Do we tank this game vs New Orleans?

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(11-06-2018, 11:30 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I was listening to Mo Egger yesterday and he was talking about just tanking vs New Orleans. Basically, we have no shot of winning, and with Baltimore coming up the following week, we should not risk Dalton, Mixon or any of our other major players getting injured for a lost cause of a game.

He went through the AFC wild card contenders as such:

Miami is 5-4 with the Packers, Patriots and Vikings remaining on their schedule, so their best case scenario is probably 9-7 (and we own the tie breaker).
No other contenders in the East.

The Titans and Jags are a hot mess and he doesn't believe the Titans will go 5-3 to end their season to end on 9-7.
The Jags would need to end 6-2 to even have a shot at the wild card at 9-7.

The Chargers have probably already secured a playoff spot at 6-2. And there is no other competition in the AFC West for a playoff seed.

So that leaves Baltimore, sitting at 4-5. They'd need to go 5-2 in the remainder of their season to even get to 9-7.

So he's saying, if we can ignore New Orleans, count it as a loss, rest all of your starters and go into Baltimore healthy and rested (who are coming off of a bye anyway) we have hand them their 6th loss, putting them at 4-6 and then they'd need to finish 5-1 to even make 9-7. And, in the case that they did, we would only need to go 3-3 (6-4 after losing to NO and winning vs Baltimore) in our final 6 games to guarantee a playoff spot, since beating Baltimore would give us the head to head tie breaker.

The odds of going 3-3 against the Browns, Broncos, Raiders, Chargers, Browns and Steelers is, in his opinion, a pretty good bet. And that'd only be necessary if one of those teams did end at 9-7, as we'd win any tiebreaker at 8-8 if none made it to 9-7.

What are your guys' thoughts on his opinion of the playoff outlook and whether or not to tank the New Orleans game?

I get what Mo is saying, probably somewhat tongue-in-cheek, but you can't simply turn on and turn off your effort.  This team needs to find their "ON" button and find it now.  

New Orleans isn't unbeatable.  They are really tough at home and average on the road.  

The Bengals have the ability.  They just need to have the attitude.  Come out firing like the Ravens and Bucs games but keep your damn foot on the gas.  This team hasn't had ONE complete game this season.  When you have the ability to flat out dominate a team like the ratbirds, you can dominate anyone, but if your coaches don't have the aggression to squeeze the last bit of life out of them when you have them down it is not going to be a victory against the Saints.  It will take their best four quarters.

And should they pull off the win, they might FINALLY have the confidence to play with some passion the rest of the year.  Remember, the Saints D was pathetic (like ours!) early in the year, but they made some moves and changes (what a concept) and they are playing very well of late.

There is still hope for this team, but it lies on the coaches to change their stripes.  Tanking would be consistent with our panty-waste methods of the current season.