OL article

[*Go Cards*]

(10-20-2023, 04:32 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Aaron Donald still seems like a shell of his former self since he was thinking about retiring but came back only for the money. Still good, but certainly not the Aaron Donald that his name makes you think of. 

Simmons also has a career high of 8.5 sacks and 16 QB hits in 17 games, back in 2021. Good, but not elite.

I don't think either of them are elite and both of them have less sacks this year than either BJ Hill or Sam Hubbard. There are 74 players with as many sacks as them right now, and neither of them are in the top-15 among DTs.

They are good players, but talk of them being elite in 2023 is largely name power right now. Nearly every team has a player of their current production caliber on it.

(Obviously Garrett out of that trio is still great.)

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I do think the OL is probably slightly improved, but ultimately the run game is still trash and it's really hard to tell how much the OL has improved in pass blocking because they're running a quick dink-and-dunk passing game that's shorter than can be effective, so they're not being asked to block for long. 

I mean, Burrow is on paced to be sacked 42.5 times this year. I guess that's better than the 41 sacks in 16 games last year, but not by much, and certainly not worth the drop from 7.4 yards per attempt to 5.3 yards per attempt.

  Thinking that Burrow's injury is contributing greatly to him being more statuesque in the pocket almost like a practice dummy. Add in the pass heavy play calling that just allows Defenses to just pin their ears back and its a recipe for a long day for the O-line.

 Believe they've definitely improved some, but still lack that push on the 3rd or 4th and short which is so frustrating. We can judge better in the upcoming games after the Bye per suspecting we should see a much healthier Joe Burrow each week now. He should start going more vertical when he can roll out and buy an extra second or two as well and should see that YPA climbing. 

Sure hope so anyway or the Bengals will be on the outside looking in come playoff time with the schedule that remains.



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