12-02-2023, 04:58 PM
(12-02-2023, 02:42 PM)Bengalstripes9 Wrote: I agree that games are won in the trenches. Just look at Brady’s three Super Bowl losses. What was the common theme? He was facing a dominant dline and they were in his face all day.
The bengals need to improve their oline and dline. We lost the Super Bowl because we couldn’t block an elite dline. I was confident the eagles would win last year because of their dline, but there was some kind of issue with the turf that had an impact on that.
I have a lot of confidence in Lou. Losing your two starting safeties is hard on the defense, especially when they are elite players in their prime. Bates is having a hell of a year this year, btw. A common theme with a lot of Super Bowl winners and overall dominant defenses in years past is elite safety play. Patriots, Steelers, ravens, Seahawks are a few that come to mind. I like Dax and Battle, and think they can develop into elite players in time. Lou is a big part of that.
I just think Belicheck is a better coach than Zac. He was the perfect coach to pair with Brady. He knows how to attack other teams weaknesses and gameplan for opponents. To me Zac often runs the same stuff no matter who we play (and there are times where it feels like he’s banging his head against the wall trying the same stuff over and over). Yet, I thought we played our best games this year against the bills and 9ers and were well prepared for those games. But that is 2/11 games.
I get burrow was hurt this year, but anyone with a winning mentality knows what excuses are good for. Winners are constantly learning, adapting, refining, evaluating, etc. Belicheck is elite in this regard. If he were available he would be my top candidate to pair with burrow and let him bring in his choice for OC and Oline/dline coach. It won’t happen, but man would it be awesome.
We just have to hope Zac learns and our young players develop and yes, it starts with the trenches out. Belichick has always been
great at taking away team's strengths no doubt and this was a hard poll to answer honestly because Belichick has been good at what
Zac has not. Like you said, adaptation and adjustments. You have to play every team different, every team is different.
It is weird when we play top teams in the 49ers and the Bills we can dominate them at times and then struggle with a Texans team
that has a much weaker roster than us, nothing against the Texans, they are a good, young up and coming team but we shouldn't of
lost to them. Let alone played as bad as we did on Defense. Same with the Titans and that pathetic showing even if Burrow was hurt.
