton's most important asset is the belief of his teammates. The AFC North is horribly competitive but the Bengals are somehow still sitting in second place.
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If a team with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations is to come even close to their intended goal, the rest of Dalton's teammates will need to start sounding like Whitworth.
This has always been, and will always be part of the massive weight that comes with signing a large contract extension at the quarterback position. The Bengals signed him to a six-year pact worth nearly $100 million expecting that he could dig himself out of situations just like this.
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