In the past three years victors of NFL playoff games, including SBs, have scored an average of 29.85 points per playoff game. Losers have scored an average of 19.3 points per playoff game. I computed these numbers by simply averaging the winning and losing scores of each playoff game for the last 3 years.

When we get to the SB, these numbers go up. The victor has scored an average of 35 points (this number is somewhat bloated by the Seattle blow out of Denver) and the loser 21 points (somewhat lowered by the 8 points Denver scored against Seattle). But overall SB scores are higher than other playoff games (at least for the last 3 years it has).


One point that doesn't have its own stat is the winner doesn't make major mistakes, while the loser generally does. Last year it was the play call to pass and the subsequent INT that killed Seattle on the last play. The year before it was the first play of the game where the OC hiked the ball over Manning's head giving Seattle a free TD. There were other mistakes in these games, but these two mistakes stood out as the biggest blunders.

Simply put, teams which can put up these points and give up this few points are going win most postseason games.


To score 30 points in a game, on average, requires 4 TDs and 1 FG or 3TDs and 3FGs or some combination approximate to that. That's 1TD per quarter, plus a bit. Or 5TDs if you are talking a SB win.

Is our offense good enough to do this against a team also good enough to be in the playoffs?


To give up 20 or fewer points requires the defense surrender only 2TDs and 2 FGs or 1 TD and 4 FGs or maybe 3TDs max. This is really giving up 10 points per half.

Is our defense good enough to do this against a team which is also good enough to be in the playoffs?

Are the Bengals good enough to not make any major mistakes in a playoff game?

Per Bengals.com he showed up a lot bigger and stronger than last season:

http://www.bengals.com/news/article-1/Larger-Clarke-Hopes-To-Play-Bigger-Role/2fbf2a2e-5124-477c-a021-61f6ab50e0f8

So will the increased strength and size translate into on field success? Did he lose any speed in the process? If Clarke is indeed able to fully contribute that provides a big boost to us getting our DL rotation back. If he does show he's ready the DL group could be:

DE: Johnson, Dunlap, Gilberry, Clarke

DT: Atkins, Peko, Sims, Hardison

On the edge: Thompson, Still

I could be wrong as to the position groups, and indeed we may decide to keep 9 or 10 DL this time out and go light elsewhere. What do you think?

Over the last couple of weeks, Coley and the AFC North guys at ESPN have chimed in on whether Andy Dalton and the Bengals can finally get that elusive playoff win...




Can Andy Dalton take the next step and win a playoff game?
Andy Dalton has made the playoffs each of his first four seasons, but as Cincinnati Bengals fans are all too aware, he's 0-for-4 in those opportunities. Is there reason to believe this year will be different if the Bengals make the playoffs again?

Read the responses http://espn.go.com/blog/cincinnati-bengals/post/_/id/17530/afc-north-qa-is-there-reason-to-believe-andy-dalton-will-take-the-next-step-in-his-development-and-win-a-playoff-game





Why playoff-win drought for Bengals, Andy Dalton will continue
Ask any sports fan from the Queen City what he or she most wants out of their professional sports teams and you will get a simple answer: a playoff win.

It's been 20 years since the Cincinnati Reds won a playoff series, and 25 since the Cincinnati Bengals last claimed a postseason victory. Earlier this summer, the New York Times even declared the city's sports fans as the 12th-most tortured in the country, due to the dearth of recent postseason success.

Read the rest of the article http://espn.go.com/blog/cincinnati-bengals/post/_/id/17877/bengals-andy-dalton-playoffs-win-drought-continues

Trying to go out to Vegas with a friend in football season so we can sit in a Sportsbook all day and gamble, which he's a HUGE gambler, so it should be fun.

Looking for a weekend with a lot of good NFL games and some good college ones, too, if it's possible.

We'll play some table games, too, but looking to spend the majority of the weekend (and maybe Monday night, too) on football, so I'm looking for a weekend with interesting games to bet.

I'll be at all Bengals home games (hopefully) , so it would need to be during an away week.

For the NFL, I'm thinking that maybe week 8 would be a good time to go because the Bengals play in Pittsburgh at 1 (hell of a game to bet on in Vegas, but then it's also great around here with die-hard Bengals fans), the Seahawks play in Dallas at 4:15, and then Green Bay plays in Denver at 8:30, so that would be at least three games going on most of the day that would be awesome to watch and bet on.

The Monday Night Football Game, if I stayed that long, is the Colts at the Panthers, which could be a good game to watch.

Other notable games are the Niners at the Rams, Chargers at the Ravens, Giants at Saints, and even the Vikings at Rams should be a good game, but I'll be so into the Bengals-Steelers game that I probably won't be paying too much attention to the other games.

As far as college games go, Ohio State has the weekend off, which is a bummer, but Rutgers plays at Wisconsin, Ole Miss plays at Auburn (should be a hell of a game), Tennessee at Kentucky, Florida verse Georgia, and a few other good ones, but I'm sure we could even spend Saturday on table games.

Does that weekend look best? Anybody have any other weekends of games that look good?

Simple really from any era if you could construct a Bengals Team with any former current Bengals player who would you put at what position and Do you think they could be the CURRENT SB Champs?

What are your guys thoughts on Bengals attempting to try switching McCalebb from DB to a receiver? Do you think he could make the team and would he help the team?

I personally think that it's nice that he gets to go back to his old position, also that the Bengals are trying some things out and seeing if they work out for the team. Let's just hope it pans out as Hobson was talking about adding another "receiver" to the mix.

Here you go....

FRIDAY, JULY 31
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


SATURDAY, AUG. 1
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


SUNDAY, AUG. 2
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


MONDAY, AUG. 3
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


TUESDAY, AUG. 4
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


THURSDAY, AUG. 6
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


FRIDAY, AUG. 7
Gates open at 5:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 6 p.m.


SATURDAY, AUG. 8 (FAMILY DAY AT PAUL BROWN STADIUM)
Gates open at 12:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 1:30 p.m.


MONDAY, AUG. 10
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


TUESDAY, AUG. 11 (JOINT PRACTICE WITH NY GIANTS)
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


WEDNESDAY, AUG. 12 (JOINT PRACTICE WITH NY GIANTS)
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


MONDAY, AUG. 17
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


WEDNESDAY, AUG. 19
Gates open at 2:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 3 p.m.


THURSDAY, AUG. 20
Gates open at 12:30 p.m.
Practice begins at 1 p.m.

EDIT: PLEASE NOTE, THE FOLLOWING STATS ARE REGARDING PASSER RATING AND NOT THE CONTROVERSIAL TOTAL QBR STAT ESPN USES. STATS FOR PASSER RATINGS IN THIS THREAD BY THE OP WERE GOTTEN BY USING GAME BY GAME LOGS ON ESPN.COM UNDER THE RAT STAT

I know it is long, but hear me out on this. It's sort of my Da Vinci Code!!!!!

A different way to view the problem with Andy Dalton and the QB position on the Bengals....

One of my best friends and I had lunch today and talked sports. He's a life long Browns fan and I am a life long Bengals fan. Neither of us are homers by any stretch. I was talking to him about this thread and some of the arguments in both sides. He summed up my thoughts incredibly and I thought I would share because it might better describe what a lot of us less-than-enthusiastic Dalton guys are thinking when it comes to McCarron.

He brought up Bill Belicheck and how he once said that he doesn't focus on a players ceiling, but instead is more interested in their floor. Meaning: What's the worst the guy is going to be any given week? Basically, the thought is that he can game plan around that is more of a certainty than hoping a guy plays like a star every game. With Tom Brady in particular, his thinking was that even in Tom's worst games he was able to bring back or keep Michigan close enough to win at the end of games - even if he had been playing poorly most of the game.

With Dalton, his floor is abysmally low and that pendulum swings wildly based on almost no real trend. He can be a star one week against a strong opponent and then drop off and just have a terrible game against a weak one. What stinks as a fan is that if his floor was just a good or even average game it would be good enough with the talent around him to win against most NFL teams most weeks - and you can ride that kind of QB into a Superbowl. With AJ McCarron, I am hoping that AJ's floor is consistently higher than Dalton's and that he plays above it with more consistency.

Some stats to back up AD's inconsistency and show his floor and how many times he reaches it....

Game by game QBR as per ESPN for 2013 & 2014

NOTE: I am putting an * if they lost

2013
1 97.2 *
2 81.7
3 105.5
4 58.2 *
5 81.1
6 105.9
7 135.9
8 125.7
9 55.4 *(OT)
10 52.3 *(OT)
11 62.7
12 83.6
13 120.5
14 86.4 *
15 136.2
16 62.2
PO 67.0 *

2014
1 98.7
2 116.6
3 68.9
4 117.4 *
5 93.5
6 55.4 *
7 89.3
8 79.1
9 2.0 *
10 143.9
11 84.6
12 60.7
13 128.8 *
14 53.6
15 93.1
16 83.7 *
PO 63.4 *

- What does this mean? Compare it to (most) other good QBs: Rivers, Wilson, Alex Smith, Big Ben, Eli Manning, Romo and a host of others and you will see an occasional dip into a low QBR, but it is rare and typically few and far between on a season by season basis.

- Guys with similar erratic play and lows: Cam Newton, Matthew Stafford, Joe Flacco (the only one who has won a Superbowl). Kaepernick gets a special mention here because he was erratic and had lows in 2014, but his QBRs in 2012 & 2013 were incredibly strong all the way through the season and the playoffs with only a dip or two.

Even more interesting is that none of the above low floor QBs made it past the 2nd round last year. The only two to make it out of the first round were Cam Newton (playing a beat up Cardinals team), and Joe Flacco (playing a familiar opponent in the Steelers).

Conclusion: Andy Dalton's capable ceiling (his good to best games) is fine. For the Bengals to go far into the playoffs and be consistent the QB position doesn't have to throw 100+ ratings. Instead, it has to raise it's floor by (guessing) 15 points in QBR from the mid 50's into 70 or above territory. I don't care if that is AD, AJ MC, or some guy out on the street or whoever. If the floor of the QB position stays around the 50's the chances of winning in the playoffs drops off a cliff.

Hey guys, I saw an interesting tweet on the NFL ESPN account that asked the following question: if you could change one play in your team's history, what would it be and why?

I'm just curious, which play would you guys change?

(Sorry if this message board has a 50-post rule like the old one!)

As the Board has voted:

1st TEAM
DE- EDDIE EDWARDS, JUSTIN SMITH
DT- TIM KRUMRIE, GENO ATKINS
OLB- REGGIE WILLIAMS, BRIAN SIMMONS
MLB- JIM LECLAIR
CB- KEN RILEY, LAMAR PARRISH
S- DAVIS FULCHER, TOMMY CASANOVA

2nd TEAM
DE- CARLOS DUNLAP, COY BACON
DT- MIKE REID, WILSON WHITLEY
OLB- JAMES FRANCIS, AL BEAUCHAMP
MLB- BILL BERGY
CB- LEON HALL, LEWIS BREEDEN
S- REGGIE NELSON, DARRYL WILLIAMS