Bengals.vs. Jets...look back at week 1

[sonofstat]

At the end of season I like to go back on GamePass and look at an early game to see in the cold, unemotional light of day whats stands out.

In some instances it just confirms what was the first sign of a strength / weakness, sometimes it challenges some assumptions you build over the course of the season.

I chose the Jets game as its week 1 plus we came away with the win...reviewing the Cowboys or Patriots would have been to depressing

Positives

- AJ Green is far and away our best player and turned up to play right from the 1st snap. Not even talking about the long TD over Revis. There's just that authority and crispness to every single route and catch. Think we really take his excellence for granted sometimes - enjoy him while you can.

- Left side of the OLine - Boling and Whit are great , especially in pass pro. Looking back at this you see how far Boling dropped off with his shoulder injury. Hope he heals OK and does not turn into an Eifert situation (injury lingering on into next year). The contrast in pressure with the line from Bodine out to Ogbuehi is stark in this game...prelude of things to come.

- Mike Nugent - this made me laugh..I forgot he actually hit a long game winning field goal in Q4. He also missed a FG but that was a 50 yarder. The only missed XP was from Nick Folk

- Left side of the DLine - for Whit and Boling on the OLine see Dunlap & Atkins on the defense...we seemed very lopsided in terms of pressure, activity. Did not always show up in terms of stats but most disruption outside of blitzes was with 97 and 96

- Margus Hunt, Vinny rey - Forgot that Hunt got so many snaps in this game and he was active/visible...certainly more so than MJ and Clarke - also blocked a kick. He never really kicked on from this but was an encouraging start. Rey will never make anyone jump out of their seat but he's never out of position and ran that defense pretty good in Burfict's absence

...maybe not a positive as such but looking back at this game Ced Ogbuehi was not as bad as I remember!! Know I'll probably get shot for this and he did give up a sack ,but until the last minute of the first half he was solid and nowhere near the OLine's biggest problem. He screwed up a couple of plays in 2nd half by falling of his blocks but for his first game starting against that DLine away from home you would have thought he had a good base to develop in the season.

Negatives

- Bodine - good god he was awful in this game. By a country mile the worst player on offense. I had to rewind the play a couple of time to double check as it seemed literally every other play he was driven straight back into Dalton or Jeremy Hill. If you looked at this game in isolation you would say the biggest Offense issue was Center and not a RT. As an aside Zeitler did not have a great game, he was worse than Ogbuehi in the first half - appreciate he got a lot better as the season went on

- Dansby - in retrospect what did we expect from #56 this year? No impact plays whatsoever and i think every tackle he made was with him facing his own end zone 8-15 yards down the field. Tackle count/activity may have looked OK but he was just irrelevant - if /when we lose Burfict again in a season we will be screwed...no fire/menace at all in our LB with out him.

- Safeties late too everything - this was no surprise as I remember this being an issue for much of the early part of the regular season. Iloka was a personal foul waiting to happen ...he tries to behead someone on every tackle. Both him and Williams ball skills and closing speed on targeted receivers is pedestrian. When combined with the slow , average LB coverage we looked super soft up the middle.

- Dalton panicking, lack of composure - was tempted not too put this in bearing in mind Bodine was in his lap but he was a rabbit in the headlights for quite a bit of this game. Zamp helped him out a bit with some quicker routes, pass calls as the game went on but he has that tendency to get his head down and bolt a bit too much.

- Dre K - if he continued playing like that for the rest of the season then we wold have got him on a very cheap deal!

[Brownshoe]

Yep, 5 sacks (or was it 4?) in the first half of the game wouldn't make any QB lack composure. Honestly I thought Dalton played great that game, but it is what it is.

[Shake n Blake]

Lol c'mon man. Dalton threw for 366 yards on only 30 attempts, completed 77% of his passes, had 6 passes of 20+ yards and 3 passes of 49 yards or more (to 3 different receivers), and had a passer rating of 114.0 while getting rag dolled for 7 sacks due to a pitiful o-line.

Gets listed as a negative. Good grief.

[reuben.ahmed]

We had a couple years where we went long stretches with no sacks/picks. Must have been 5 or 6 games in a row to start the year. Definitely a recipe for winning, Dalton with no sacks or picks.

[SunsetBengal]

The real irony of looking back at the Bengals/Jets game is that before the season started, both were predicted to be very strong this year. What seemed like a titanic struggle between two potential playoff teams in week 1, in reality turned out to be a slap fight between two band geeks..

[*Nately120*]

(01-19-2017, 09:14 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Lol c'mon man. Dalton threw for 366 yards on only 30 attempts, completed 77% of his passes, had 6 passes of 20+ yards and 3 passes of 49 yards or more (to 3 different receivers), and had a passer rating of 114.0 while getting rag dolled for 7 sacks due to a pitiful o-line.

Gets listed as a negative. Good grief.

Yeah, but he messed up our draft order by winning games!  The jerk.

[*Awful Llama*]

God, it was unwatchable the first time. Good on ya.

[*jason*]

(01-19-2017, 10:33 PM)Awful Llama Wrote: God, it was unwatchable the first time. Good on ya.

Yes. Windshield not the rearview...

[sonofstat]

(01-19-2017, 09:14 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Lol c'mon man. Dalton threw for 366 yards on only 30 attempts, completed 77% of his passes, had 6 passes of 20+ yards and 3 passes of 49 yards or more (to 3 different receivers), and had a passer rating of 114.0 while getting rag dolled for 7 sacks due to a pitiful o-line.

Gets listed as a negative. Good grief.

Yep,  fair enough.  

As i said i just watched the play and was not looking at stats and was in two minds whether to mention him because Bodine, Zeitler and Ogbuehi were consistently getting bull rushed back into him.

Also having watched the likes of Rodgers , Brady in the playoffs you do kind of get conditioned to the amazing plays they pull off even when under pressure - thats why they are HoF'ers

[*SHRacerX*]

(01-19-2017, 10:01 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: We had a couple years where we went long stretches with no sacks/picks. Must have been 5 or 6 games in a row to start the year. Definitely a recipe for winning, Dalton with no sacks or picks.

I have said it once, I will say it again:  When Dalton is kept clean, he picks teams apart.  He was rarely kept clean this year, at least not while Ced Ogbuehi was in and Bodine allows too much right in his face.  

[Shake n Blake]

(01-20-2017, 06:04 AM)sonofstat Wrote: Yep,  fair enough.  

As i said i just watched the play and was not looking at stats and was in two minds whether to mention him because Bodine, Zeitler and Ogbuehi were consistently getting bull rushed back into him.

Also having watched the likes of Rodgers , Brady in the playoffs you do kind of get conditioned to the amazing plays they pull off even when under pressure - thats why they are HoF'ers

Stats or not, those plays happened. The deep throws to Green, LaFell and Uzomah all happened and they were all nice throws. I watched the game also and felt it was Dalton's best performance of the year, all things considered. The QBs you mention are probably the only ones who could maybe do better in similar situations, and tbh, Brady has struggled in the past when teams are actually able to pressure him.

That's not me saying Andy is better than Tom. That's me saying that I think some people assign an unrealistic level of expectations with Andy that they would not assign to any other QB in the NFL. He simply can't win with some people.

To address your overall post though, the Jets game had me immediately worried about the season. The 7 sacks were very uncharacteristic. Ogbuehi and Bodine looked like major liabilities. Hill had a weak game. The defense didn't look the same. We just looked like we were in for a long season despite the win.