#Bengals inactives:

RB Chris Evans
LB Joe Bachie (oblique)
OL Trey Hill
OL Jackson Carman (illness)
DT Jay Tufele

Drew Sample (illness) is active today.

LB Devin Harper back up with Bachie dealing with the oblique.

— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) December 16, 2023

#MINvsCIN inactives pic.twitter.com/Hk6LWGNHVg

— Minnesota Vikings (@Vikings) December 16, 2023

Seems in multiple threads people are already counting on KC being a loss for the Bengals. Well, I have hope we can win that game with KC having some issues at the moment. I know it is a tough task to beat KC at home, but the Bengals have done it before. I'm counting on Browning playing the game of his life and Mahomes having the worst game of his life against our defense. What do others think?

!!!! Bengals over Vikings

••• Colts over Steelers
••• Lions over Broncos
••• Patriots over Chiefs
••• Jets over Dolphins
••• Titans over Texans
••• Bears over Browns
••• Cowboys over Bills
••• Ravens over Jags

Obviously we gotta take care of business first.

Several people have been saying some of this. Wyches Warriors & Killer Goose

Excerpts….Paul Dehner - The Athletic - Bengals offensive rebirth: What changed, what hasn’t, what’s next


Undeniably, on offense, they don’t just look like a playoff team. They look different.
“I don’t know if it’s really been that different,” head coach Zac Taylor said.
OK, maybe not everyone agrees on the verbiage. Let’s go with a reallocation of resources.

“They’re all things we’ve done over the course of the season,” Taylor said. “Each defense we play is a big driving force for how the game is played. We haven’t called a single play that we didn’t rep all training camp and fall. These guys believe in what we’re doing and have done a great job. We’ve really called upon every resource we have on offense, and everyone has stepped up.”
Those resources have seen so much success that it’s fair to wonder if schemes and strategies employed over this stretch might become foundational additions when Joe Burrow returns next season.

Those discussions are for another day and a more relaxed moment. For now, the Bengals have found strategies that work. They might not be the ones you think, though.
To better understand what’s changed in the Bengals’ offense, specifically from a play-calling perspective, requires filtering to neutral downs.
To do that, I looked at all plays on first and second down when the score margin was within 10 points in the first three quarters. I also extracted all goal-to-go plays to avoid situational outliers.
This neutral play subset illustrates two significant schematic points of emphasis and one false narrative.

Bengals' neutral down play selection
STATS LAST 3 W5-W11 VS INDY NFL 2023
Plays 84 179 28 11,082
Play action% 29% 22% 36% 20%
Shotgun% 67% 88% 57% 67%
Dropback% 61% 66% 64% 56%
1. Taylor is not running the ball more. All those carries filling the box score have come in putting away wins and goal-line situations. When extracting to true neutral downs, you can see the propensity to pass dipped only marginally.
2. The difference is rooted in how they are executing the offense. The shift from shotgun to under center has been seismic. With a fully healthy Burrow from Week 5 to Week 11, they were in shotgun 88 percent of the time. With Browning, that’s changed to right at the league average. They leaned even further into it against Indianapolis at only 57 percent shotgun.

3. With the increase of under-center has come the increase of play-action. The Bengals used 14 percent more play action against Indianapolis than they did with a healthy Burrow.
All these factors have led to a dramatic rise in explosive plays which have been the overriding difference in the offense. The actual run production has stayed at a fairly consistent level on neutral downs.
Bengals neutral down play efficiency
STAT LAST 3 W5-W11 VS INDY NFL 2023
Success% 46% 56% 50% 47%
Yards/Attempt 10.2 7.3 13.5 7.4
Yards/Rush 4.7 4.6 4.8 4.6
10+gain% 29% 20% 32% 20%
These shifts aren’t complicated and make perfect sense. Burrow didn’t love under-center plays. Turning his back to the defense didn’t fit his processing superpower as well as shotgun. He preferred to stand back, survey the field, dissect and rip completions.
Browning has more comfort turning his back to the defense and could use the extra time provided. That has unlocked different corners of the playbook.
The most notable change, which I wrote about last week, is the rise of the screen game out of thin air. The Bengals piled on to the trend, running six screens against Indianapolis, more than any game under Taylor, including three that went for a combined 124 yards and a touchdown.

There’s a reason under center play action (UCPA) continues to be emphasized. Beyond screens, Browning is thriving in it.
In the last three weeks on UCPA, Browning is 11 of 14 for 240 yards, 10 first downs and a perfect 158.3 passer rating. Those incompletions include a drop by Tee Higgins 10 yards downfield and one throwaway. Browning also scrambled three times for 27 yards with no sacks.
The Bengals only ran 11 UCPA snaps in the first 10 games of the season.
“The more you can do, the more looks you present to the defense and the more that all those looks have multiple things you can run out of those formations or those sets, I think it makes it difficult,” Browning said of increased usage under center.

The rise of UCPA coincided with the disappearance of the empty formation. After the debacle against the Pittsburgh Steelers where Browning struggled to process at nearly the same level in empty as Burrow, the Bengals burned those pages of the playbook.

They averaged eight plays a game out of the empty set from Week 5 to Week 12.
They haven’t run a single play out of empty the last two weeks.
That shines a light on the other aspects of this form. The Bengals’ offensive line has started living up to the preseason hype. In a league where most teams are dipping into the reserves up front, no team has played more snaps with the same starting five as Cincinnati. Orlando Brown Jr., Cordell Volson, Ted Karras, Alex Cappa and Jonah Williams have started all 13 games together.

Gaining a lift from less true pass sets and exposures to empty, protection shined. They only allowed three pressures against the Colts, according to PFF, a season low. They also snapped a 42-game streak of allowing at least one sack.
“Our O-line is playing great football,” Browning said. “I think there’s a lot written about our guys on the outside, and obviously they’re some of the best players in the NFL too, and Joe Mixon is a great running back. But, our O-line and our tight ends have been blocking their asses off, and I think that’s a big part of why we’ve been successful.”
Browning’s not wrong. When allowed to stand in the pocket without pressure, he has carved up the Jacksonville Jaguars and Colts.
When not pressured, he’s 42 of 46 for 498 yards, a staggering 91 percent completion rate. Those four incompletions include two batted passes, a drop and Sunday’s interception.
Meanwhile, he’s 8 of 15 for 131 yards when under pressure. Those numbers are buoyed by the 76-yard touchdown to Ja’Marr Chase in Jacksonville.
The bottom line: Keep pressure numbers low and Browning’s pattern suggests sustainability. The primary issue there would be the degree of difficulty is about to rise substantially.

There aren't many of these Saturday games. This is a rare Saturday Bengals game.

These are like Prime Time, in that the only game in NFL being played Saturday at 1PM is at Cincinnati Game. I see the game is on NFL Network. Use to be NFL Saturday was on national TV on major network such as CBS, NBC, ABC or Fox. College Basketball is on both CBS and Fox. College sports on ESPN. That is OK, I get NFL Network.

Go Bengals, win this one Saturday and an extra day to get ready for




Go Bengals, beat Vikings on Saturday.

Yeah, I know it's on the NFL network so on TV everywhere...if you are a subscriber.

1) In Cincinnati you can also view on WCPO Channel 9
2) you can legally stream with a free trial of Fubo or YouTube TV (Hulu Live and Sling are also options but you have to buy a month).
3) you can buy a month of NFL Plus for $6.99 and watch online
4) you can go to a bar
5) well you know what it is but I cannot officially recommend it. Others know what sites to use

https://506sports.com/nfl.php?yr=2023&wk=15

announcers are Chris Rose and Jason McCourty

ref is Bill Vinovich

And it is a BLACK OUT Saturday at Paycor

the uniform combo is the black jersey, black pants, and black socks

I can't recall when the last wore all black

"Ay let me get through!"@BJHill5 is always a favorite on the mic ?

Mic'd Up | @altafiber pic.twitter.com/G9nIrVqEue

— Cincinnati Bengals (@Bengals) December 13, 2023

Is what the OL reported to Coach Frank Pollack on the sidelines of last Sunday's game, in response to Colts DL attempting to call out Bengal plays based upon formation and personnel.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/nfl/they-were-just-guessing-bengals-broke-tendencies-mixed-up-colts-calling-out-plays/ar-AA1lptzh?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=84e7f9ac556746a684d09385a1c014e0&ei=58

Quote:CINCINNATI — Every time the Cincinnati Bengals’ offense comes off the field, whether it be after a score, a turnover, or a punt, the linemen give position coach Frank Pollack feedback on what they are seeing from the opponent.

Sunday in the 34-14 win against the Indianapolis Colts at Paycor Stadium, the conversations were more about what the offensive linemen were hearing.

“Guys were telling me on the sideline between series that the Colts players were calling out plays, saying what to watch out for, and it was constantly the wrong play or concept,” Pollack said. “So they were just guessing. They had no idea. So that was fantastic.”

Pollack credited head coach and play caller Zac Taylor.

The Cincinnati Bengals Broke Tendencies To Bust the Indianapolis Colts
“He mixed up a ton of stuff in the calls and called a great game,” Pollack said. “We had some tendency-breakers that we threw out there that we hadn’t shown in most of the games. But sometimes tendencies are a good thing, too. It means you’re doing some good stuff.”
Left guard Cordell Volson said Pollack deserves a lot of the credit, too.

“They work hand in hand together and bounce ideas off each other and work really well together,” Volson said. “You’d like to be able to say every game is your best, but I feel really good about Sunday. We were able to stay out of third-and-longs and really run the ball well, and that just makes our job easier. And when you’re doing a lot of different things, you can keep the defense guessing.”

The most notable tendency the team broke Sunday was that the offensive line didn’t allow a sack for the first time in 43 games. The 42-game streak of allowing at least one had tied the franchise record and was the second-longest active streak in the league (Denver, 51).

Add that to the fact the offensive line allowed the fewest pressures (three) and quarterback hits (three) of the season while also paving the way for running backs Joe Mixon and Chase Brown to each top 100 scrimmage yards, and statistically it was the group’s best performance of the year.

“Yeah, I guess you could say that based on those stats,” Pollack said when asked if he thought it was his group’s best performance. “But stats are always a team thing. You need all 11 guys on offense to piss a yard.”

Sunday marked just the third time the Bengals have had multiple running backs top 100 scrimmage yards since 1990 and the 20th occasion in franchise history.

It’s another example of how the run game and the screen game have played bigger roles in each of the last two wins as the Bengals have leaned more into running plays from under center, with an emphasis on play action, which is something they limited with Joe Burrow at the helm because he doesn’t like turning his back to the defense.

Both the screen pass that Brown turned into a 54-yard touchdown and the screen that Mixon turned into a 45-yard gain came off of play action.

Likewise, the increase in play action has played a role in the increased production in rushing yards. The 156 the Bengals had at Jacksonville was their season-high, and the 11 Sunday against the Colts gave them consecutive 100-yard performances for the first time since Weeks 12-14 last year.

“You can do certain things under center that you can’t do in the [shot]gun,” Pollack said. “It’s not just the mere fact of being under center versus being under gun, there are different concepts you can emphasize.”

Asked what the biggest difference has been in the way the offensive line has played between when Burrow was at quarterback and with Browning, right guard Alex Cappa downplayed the change.

“We played as hard as we could when we had Joe, and we play as hard as we can with Jake,” he said with a grin.

Despite the differences in quarterback, schemes, tendencies, and anything else, there has been one constant this year, and that’s the five offensive linemen themselves.

The Bengals are one of only three teams who have started the same five offensive linemen in all 13 games, along with the Denver Broncos and Buffalo Bills, both of whom also are 7-6 and in the hunt for a playoff berth.

This is not unfamiliar territory for the Bengals, who started the same five linemen for the first 15 games last year before they started to fall one by one, starting with La’el Collins in Week 16 at New England and then followed by Cappa in Week 18 against Baltimore and Jonah Williams in the Wild Card win against the Ravens.

“That continuity is critical,” Pollack said. “You want to have everyone healthy on your team, but especially a group where it’s so important they are able to play as a unit, to play as one.

“So kudos to those guys,” Pollack continued. “It’s about how they prepare themselves every week, how they prepare themselves in the offseason to get their bodies ready, their professional approach. They stay on top of those things.”

When asked about how well the offensive line has been playing lately, Taylor took a little bit of exception.

“It’s not just the last two weeks,” he said. “There has been a lot of positive things that group has done over the course of the season. I look back against Pittsburgh, that’s one of the best pass-rushing defensive lines in the league. (We gave up) three sacks, and I don’t put any of that on (the line).

“They get the heat for that, that’s just the way it goes, but I think there are a lot of positive things they have done that maybe they don’t get the credit for over the course of the season.

“Just because we win two games, they start to get credit,” he continued. “They have gotten positive marks from us for a lot of things they have done over time.”

Only a walk thru before the Saturday game so its a projected list

DNP
Ja'Marr Chase-ankle
Joe Batchie-oblique

Limited
Tyler Boyd-foot/ankle
DJ Turner-ankle

Full
Jake Browning-forearm
Chidobe Awuzie-shoulder
Mitch Wilcox-knee

CTB was seen running sprints over on the rehab field. He's off IR just in time for KC

Zac is asking everyone who is attending Saturday to have an extra beer or two and scream their heads off to throw off the Vikings QB.

I know this request will be tough for many to follow but it is for the good of the team