Are you quite finished?

Anyway, there was an article released earlier this year (I cannot recall where, and I wish I could) that reviewed the last decade for the number of games/starts teams have theoretically lost to injury during that span. The Bengals were smack dab at the top: #1 overall in injury misfortune. If I recall correctly they were worst in a "per year" sense, but not necessarily in terms of reaching the worst injury peak. I could be misspeaking here, but the gist was that Cincinnati injury problems are pervasive and have been happening for a while.

I doubt that's anything other than bad luck, but regardless of the cause I suspect it has become ingrained into our psyche as fans. We anticipate injury at a ridiculous clip, especially in condensed forms to single position groups, and it colors our perceptions of the roster, of depth, and of performance. We're as depth-obsessed as any fanbase can be, because any season in which we don't lose a critical starter for a long duration is an anomaly.

Sucks to be us.

Taylor Excuse #14

NFL defenses are just behind the curve, once everyone adopts 11 personnel as the one and only offensive formation, then we'll be on top because we're the experts in that formation and we won't look so predictable then.

Taylor Excuse #15

I didn't draft John Ross.

Taylor Excuse #16

Drew Sample

Taylor Excuse #17

Covid affected us worse than everyone else.

Now you're trying too hard.

Taylor Excuse #18

Bad Luck! Lady Luck and I were never friends.

(09-02-2021, 04:51 PM)JaggedJimmyJay Wrote: Now you're trying too hard.

No, not really. How many times have you seen Covid as a reason for this team's bad play. Just check out the board. It's in a lot of places.

 

Taylor Excuse #19

We got robbed in that Seattle game and that set the tone for the whole season and we couldn't recover from that.

Be ready for a repeat of this one if Chase drops a potential game winning TD.

 

(09-02-2021, 05:03 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #19

We got robbed in that Seattle game and that set the tone for the whole season and we couldn't recover from that.

Be ready for a repeat of this one if Chase drops a potential game winning TD.

 

Do you mean the Chargers game? Hard to tell since we get unfairly robbed so often!

(09-01-2021, 07:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Every NFL team has injuries and the best teams usually have better #2 guys, but when you get down to third string no team has a lot of talent.  And that is what really hurt the Bengals last year.  The injuries were concentrated in specific spots.

Last year at this time I thought DT would be one of the strengths of the team.  We had Reader, Atkins, and Tupou who had combined to play over 1800 snaps in 2019.  But last year we only got 378 snaps form those top three DTs, and Geno was invisible in his 119 snaps with only one tackle for the entire year.  Instead our top 4 DTs in snaps played last year included three guys who could not make an NFL roster this year (Mike Daniels, Xavier Williams, Margus Hunt) and another guy who signed for less than $1 million dollars to play for his 4th different team in 4 years (Christian Covington).

We also got killed at CB.  Our top 4 CBs all missed at least two games and totaled 25 starts missed with injury.  LeShaun Simms, Jalen Davis, and Tony Brown combined to play 773 snaps at CB last year.  That was more than Mackensie Alexander (642) and Darius Phillips (593), and only about 100 fewer than Jackson (886).  No defense is going to hold up with their  #5-#7 CBs combining to play more snaps than all but one of their top 4.

O-line was a bloodbath.  We did not have a single O-lineman start 16 games last year and only two started more than 10.  We had 11 different players start on the O-line with 4 back ups getting at least 5 starts.  We were so desperate that 3 different O-linemen started at more than one position.  Bobby Hart, Alex Redmond, and Michael Jordan started 30 games for us last year and none of them have made an NFL roster in 2021.

Every team gets injuries, but any team who had as many injuries concentrated in specific groups like DT, O-line, and CB would have struggled.

Better luck with injuries could improve this team just as much as the big free agents and top draft picks.

I agree that last year was a particularly rough year with injuries and no team has solid third string players. You could get lucky and find a surprise but realistically there is a reason they are third string.

That being said --good teams are able to overcome injuries because other players step up. Unfortunately Bengals were in a position where too many holes and not enough top calibre players to compensate.

The OLine last year and this year are simply not deep enough to sustain an injury. Having Spain and XSF on the bench would be considered great depth but when Fred Johnson is your most experienced guy off the bench you are asking for trouble. 

D Line looks deeper this year so does CB so we likely can manage a few injuries there better but O-Line is still a black hole 

(09-02-2021, 04:11 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #1

Came in late because he was an assistant on a SB team. This delayed him an extra two weeks compared to assistants from Conference Championship games. Two weeks during a off-season was just too much for Taylor to over come.

(09-02-2021, 04:17 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #2

None of the experienced quality assistants would work under Taylor, many declining even to be interviewed, including some college assistants. This, of course, isn't his fault at all. Those experienced quality assistants were all just jealous he got the job with no legit resume. This saddled Taylor with the scrapings out of the bottom of a septic tank as his assistants.

(09-02-2021, 04:20 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #4

It's all Marvin's fault!

(09-02-2021, 04:23 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #5

He had no choice but to pick Turner as the OL coach. They were old drinking buddies from Miami and that matters.

(09-02-2021, 04:25 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #6

Mike Brown is just the worst sports franchise owner there is. No body can have a winning record under him!



Oh wait?!?!?

(09-02-2021, 04:29 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #7

I sucked bad enough to get the top pick in 2020, that should count as a winning season. I'm the reason Burrow is here and since he's the best in generations, I should be given credit for that by all the fans everywhere!

(09-02-2021, 04:31 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #8

Marvin's players all hate me and won't buy into my "we're really winners" speech.

(09-02-2021, 04:33 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #9

Glenn quick on us at LT and how could I do anything about that.

(09-02-2021, 04:34 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #10

AJ Green is always injured. In fact, he was never really any good anyways. I was told he was great. Not my fault.

(09-02-2021, 04:36 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #11

Dunlap is just a sore loser. How dare he be upset about this team losing game after game.

(09-02-2021, 04:37 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #12

Mike Brown is a horrible owner. This counts twice because he's doubly bad.

(09-02-2021, 04:39 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #13

The AFC North is a hard division where they run the ball in bad weather and all that stuff. I don't know how to do that.

(09-02-2021, 04:42 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #14

NFL defenses are just behind the curve, once everyone adopts 11 personnel as the one and only offensive formation, then we'll be on top because we're the experts in that formation and we won't look so predictable then.

(09-02-2021, 04:45 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #15

I didn't draft John Ross.

(09-02-2021, 04:49 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #16

Drew Sample

(09-02-2021, 04:50 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #17

Covid affected us worse than everyone else.

(09-02-2021, 04:51 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #18

Bad Luck! Lady Luck and I were never friends.

(09-02-2021, 05:03 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Taylor Excuse #19

We got robbed in that Seattle game and that set the tone for the whole season and we couldn't recover from that.

Be ready for a repeat of this one if Chase drops a potential game winning TD.

 

Did not realize you were so completely clueless about the effect of injuries on an NFL team.

The fact that you apparently don't think these injuries hurt our team last year just proves that you know nothing about football.

But the scariest part is your obsession with Zac Taylor in a thread that had nothing to do with Zac Taylor.  You should probably get some therapy.

**Waits for "Well one time a team had a lot of injuries and still won games" comment that proves injuries don't matter the same way Tom Brady proves you can always get a Hall of Fame QB in the 6th round.**

(09-01-2021, 10:58 PM)impactplaya Wrote: Remember a couple years back on Thursday Night football.the Steelers whole backfield was decimated.
They trotted out Jaylen Samuels and Mason
Rudolph and proceeded to just steamroll 
The Bengals. I was so beside myself.

A few years back, we had the Colts and Steelers shredding us with 5th string RBs. Our old practice squad RB (Boom Herron?) gashed us for like 140 combined yards.

(09-02-2021, 08:20 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Did not realize you were so completely clueless about the effect of injuries on an NFL team.

The fact that you apparently don't think these injuries hurt our team last year just proves that you know nothing about football.

But the scariest part is your obsession with Zac Taylor in a thread that had nothing to do with Zac Taylor.  You should probably get some therapy.

**Waits for "Well one time a team had a lot of injuries and still won games" comment that proves injuries don't matter the same way Tom Brady proves you can always get a Hall of Fame QB in the 6th round.**

Teams winning despite lots of injuries is far more common than best ever QBs being taken in the 6th round.

That said, I do think we got hit pretty hard last year and health should be a positive this year compared to 2020.

(09-03-2021, 12:33 AM)Shake n Blake Wrote: A few years back, we had the Colts and Steelers shredding us with 5th string RBs. Our old practice squad RB (Boom Herron?) gashed us for like 140 combined yards.

But the Bengals have also had 100 yd rushing games from back ups like Rex Burkhead and Bernard Scott.  Alex Erickson had a 100 yard receiving game.

Funny how some fans seem to just see the negative.  I remember a few years back when we had one of the top pass defenses in the league there was a thread about "Why opponents receivers are always running wide open and Bengal receivers are always covered."

(09-03-2021, 12:36 AM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Teams winning despite lots of injuries is far more common than best ever QBs being taken in the 6th round.

Doesn't change my point at all.

Injuries have an effect on a teams ability to win.  That is not just some crazy idea I came up with as an "excuse for Zac Taylor".  Even if Taylor is a bad coach we will be a better team this year if we are more healthy.

(09-02-2021, 08:20 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Did not realize you were so completely clueless about the effect of injuries on an NFL team.

The fact that you apparently don't think these injuries hurt our team last year just proves that you know nothing about football.

But the scariest part is your obsession with Zac Taylor in a thread that had nothing to do with Zac Taylor.  You should probably get some therapy.

**Waits for "Well one time a team had a lot of injuries and still won games" comment that proves injuries don't matter the same way Tom Brady proves you can always get a Hall of Fame QB in the 6th round.**

Every team has injuries last time I looked.

Winners don't need excuses.

Loser cling to them like the plague to justify their continued employment.

 

(09-03-2021, 12:56 PM)BengalChris Wrote: Every team has injuries last time I looked.

Winners don't need excuses.

Loser cling to them like the plague to justify their continued employment.

 

That's a nice quote for a Wheaties box, but wake me up when it means anything. Injuries reduce the probability of winning. That's just the truth.

(09-03-2021, 09:46 AM)fredtoast Wrote: But the Bengals have also had 100 yd rushing games from back ups like Rex Burkhead and Bernard Scott.  Alex Erickson had a 100 yard receiving game.

Funny how some fans seem to just see the negative.  I remember a few years back when we had one of the top pass defenses in the league there was a thread about "Why opponents receivers are always running wide open and Bengal receivers are always covered."

So injuries kill us but our backups are great and perform so well? Then why are our injuries such a big deal.....

(09-02-2021, 05:38 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: Do you mean the Chargers game? Hard to tell since we get unfairly robbed so often!

LMAO.

No, I was talking about the Seattle game, game 1 of Taylor's first season. It was Ross' career game, but the Bengals came up short after completely outplaying the Seahawks. At the end of that season it was explained, on this board, how that loss set the tone and a win that day could have led to the a playoff appearance. It was one of those, "we're really winners" type of threads.