As everyone knows, Andy Dalton’s most distinguishing physical feature is his flaming red hair. Lately, the Cincinnati signal-caller’s play has been red too — as in red-hot.
Dalton has thrown for 1,033 yards and 11 touchdowns in his last three games, all Bengals wins. The quarterback completed over 66 percent of his passes in the process and capped off the set of contests with a ruthlessly efficient 5 TD evisceration of a solid Jets defense that had previously held Tom Brady and Ben Roethlisberger to one passing touchdown combined in consecutive games.
The former Texas Christian star’s recent run of spectacular games has obscured the fact that he’s been one of the most consistently solid quarterbacks in the league this season. His 325-yard performance against the Jets was his eighth straight game above 200 yards to begin the year and he’s tossed multiple touchdowns in five of those eight games. His only really sub-par game this season came in Week 4 against a Cleveland team that is currently ranked sixth in the league in pass defense.
Dalton’s season-long consistency, coupled with his red-hot streak over the last three weeks has vaulted him into the top 10 in the league in multiple passing categories and even onto some MVP leaderboards. The Bengals’ quarterback ranks fourth in the NFL in passing touchdowns (16) and yards (2,249), sixth in passer rating (99.0) and eighth in completion percentage (65.6). Dalton has proven he is, at worst, a near-elite passer over the course of this season and proved me wrong in the process.
I was highly critical of Dalton earlier this season, believing him to be a merely average quarterback that couldn’t even put up big numbers while throwing to the likes of AJ Green. Unfortunately, I made those comments immediately after Cincinnati’s previously mentioned game against Cleveland and probably jumped to conclusions too quickly after the Texas native went two straight games without a touchdown pass.
We’ve been spoiled in recent years by the likes of Andrew Luck, RGIII and Russell Wilson, prodigies at their position that were able to step in as rookies and immediately become stars. The Cincinnati QB is still only in his third season in the league and prone to growing pains, as are the vast majority of quarterbacks with that level of experience.
The real measure of a passer in his first several seasons is the amount that he improves from year to year and Dalton has made great strides in each of his seasons in the league. The ginger quarterback has seen his completion percentage, passer rating, QBR, yards per game and yards per attempt increase noticeably in all three of his NFL campaigns and he seems to be passing all the checkpoints on the road to NFL stardom. It’s safe to say I’ve claimed my seat on the Andy Dalton bandwagon.
Up next for the 26-year old is the 20th ranked Miami Dolphins pass defense on Thursday night. Dalton is still owned in just 56 percent of ESPN leagues (despite a 22 percent jump this week), so you should definitely make a move to pick him up and start him now. If he has good game, and it seems likely he will, he probably won’t be around next week. Dalton will always be known for his red hair, but it seems that, going forward, he’ll be known as a very good quarterback, as well.
Dylan Sinn is a freelance contributor for CraveOnline Sports. You can follow him on Twitter @DylanSinn or “like” CraveOnline Sports on Facebook.
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