(09-20-2021, 09:33 AM)PhilHos Wrote: I think Burrow's problems this season are two-fold:

1) Playcalling. Whatever the reasons for it, Zac's playcalling this year has been stale, at best. Maybe to protect Burrow, maybe to get Mixon more involved, no matter the reason, it's CLEARLY not working and affecting Burro's play on the field.

2) Mental issues. I think Burrow is by and large recovered physcially. But, mentally, he's clearly having some issues. 2 of those INTs were from staring down receivers and i don't remember Burrow doing that last year. Also, I didn't realize it til someone pointed it out in the GameDay thread yesterday, but Burrow is NOT moving in the pocket. His mobility doesn't seem to be there and I don't think it's a physical issue, but rather a mental one.

The good news is that Burrow was a guy who would work tirelessly on his issues to correc them and I see no reason he won't do the same this year.

Stale play calling is a serious understatement.....

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(09-20-2021, 07:45 PM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: 4-13, he gets to lose an extra game a year lol

(09-20-2021, 10:00 PM)ah5 Wrote: Stale play calling is a serious understatement.....

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Burrow gets to audible and call the play he wants....

This is more on Burrow than you allude to Ah5.

(09-20-2021, 10:05 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: Burrow gets to audible and call the play he wants....

This is more on Burrow than you allude to Ah5.

I've heard this argument a lot. 

I think it's asking too much to force your QB to audible out of all your terrible play calls. The best offenses in the league rarely audible. They have good coaches that put their QB's in a great position to succeed. Look at KC. Balt. etc. 

Why make Burrow's job harder than it has to be? That's what they've been doing all this time. Not only is the line crap, but the gameplan and play calling aren't doing any favors. 

They not only failed to protect Burrow, but they gave him subpar coaching. If we fired Zac, he wouldn't come close to sniffing an OC position in the NFL. He's been absolute garbage. In 3 years he's managed 2 impressive wins (titans and steelers last year). Patience should be running thin. He's done nothing to impress me through 2 games. 

If Zach keeps calling games like that, the defense is gonna keep sitting on routes, and Burrow will keep throwing INTs. That's just the reality of the it.

(09-20-2021, 11:19 PM)Bengalstripes9 Wrote:  The best offenses in the league rarely audible. 

I don't believe this is true at all.  In fact I would argue that the best teams are the ones who make the best adjustments at the line of scrimmage.

What do you have to back up your claim?

(09-20-2021, 04:46 PM)TJ528 Wrote: You mean the 10 year vet who 95% of Bengals fans rag on for not winning a play off game.  

The 95% of Bengal fans who say Dalton was basically a stiff and should've been replaced.  

Bengal fans don't realize how good they had it with Andy Dalton and Marvin Lewis. 


I mean we are 0-2 against Dalton now so maybe our fan base will realize when we play against him again that Daltons a good QB 

It's kinda like some talk recently....if it goes well, Joe did it, if not, it's on Zac.  Back then the more irrational posters blamed Andy for everything that went wrong. It's the nature of fans....

(09-20-2021, 05:57 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: Was it Mixon? I haven’t gone back and watched it but that wouldn’t surprise me. Our backs have had a tough time in pass pro.

Yeah, Sanchez mentioned it during the broadcast. So when they showed the replay, I was watching for it...and sure enough....

Yes, our backs are killing us in pass pro. 

Burrow is not calling all the plays by a long shot. He goes out there with 2-3 plays. One is the called play and the others audibles.

He is overall a smart QB. However, he is also right now taking too long to decide and throw and also not moving at all in the pocket. He has to fix those. And on Zac's part the play designs are terrible. This offense NEEDS to be throwing deep and trusting the receivers to make the play. Instead it is overly timid and compounding the timidity with formations that telegraph the play and garbage like empty set which hang everyone out to dry.

Well one thing I don't want to see Burrow doing is what he did near the end of the game, and that's trying to make tackles.

(09-20-2021, 11:19 PM)Bengalstripes9 Wrote: I've heard this argument a lot. 

I think it's asking too much to force your QB to audible out of all your terrible play calls. The best offenses in the league rarely audible. They have good coaches that put their QB's in a great position to succeed. Look at KC. Balt. etc. 

Why make Burrow's job harder than it has to be? That's what they've been doing all this time. Not only is the line crap, but the gameplan and play calling aren't doing any favors. 

They not only failed to protect Burrow, but they gave him subpar coaching. If we fired Zac, he wouldn't come close to sniffing an OC position in the NFL. He's been absolute garbage. In 3 years he's managed 2 impressive wins (titans and steelers last year). Patience should be running thin. He's done nothing to impress me through 2 games. 

Doubt the best Offenses in the league rarely audible. This is how you take advantage of the Defense in front of you.

The play to win the Viking game was a Burrow audible to Uzo.

Also, if Burrow likes the gameplan then this a bit of a moot point. But I do agree that we need to take shots early in the game to 
open things up and this is most likely on Taylor, true.

(09-20-2021, 03:29 PM)bfine32 Wrote: We are a week removed from applauding Joe for "Going rouge and calling his own plays" to "Zac's play calling is killing him".

It has been made known that Zac calls the plays but gives Joe the authority to change any he deems necessary after reading the D.

We cannot call ourselves rational if every time something goes wrong: "It's Zac" and every time something goes well "it's Joe".

I found nothing positive in Joe's performance yesterday. I do hope he learned from it.

This sums it up perfectly Bfine.

If the Bengals won a Super Bowl on some gutsy call with Burrow and Taylor and Burrow came out post game and said "That was Taylor's call" half the posters here would say Burrow was just giving credit to the guy because he was doing the right thing and backing his coach.

Flip it to, Burrow tosses an INT to lose a playoff game or the Super Bowl, and says "It was a bad read on my part" same half would scream that Taylor made a bad call.

I'm not saying that Taylor is a great or even good coach but the week one offense wasn't all Joe audibles. There was a lot of praise and talk of how well the team looked and that the playcalling had balance and things looked good... now it's doom and gloom. Sometimes the other team just has a better plan or just matches up better with what another team wants to do. 

The Vikings front four couldn't get pressure on their own, they had to blitz and had a corner that is worse then Eli Applie. That let the Bengals pick on Bashaud Breeland over and over. The Bears front four was getting pressure with no additional help needed. Let them drop more into coverage. 

(09-21-2021, 12:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I don't believe this is true at all.  In fact I would argue that the best teams are the ones who make the best adjustments at the line of scrimmage.

What do you have to back up your claim?

I'm just basing this off watching games. KC vs Baltimore for example. Now I only watched a small portion of the game, mind you. But from what I saw, I wouldn't say that more than 10% of the plays were audibles, based on what I saw pre snap. 

There are certainly quarterbacks that audible more than others. But I just don't see Lamar calling many audibles. His coach just has a good game plan worked out for him. He does do some 'read' plays where he makes a call after the snap to pass, run, or hand off. But the play call is what it is pre-snap.

I don't have anything to back up my claim. But what is your take? Do you think more than 10% of the calls the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, or Saints make are audibled? All I said was they rarely audible. To me that means 10% of the time or less. Burrow has been consistent with this approximation of 10% audible in my eyes. 

My point is we 'should' have a good coach that makes his player's jobs easy. That's it. The most successful QBs in the league have had great coaches calling plays for them. It's not a coincidence. Sometimes you have a QB like Peyton Manning that doesn't need a good OC, but that's pretty rare. 

I do agree that Burrow played poorly most of the game. You certainly can blame Burrow for that. But his coaches and line aren't making it easy on him either. That's my point. There have been plenty of QBs with sky high potential that failed because of poor coaching. Burrow needs to improve, but I do question whether he has the right coach for the job. 

(09-21-2021, 09:35 PM)Bengalstripes9 Wrote: I don't have anything to back up my claim. But what is your take? Do you think more than 10% of the calls the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, or Saints make are audibled? All I said was they rarely audible. To me that means 10% of the time or less. Burrow has been consistent with this approximation of 10% audible in my eyes. 

My take is for years I have seen the best QBs in the league (Brady, Rodgers, Wilson, Manning, Luck, etc) moving players around and making adjustments at the line of scrimmage.

In fact I don't see how any coach can believe that he can call the best play before he even sees the defensive alignment.  One of the most important jobs the QB has is to make adjustments at the line based on what the defense shows.

(09-21-2021, 09:40 PM)fredtoast Wrote: My take is for years I have seen the best QBs in the league (Brady, Rodgers, Wilson, Manning, Luck, etc) moving players around and making adjustments at the line of scrimmage.

In fact I don't see how any coach can believe that he can call the best play before he even sees the defensive alignment.  One of the most important jobs the QB has is to make adjustments at the line based on what the defense shows.

True. You are talking about some top QBs with years of experience though. Burrow hasn't played a full year. I don't see many young successful QBs that are on that level with audibles yet. They just have great coaches that are making things easy on them. 

(09-21-2021, 01:27 AM)treee Wrote: If Zach keeps calling games like that, the defense is gonna keep sitting on routes, and Burrow will keep throwing INTs. That's just the reality of the it.

I will give Taylor's offense/playcalling shit all day long because he deserves it, but Burrow absolutely stared down his targets on the first two INTs. You stare at your target that blatantly from the snap and NFL caliber defenders will get picks. The third INT was just Mixon being a terrible blocker, but Burrow has to wear those first two. They were bad.

(09-21-2021, 09:35 PM)Bengalstripes9 Wrote: I'm just basing this off watching games. KC vs Baltimore for example. Now I only watched a small portion of the game, mind you. But from what I saw, I wouldn't say that more than 10% of the plays were audibles, based on what I saw pre snap. 

There are certainly quarterbacks that audible more than others. But I just don't see Lamar calling many audibles. His coach just has a good game plan worked out for him. He does do some 'read' plays where he makes a call after the snap to pass, run, or hand off. But the play call is what it is pre-snap.

I don't have anything to back up my claim. But what is your take? Do you think more than 10% of the calls the Chiefs, Ravens, Bills, or Saints make are audibled? All I said was they rarely audible. To me that means 10% of the time or less. Burrow has been consistent with this approximation of 10% audible in my eyes. 

My point is we 'should' have a good coach that makes his player's jobs easy. That's it. The most successful QBs in the league have had great coaches calling plays for them. It's not a coincidence. Sometimes you have a QB like Peyton Manning that doesn't need a good OC, but that's pretty rare. 

I do agree that Burrow played poorly most of the game. You certainly can blame Burrow for that. But his coaches and line aren't making it easy on him either. That's my point. There have been plenty of QBs with sky high potential that failed because of poor coaching. Burrow needs to improve, but I do question whether he has the right coach for the job. 

Not bashing Lamar, but maybe that says more about Lamar's ability to go to the line and read defenses, then change the play according to what the defense shows...... something Burrow seems very good at.

(09-22-2021, 08:52 AM)Sled21 Wrote: Not bashing Lamar, but maybe that says more about Lamar's ability to go to the line and read defenses, then change the play according to what the defense shows...... something Burrow seems very good at.

Not to mention that the Ravens run a lot of option plays, so may be no need to audible since the play itself can go one of a myriad different ways.

(09-22-2021, 11:31 AM)PhilHos Wrote: Not to mention that the Ravens run a lot of option plays, so may be no need to audible since the play itself can go one of a myriad different ways.

This is an excellent point. Usually I can look at an offense before the snap and predict what play they’ll run but Baltimore runs lots of different plays from the same “look.” That drives a defense nuts.

(09-20-2021, 10:11 AM)GreenCornBengal Wrote: Chase bailed him out on the deep throw IMO.

Chase bailed him out at times in college too.   This is not a diss on Burrow btw.