(07-09-2021, 02:15 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Don't you...forget about meeee.  (Don't, don't don't...)

I haven't forgotten about him. You will say I look at him through rose colored glasses, while I'll say you don't give him credit for things he's done well. One thing he seems to do, at least to me, is learn from his mistakes. I'm hoping he does a better job with play calling (although I don't think the calls were as bad as some let on) and relies on Callahan more to assist in this.

We've got the talent at the skill positions to score 30 points a game. The offensive line needs to shape up for that to happen though. Who knows how good they'll be up front. There will definitely still be growing pains--but hopefully we see improvement. If they can improve to a middle of the pack offensive line, we can get to scoring 25 to 30 points a game.

(07-09-2021, 03:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: I haven't forgotten about him. You will say I look at him through rose colored glasses, while I'll say you don't give him credit for things he's done well. One thing he seems to do, at least to me, is learn from his mistakes. I'm hoping he does a better job with play calling (although I don't think the calls were as bad as some let on) and relies on Callahan more to assist in this.

Sled, not being an ass but through those rose colored glasses of yours what exactly does he do well? 

He's 6-25-1 in 2 full NFL seasons.  He's on pace to be worse than David Shula with a better roster than David Shula ever had. 

His offense is pass happy.  Even when the run game is working i don't know that I've seen it be an equal balance of run vs pass.  

The offensive lines been crap.  Considering he said last season he thought they were fine on the OL.  

He hired Turner, as OL coach, and hired Lou who is crap as a DC.  

So PLEAAAASSSEE tell me what he does well.  

(07-09-2021, 03:41 PM)TJ528 Wrote: So PLEAAAASSSEE tell me what he does well.  

he apparently interviews well

(07-09-2021, 04:37 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: he apparently interviews well

The bad thing is I'm not asking that question as a smart ass.  

I'm asking that question because as a long time fan who obviously doesn't have rose color glasses I'm just wanting to understand what he does well.  

I'm guessing interviews well is a great response because otherwise he wouldn't have gotten this job.  

(07-09-2021, 11:10 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: In the 6 games Burrow and Mixon played together, the Bengals averaged 21.5 points per game. I doubt Mixon stays healthy all year (he's missed multiple games in 3 of 4 seasons) but if they do, probably around 23 points per game.

So you are saying that with Mixon healthy all year, Chase replacing the least productive starting WR in the league last year (Green) and Reif replacing Bobby Hart the Bengals will only score an extra 1.5 points per game.

Comments like this are just as silly as the ones claiming we will be one of the top offenses in the league.  Adding Reif and Chase plus having MIxon all year will not make this offense unstoppable, but it should improve a lot more than 1.5 points per game. 

I am in the group saying 10th to 15th in points scored.  Top half of the league but not elite.

(07-09-2021, 05:22 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So you are saying that with Mixon healthy all year, Chase replacing the least productive starting WR in the league last year (Green) and Reif replacing Bobby Hart the Bengals will only score an extra 1.5 points per game.

Comments like this are just as silly as the ones claiming we will be one of the top offenses in the league.  Adding Reif and Chase plus having MIxon all year will not make this offense unstoppable, but it should improve a lot more than 1.5 points per game. 

I am in the group saying 10th to 15th in points scored.  Top half of the league but not elite.

I think the question will be though is can Chase break the curse of Bengals 1st round draft picks.  Can he stay healthy all year?  I think pretty much every #1 draft pick we've had has missed multiple games if not the whole season to injuries for like the last 7 or 8 years.  

The the next question comes into play does Mixon play a whole season.  He has played 1 full seasons with 16 games and that was 2019.  We'll see if he can stay healthy. 

As far as the OL, Reiff is a nice addition.  However, that OL is still VERY thin and if they have 1 or 2 injuries on that OL you're back to where you were in 2019.  A smart team would've done what the LA Chargers did and went out and invested in their OL.  Protect the franchises QB, but no the Bengals decided after spending $100M on defense in 2019 they needed to spend another $100M on defense in 2020 instead of adding valuable pieces along the OL and protect JB. 

(07-09-2021, 05:22 PM)fredtoast Wrote: So you are saying that with Mixon healthy all year, Chase replacing the least productive starting WR in the league last year (Green) and Reif replacing Bobby Hart the Bengals will only score an extra 1.5 points per game.

Comments like this are just as silly as the ones claiming we will be one of the top offenses in the league.  Adding Reif and Chase plus having MIxon all year will not make this offense unstoppable, but it should improve a lot more than 1.5 points per game. 

I am in the group saying 10th to 15th in points scored.  Top half of the league but not elite.

I don't think Mixon is anywhere near as good as the hype, and the IOL won't let him show it even if he is. 

They're also an inevitable Jonah Glass Williams injury away from D'Ante Smith being one of your starting Ts and Reiff hasn't played 16 games since 2015. So solid chance we'll have a game or two of D'Ante Smith/Fred Johnson as your LT/RT duo.

Plus at the end of the day, it's still Zac Taylor calling the plays and he's never had a successful offense before.

- - - - -

You might think it's "silly" but 21.5 is a jump of 2.1 points from 2020. That's a pretty significant jump. To give context, the Bengals only jumped 3.4 points from 2014 to 2015 and that was when they got Marvin Jones back and Tyler Eifert had his 13 TD season.

So yes, I don't think Joe Mixon and rookie Ja'Marr Chase are going to have as big of an impact as when Marvin Jones replaced Brandon Tate/Dane Sanzenbacher and Eifert had a 13 TD season.


(As an aside, you mentioned Reiff replacing Hart... weren't you the biggest Bobby Hart fan around? I seem to recall you trying to endlessly tell everyone how good he is and he was just being underrated because of his entry performance. How is Reiff suddenly now a huge upgrade in your mind? I mean, I think he is. But since when did you?)

I think we will be middle of the pack scoring points if Taylor's light doesn't come on and we don't stay reasonably healthy.

If Taylor starts to get it and we stay relatively healthy I could see us being top ten with the OL improvements and our weapons.

Have to block well and the play calling has to get MUCH better for us to be top 10 though. We will see.

I am predicting the light comes on for Taylor finally.

(07-09-2021, 03:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: I haven't forgotten about him. You will say I look at him through rose colored glasses, while I'll say you don't give him credit for things he's done well. One thing he seems to do, at least to me, is learn from his mistakes. I'm hoping he does a better job with play calling (although I don't think the calls were as bad as some let on) and relies on Callahan more to assist in this.

The trenches have been terrible Zac's first 2 seasons. This cannot be overlooked.

Doesn't matter how good your play calling is if the OL cannot block worth a shit.

(07-09-2021, 11:13 AM)SunsetBengal Wrote: In order to compete with Baltimore, you have to make them respect the run.  If you can't hang with them on the LOS, you're just in for a long day.

and stop theirs. 

I believe we probably have the talent to come in middle of the pack. I'm just not sure the coaching is up to that big a jump ?

(07-08-2021, 11:27 PM)EatonFan Wrote: OK. So the Bengals were a woeful 29th in points per game last year at 19.4.

https://www.teamrankings.com/nfl/stat/points-per-game

So, my question is, if Burrow and the WR and Mixon stays healthy all year, where would you expect the Bengals to land?

Make your predictions here!

Question what was our average PPG if you only include Joe burrows games?

Nvm did the math myself it was 20.4 don’t know how much that increases our standing, but we were a young offensive team I don’t see any reason we can’t improve that by a couple of points per game with the new players on the line and at WR combined with some experience from our young core players.

(07-09-2021, 11:19 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Can't just throw out a clunker like that, SHR. Every team has them.

The Packers were the #1 scoring offense in the NFL and they had a game where they scored 10. 
Buccaneers won the SB with the 3rd scoring offense and they had a game where they scored 3.

You doubly can't just throw out a "clunker" when it came against the #2 scoring defense in the league (which has been a top-3 scoring defense the last 3 straight years).

Maybe I should have added that it was the only clunker with Burrow.  We had several more when he wasn't in there.  Sunset responded that you need to make the Ravens respect your rushing attack.  Perhaps.  I don't remember running the ball a great deal against them with either Dalton or Palmer and it seemed they had a pretty good record against the Ravens...just not pitt.  

(07-09-2021, 11:21 AM)TJ528 Wrote: That Raven's defense is a damn good defense with a lot of talent.  I'd say they have more talent on D than we've had on offense.  When you have a crappy OL I don't care who your QB is if he doesn't have time he isn't going to pick apart a defense.   The Ravens aren't going to give JB time in the pocket.  Their gonna flush him or sack him.  Zac needs to be creative and call a balanced attack with the pass and run.  Neither game last year 27-3 nor the last week of the season ass kicking 38-3 were competitive.  I mean we didn't even score a TD against the Raven's last year.  They were outclassed and humiliated.  I hope some of that carries over to this season.  

On another note, the Ravens DC I'd take him every day over our current DC.  He could game plan around Lou all day every day.  

The second Cleveland game, I finally saw some of what I had been yelling at the TV the first time they played:  screen passes.  They used Sample on several of them and burned the Browns.  Sad it took that long in to the season to make what seems to be a very simple adjustment.  

(07-09-2021, 11:10 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: In the 6 games Burrow and Mixon played together, the Bengals averaged 21.5 points per game. I doubt Mixon stays healthy all year (he's missed multiple games in 3 of 4 seasons) but if they do, probably around 23 points per game.

Not confident in Zac Taylor's ability to call a successful offense, or the OL's ability or ability to stay healthy.


So 17 more TDs. That's an awful large jump to be your minimum expectation. 6 points per game is basically the difference between the Browns at 14th and the Packers at 1st.

It may be a 'large jump' but with Burrow and Chase being back (for presumably a full year), plus Burrow having a bit of experience, plus how much lower can we possibly go, plus I'm just talking middle of the pack - average - for the league...

I think you see what I'm saying.

(07-09-2021, 07:36 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: The trenches have been terrible Zac's first 2 seasons. This cannot be overlooked.

Doesn't matter how good your play calling is if the OL cannot block worth a shit.

I'd rather have run blocking maulers for an OL who are average as pass protection, than great pass protectors who can't block in the running game.

This may be a 'passing' league, but many, many game can be won by managing/running out the clock.  That means effectively running the ball.

(07-09-2021, 07:18 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: (As an aside, you mentioned Reiff replacing Hart... weren't you the biggest Bobby Hart fan around? I seem to recall you trying to endlessly tell everyone how good he is and he was just being underrated because of his entry performance. How is Reiff suddenly now a huge upgrade in your mind? I mean, I think he is. But since when did you?)

I defended Bobby Hart after the 2019 season because he played so much better.  In 2020 he allowed a ton of pressures.  Much worse than 2019.

(07-10-2021, 11:16 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I defended Bobby Hart after the 2019 season because he played so much better.  In 2020 he allowed a ton of pressures.  Much worse than 2019.

But which part of his game was so much better after 2019? He gave up 1 fewer total pressure, though he did go from 10 sacks given up to 6. His pressure and sack numbers were 12th and 3rd most in 2018 and they improved to 14th and 15th most in 2019. That's out of 62/61 tackles that played at least 50% of snaps in each year. He basically went from 15th percentile to 23rd percentile.

It's an improvement, but not so much that he showed any real promise.  

(07-09-2021, 07:18 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: They're also an inevitable Jonah Glass Williams injury away from D'Ante Smith being one of your starting Ts and Reiff hasn't played 16 games since 2015. So solid chance we'll have a game or two of D'Ante Smith/Fred Johnson as your LT/RT duo.

If the Bengals believe Jackson Carman is the future Right Tackle and one of their tackles go down this year I can see him moving from Right Guard to Right Tackle. Then bringing in XSF to play Right Guard.