I know we all give the O Line crap endlessly and we should. They have shown "some" improvement this year, but the line's ratings for this past Niners game were Pass Blocking: Jonah 58.5 6 pressures; Spain 53.0 4 pressures; Hopkins 57.8 3 pressures; Adeniji 24.4 6 pressures; Reiff 51.7 1 pressure and Prince 23.9 4 pressures allowed. I mean damn, that's horrible.

Joey Franchise was the highest rated QB in the NFL Sunday with a 90.6 rating despite the Niners constantly being either in his face, planting him after he threw or sacking him. The dude is incredible and imagine how great he would be with just a smidge more protection and time and if Zac Taylor stopped calling plays for him and just let him turn it loose his way. I think Joe is the best in the league (Bengal bias), and I know he isn't made of glass, but I pray every Sunday that he doesn't get killed.

Question is, how do we fix or overhaul the line, this play calling, special teams? This team can win now, and I have to wonder if Joe wishes every day that the Bengals would've taken Herbert so that he could have gone elsewhere. I love my black and orange and have for 52 years and always will, but Mike Brown just won't let them love us back. Someone talk me off the ledge. Lol

Joe Burrow isn’t the only Joe suffering from bad blocking. Joe Mixon is having issues too.

Joe Mixon is currently second among NFL rushers. Given bad blocking this is miraculous but Joe accumulates 55 yards one week and 155 yards the next. That’s great for his personal statistics but it yields a wildly inconsistent rushing attack. With better blocking he would gain yards consistently which would help the Bengals score more often.

Joe Burrow above the median in touchdown passes thrown but he also leads the league in interceptions. This doesn’t surprise me at all because he has also been sacked the most, knocked down the most, and many of his passes get deflected because defensive linemen and linebackers are in his face. When Burrow has had time to go through his progressions, set his feet, and throw he’s been great. When he gets hurried or flushed out of the pocket his accuracy suffers which happens to everyone.

On run plays it’s time to resurrect the 2009 “jumbo package” with an extra tackle especially with Riley Reiff hurt. We’re going to need two tackles to take his place.

On pass plays it might be time to keep a tight end in the backfield to block and send one less receiver deep.

You fix the line like they fixed the defense. You throw money at it and sign veteran, established talent that can come in and be major upgrades without being developed for 3 years. This is probably the last year that they can get away with doing that before spending big on extensions. Cross that bridge when you get to it.

Protecting a franchise quarterback is a moral imperative. No more lottery tickets or secret squirrel depth chart superstars.

(12-14-2021, 11:24 PM)samhain Wrote: You fix the line like they fixed the defense. You throw money at it and sign veteran, established talent that can come in and be major upgrades without being developed for 3 years.

Winner!

It's amazing what Burrow is doing under constant pressure.

Crossing fingers he stays alive until help arrives.

Yet as much as we all know the O-line needs immediate attention. Someway, somehow there will be another more pressing need when the time comes like always.

Hopefully Im wrong and this is the year the Bengals get serious about a major upgrade

(12-14-2021, 11:24 PM)samhain Wrote: You fix the line like they fixed the defense.  You throw money at it and sign veteran, established talent that can come in and be major upgrades without being developed for 3 years.  This is probably the last year that they can get away with doing that before spending big on extensions.  Cross that bridge when you get to it.  

(12-14-2021, 11:26 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Winner!

Problem is taht you can not build an entire team out of expensive free agents.  You have to be able to draft and develop players if you want to have a winning program.  You also have to pay up for a few big dollar free agents to fill in the gaps.  The draft is a bigger crap shoot (even for the good teams) than any of the "experts" want to admit.  Every team is going to miss on some draft picks or lose key players to injury.  That is what free vagency is for.  But uou can't afford to just go out and sign top level free agents at every position.

According to Sportrac the Bengal have $7.5 million in cap space left over this year (2021 NFL Team Salary Cap Space Tracker | Spotrac ).  That is just barely above the league average of $6.2 million. That could have gotten one more established solid starter for our O-line.  The 18th highest paid OG makes $7.5 million this year (but I think that is yearly average).  Nothing close to the $15 million people wanted us to spend on singing the top free agent o-linemen available.  

We had Su'a-Filo (58 career starts) and Spain (74 career starts) under contract.  Thye felt those guys could hold down the fort for a year.

Even though I never expected Hopkins to be ready to start the season (his injury was in January) I can undretsand why they did not want to invest big money in a guy they might only need for one season.

Considering how cheap they got Spain I felt that they should have done more.  But it is not like they just ignored the line or projected rookies and/or guys who had never started before to start.  There was a big turnover.  Five guys who started a combined 32 games for us last year are no longer on the roster.  But they had experienced vets lined up for every spot.

It is clear fact we win more often when we don;t throw the ball in those 30 ranges, a big reason is sacks and then the Ints mixed it. We just need to play better 1st quarter, get into a more controlled game where we don;t have to drop back so much in the 2nd half, especially 4th quarter.. our oline is too unpredictable, most of our sacks are coming in 2nd half it seems to me because we are having to throw too much.....

I am still disappointed in the progress of this Oline though, we should be playing better and we continue to not be consistent across our Oline. Yes we need to look for some FAs but we need Pollack to show more improvement with what we have now.

We obviously need to improve our pass blocking, but Burrow could avoid a lot of the sacks he takes.

Russell Wilson and Ben Roethlisbereger are going to the Hall of fame with championship rings despite taking a lot of sacks because they held onto the ball too long. If Joe can cut down on the picks then I can live with him taking some extra sacks.

But even if he can avoid some of the pressure he is seeing way too much pressure.

The O-line has improved some from last year. Last year Joe got sacked at the same rate despite just dinking and dunking in a short passing game. This year he has had the time to hit a lot of deep passes. I give them credit for improvement but it is not enough.

(12-14-2021, 10:52 PM)Boomer Anderson Wrote: I know we all give the O Line crap endlessly and we should.  They have shown "some" improvement this year, but the line's ratings for this past Niners game were Pass Blocking:  Jonah 58.5 6 pressures; Spain 53.0 4 pressures; Hopkins 57.8 3 pressures; Adeniji 24.4 6 pressures; Reiff 51.7 1 pressure and Prince 23.9 4 pressures allowed.  I mean damn, that's horrible.  

Joey Franchise was the highest rated QB in the NFL Sunday with a 90.6 rating despite the Niners constantly being either in his face, planting him after he threw or sacking him.  The dude is incredible and imagine how great he would be with just a smidge more protection and time and if Zac Taylor stopped calling plays for him and just let him turn it loose his way.   I think Joe is the best in the league (Bengal bias), and I know he isn't made of glass, but I pray every Sunday that he doesn't get killed.

Question is, how do we fix or overhaul the line, this play calling, special teams?  This team can win now, and I have to wonder if Joe wishes every day that the Bengals would've taken Herbert so that he could have gone elsewhere.  I love my black and orange and have for 52 years and always will, but Mike Brown just won't let them love us back. Someone talk me off the ledge. Lol

The pass blocking was horrid but can't imagine the run blocking was much better Sunday. 

(12-14-2021, 11:55 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: It is clear fact we win more often when we don;t throw the ball in those 30 ranges, a big reason is sacks and then the Ints mixed it. We just need to play better 1st quarter, get into a more controlled game where we don;t have to drop back so much in the 2nd half, especially 4th quarter.. our oline is too unpredictable, most of our sacks are coming in 2nd half it seems to me because we are having to throw too much.....

I am still disappointed in the progress of this Oline though, we should be playing better and we continue to not be consistent across our Oline. Yes we need to look for some FAs but we need Pollack to show more improvement with what we have now.

The Bengals have only won two games where Burrow dropped back less than 30 times, both of the Pitt games.

Actually remember PFF seems to consider a 60 about average. Well most of the line was right in that zone. Except Adeniji and Prince - which is where all the sack problems emanated from. This was a game where Carman should have replaced Adeniji at RG because Carman is the better pass blocker of the two and when Reiff went out put Adeniji there WITH dedicated TE help as Bosa did almost all his damage against Prince. The bad part was ZT could see the issues but not only left them uncorrected but left Prince on an island with Bosa more than once.

(12-14-2021, 11:46 PM)Go Cards Wrote: It's amazing what Burrow is doing under constant pressure.

Crossing fingers he stays alive until help arrives.

Yet as much as we all know the O-line needs immediate attention. Someway, somehow there will be another more pressing need when the time comes like always.

Hopefully Im wrong and this is the year the Bengals get serious about a major upgrade

I wonder how good he would be with a good Oline? Maybe some of the pressure makes him better?

(12-14-2021, 10:52 PM)Boomer Anderson Wrote: I know we all give the O Line crap endlessly and we should.  They have shown "some" improvement this year, but the line's ratings for this past Niners game were Pass Blocking:  Jonah 58.5 6 pressures; Spain 53.0 4 pressures; Hopkins 57.8 3 pressures; Adeniji 24.4 6 pressures; Reiff 51.7 1 pressure and Prince 23.9 4 pressures allowed.  I mean damn, that's horrible.  

Joey Franchise was the highest rated QB in the NFL Sunday with a 90.6 rating despite the Niners constantly being either in his face, planting him after he threw or sacking him.  The dude is incredible and imagine how great he would be with just a smidge more protection and time and if Zac Taylor stopped calling plays for him and just let him turn it loose his way.   I think Joe is the best in the league (Bengal bias), and I know he isn't made of glass, but I pray every Sunday that he doesn't get killed.

Question is, how do we fix or overhaul the line, this play calling, special teams?  This team can win now, and I have to wonder if Joe wishes every day that the Bengals would've taken Herbert so that he could have gone elsewhere.  I love my black and orange and have for 52 years and always will, but Mike Brown just won't let them love us back. Someone talk me off the ledge. Lol

(12-14-2021, 11:15 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Joe Burrow isn’t the only Joe suffering from bad blocking.  Joe Mixon is having issues too.  

Joe Mixon is currently second among NFL rushers.  Given bad blocking this is miraculous but Joe accumulates 55 yards one week and 155 yards the next.  That’s great for his personal statistics but it yields a wildly inconsistent rushing attack.  With better blocking he would gain yards consistently which would help the Bengals score more often.

Joe Burrow above the median in touchdown passes thrown but he also leads the league in interceptions.  This doesn’t surprise me at all because he has also been sacked the most, knocked down the most, and many of his passes get deflected because defensive linemen and linebackers are in his face.  When Burrow has had time to go through his progressions, set his feet, and throw he’s been great.  When he gets hurried or flushed out of the pocket his accuracy suffers which happens to everyone.

On run plays it’s time to resurrect the 2009 “jumbo package” with an extra tackle especially with Riley Reiff hurt.  We’re going to need two tackles to take his place.

On pass plays it might be time to keep a tight end in the backfield to block and send one less receiver deep.

Well, just look at how many times the front office and Zac Taylor have gotten up and flatly stated that they have confidence in the OL. With Taylor it started right off the bat with the 3 year deals given to Bobby Hart and Miller while Cordy Glenn got more and more negative as the year went on and refused to play [Yeah, that was on Taylor's watch as well.] Then Michael Jordan was the next stud expected to become a dominant starting guard, but who flopped badly from the start.

I remember sometime during last season where someone was saying the Bengals already had their future starting RT on the roster with Adeniji, but my god, he doesn't look like a future starting RT. At least not one that I'd like to see starting.

 

If we really gave up 24 pressures, I don't see why/how anyone would defend that, but some will always be hesitant to call the line bad.

I mean, we only threw the ball 34 times and had 24 pressures? Yowza. Call it what it is. That's doo doo...and the pressures were evenly distributed, not all on 1-2 guys.

(12-15-2021, 01:13 AM)Tony Wrote: I wonder how good he would be with a good Oline? Maybe some of the pressure makes him better?

Maybe, yet still think Joe B will have a longer career in the NFL with less pressure in his face and may even become great in the process. 

(12-15-2021, 01:13 AM)Tony Wrote: I wonder how good he would be with a good Oline? Maybe some of the pressure makes him better?

oops

(12-15-2021, 01:15 AM)BengalChris Wrote: I remember sometime during last season where someone was saying the Bengals already had their future starting RT on the roster with Adeniji, but my god, he doesn't look like a future starting RT. At least not one that I'd like to see starting.

 

I believe that was Dave Lapham who said that originally.

Been trying to say for quite a few weeks now that some of the pass blocking improvement was a mirage based around them throwing the ball less, and that Burrow was actually getting sacked at a higher rate than last year.

He's on paced to be sacked 54 times this year (50-51 if it was a 16 game season) despite throwing the ball 8.5 less times per game than last season.

Burrow doesn't help his own sack total at all, but the OL still just isn't good.

(12-15-2021, 12:00 AM)fredtoast Wrote: We obviously need to improve our pass blocking, but Burrow could avoid a lot of the sacks he takes.

Russell Wilson and Ben Roethlisbereger are going to the Hall of fame with championship rings despite taking a lot of sacks because they held onto the ball too long.  If Joe can cut down on the picks then I can live with him taking some extra sacks.

But even if he can avoid some of the pressure he is seeing way too much pressure.

The O-line has improved some from last year.  Last year Joe got sacked at the same rate despite just dinking and dunking in a short passing game.  This year he has had the time to hit a lot of deep passes.  I give them credit for improvement but it is not enough.

I, for one, will be ginning up every Karen I know of personally and every "Me Too" Karen I can find on the internet to do my best to keep that from happening when the time comes. If they can keep Pete out of the HOF for gambling, they ought to be able to keep the pig out for multiple rapes.

We will have to be comfortable with Joe being somewhere at tge top of tge league every year in sacks with his current play style. I’m not happy about that but cutting down the picks might be a bit more important right now