06-25-2024, 03:55 PM
(06-25-2024, 02:25 PM)Lucius Cincinnatus Wrote: "Since the start of 2020, the Bengals lead the league in 11 personnel rate. Their shotgun rate is eighth-highest" - This was written after the 1st month of the 2021 season. So I'm not sure where you're getting your information from.
So again, they were a heavy shotgun team in 2020, (very likely 2021), 2022, and 2023. We know Burrow prefers shotgun. The coaches & Burrow have been quoted that the playbook is the playbook and there aren't significant changes.
Nobody has any evidence of this change except playing this way with a different QB
Yet, folks have this weird confidence in the offense changing.
I am getting my data from a play-by-play database that goes back to 1999. Relative ranking doesn't tell the entire story if the deltas aren't very big. For 2020 & 2021, the league average shotgun usage was a little over 66%. Cincinnati was in shotgun 69% of the time. Compare that to Philadelphia or Baltimore, who are in shotgun on ~90% of their snaps. Cincinnati used shotgun just a bit above league average. I would hardly call them a shotgun heavy team. Maybe your threshold for doing so is different than mine, but 3% more than average doesn't equal a heavy team IMO.
