Someone has to say it. . .

[bengaloo]

(12-30-2020, 10:05 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: I don't know that we can say Allen has a better line. Jonah Williams is hurt and was replaced with Fred Johnson. They replaced MJ who was terrible with XSF.

I think that about midway through the year, the line got better at pass blocking to some leve.

As far as the run game, Houston has a really bad run defense.

But, I think what you are inferring is a balanced offense. IF the Bengals even attempted to run it more, Burrow would be more effective. Chucking the ball around 75% of the time is going to expose any weaknesses in an offensive line. And it's hard for the line to get good at run blocking, if they don't run. I've heard commentators allude to that fact. Keep running. It gets better the more you do it.

Playing Finley who they weren't confident in, forced the coaches to change philosophies to a more balanced one to succeed.

Actually I can say that Allen has a better Oline and feel pretty confident about it. Allen has more stability around him than Burrow did in general teamwide. MJ got benched because he got Burrow hurt but should've been benched long before that. XSF is a very big upgrade over MJ, and he was actually available for the game Burrow got hurt. I see no big dropoff with Johnson at LT from Williams. What I see the most though is better play from the OG's and it makes a big difference and even opens holes for the run game which takes even more pressure off the QB.

Yeah the coaches were forced to change philosophies a bit for sure, which is sad it took so long, but the fact remains if Burrow had XSF, Spain and a run game already schemed into the game plan he would probably still be playing. If he had a defense who could make some stops when the game is on the line, and a kicker other than Bullock, the team would have a better record because Burrow put us in position to win a good handful of games this year almost single-handed with very little help around him and especially horrible OG play. But between the defense doing full meltdown and Randy missing big time FGs, it didnt pan out like it should have.