(02-14-2022, 03:42 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: If the o-line could've been even semi-competent, the Bengals are SB champions right now. The amount of pressure they allowed in the 2nd half was insane, ending up at 42.5% for the game.

It's obvious the Rams defense adjusted at halftime. They started to stunt a lot, taking guys into areas that the Bengals were not prepared for.

(02-14-2022, 03:27 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: It's tough. There was a lot of holding both ways. The Higgins facemask for a 75 yard score. It's hard to say.

I actually prefer when the refs let them play.

I do too, but don't change up that strategy in the RedZone with under two minutes to play. You go from not being a factor in the game to being the focal point. Let em play all four quarters, not just 58 minutes.

(02-14-2022, 03:31 PM)Big Boss Wrote: Let's try this.

Take away the Higgins touchdown because of the uncalled facemask.
Take away the Kupp touchdown because of the ticky-tack penalties.

16-13. Rams still win.

You also need to add 4 to the Bengals for the blatant PI in the end zone on the Bengals first FG drive that was missed (Ramsey had handfuls of Tee’s Jersey). Rams lose 17-16.

(02-14-2022, 03:35 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Gotta say, Pollack hasn't done a good job drafting OL.
Price was a bust. 
Rod Taylor amounted to nothing.
Carman they didn't trust enough to put out there over a 5th round draft pick in his 2nd year.
Smith saw basically no playing time and is still under 300 lbs.

Hard to have confidence in his ability to scout.

The problem with drafting OL here goes back way before Pollack. Duke hasn’t really hit on one since Zeitler. Pollack did have Mekhi Becton looking good last year in NY.

(02-14-2022, 03:22 PM)BengalFanInNJ Wrote: My feeling is this; if the Bengals offensive line blocked better, any of these so-called egregious calls would not have mattered.

Let's not overlook the fact that the #1 culprit in this loss is the Offensive line.

(02-14-2022, 03:42 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: If the o-line could've been even semi-competent, the Bengals are SB champions right now. The amount of pressure they allowed in the 2nd half was insane, ending up at 42.5% for the game.

All true. Let’s fix the line because Joe Burrow is getting tossed around like a crash test dummy.

(02-14-2022, 03:47 PM)ochocincos Wrote: It's obvious the Rams defense adjusted at halftime. They started to stunt a lot, taking guys into areas that the Bengals were not prepared for.

Yep, and that started taking Hopkins away from helping Adeniji, who then got exposed badly and was getting blown up.

(02-14-2022, 03:42 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: If the o-line could've been even semi-competent, the Bengals are SB champions right now. The amount of pressure they allowed in the 2nd half was insane, ending up at 42.5% for the game.

Saw a stat that Donald had more pressures (think 8 or 9) than the entire Bengals defense. It was such a bad matchup for a team weak on the IOL.

The idea that the blown call on Higgins was not big is missing how bad our offense was in 2nd half.. we never moved the ball, got 3 points total after 12 secs into 2nd half.. Also the bad call on Wilson was on 3rd down, and they were inside the 10 so still had a decent chance of scoring.

In the end, we could not overcome the slow starts that we have been having on offense, our Oline was fine 1st half but once Rams defense got going we had no real answer for them even as our defense continued to keep us in the game

(02-14-2022, 03:51 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: The problem with drafting OL here goes back way before Pollack. Duke hasn’t really hit on one since Zeitler.  Pollack did have Mekhi Becton looking good last year in NY.

Maybe Pollack doesn't have as much involvement in scouting OL then than I assumed.
If it's really Tobin or some other member(s) in the scouting department, I agree they need to find someone better equipped to identify that talent.
But regardless, it's up to Pollack to coach up the individual(s) once brought in.

(02-14-2022, 02:28 PM)Tony Wrote: I was blaming the Oline and Apple and I still do, but all you gotta do is turn the TV on and they are saying The Benglas got ****** on that Logan interference, rams false starting and Ramsey holding all game..  it don't make the loss easier to swallow....

That was a BS call on Logan no question. He played great all game and yes Ramsey got away with holding and PI's a lot 
in this game. Still, in the end you have to stop Kupp on that fade route. Have a Safety or Hilton over the top spying him and
looking for the INT or at least knock the ball away. Everyone knew where the ball was going, it was going to the mismatch 
of Apple on Kupp on a fade, saw it before the play happened.

In the end you have to prevent the best players from beating you, Kupp and Donald and we didn't do that. Too bad, we 
had them right where we wanted them, we just need to score when we are in the redzone. This SB just reiterated what we
all knew, we need to add quality proven veterans to the OL.

We are young and talented and we will be back. We will be better next year. This was the best Rams roster they will ever
have, they had to win it now.

(02-14-2022, 04:38 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Maybe Pollack doesn't have as much involvement in scouting OL then than I assumed.
If it's really Tobin or some other member(s) in the scouting department, I agree they need to find someone better equipped to identify that talent.
But regardless, it's up to Pollack to coach up the individual(s) once brought in.

And I think he did a pretty good job at that considering what he was working with. We got to the Super Bowl with backups at RG and RT. We could be sitting here talking about no playoff wins for 32 years because Maxx Crosby and Yannick Ngakoue completely wrecked the WC game.

(02-14-2022, 05:12 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: And I think he did a pretty good job at that considering what he was working with. We got to the Super Bowl with backups at RG and RT. We could be sitting here talking about no playoff wins for 33 years because Maxx Crosby and Yannick Ngakoue completely wrecked the WC game.

Reiff was ok while he was healthy.
The only true disaster was RG.
Adeniji is terrible, and the Bengals still thought he was the best option out of the group.

The officiated in the NFL has been poor all year. Give Rams the Tee Higgins face mask and the Bengals a no call on Wilson, I think score would be similar. IDK.

A couple of things.

1.) The Ramsey- Higgins face mask is way overblown everyone knows that 50-50 balls are usually going to end up with who is the better hand fighter. Higgins just won that round.

2.) The Defensive Holding call is pure BS and everyone watching knows it.

3.) At the end of the day you have to factor in human error into the equation. Bad calls will be made At the end of the Day you can't give up 7 Sacks, Go 1-3 on 4th down, and go 1-3 in the red zone.

(02-14-2022, 03:32 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Mike Pereia, former VP of Officiating, came out and said Wilson shouldn't have been flagged.

I'm just baffled  by the call. For the Higgens' one, perhaps the official never saw it. One can't call what one didn't see. The ref may have been in the wrong place to make the call. 

But to call one that DIDN'T happen, how does an official make that call? Again, you can't call something that you don't see.

Maybe the officials didn't see the false start. So you don't call it. But then you don't throw a flag on something you also DON'T see.

Honestly, with the NFL so linked with gambling, and will billions of dollars riding on games, there needs to be full-time refs and careful scrutiny of the refs. Tim Donaghy of the NBA comes to mind, since he admitted cheating (and went to jail) as a ref because of gambling. But that was before the vast sums of money being bet and made in gambling. Just one ref is all it takes.

(02-14-2022, 05:26 PM)Nepa Wrote: I'm just baffled  by the call. For the Higgens' one, perhaps the official never saw it. One can't call what one didn't see. The ref may have been in the wrong place to make the call. 

But to call one that DIDN'T happen, how does an official make that call? Again, you can't call something that you don't see.

Maybe the officials didn't see the false start. So you don't call it. But then you don't throw a flag on something you also DON'T see.

Honestly, with the NFL so linked with gambling, and will billions of dollars riding on games, there needs to be full-time refs and careful scrutiny of the refs. Tim Donaghy of the NBA comes to mind, since he admitted cheating (and went to jail) as a ref because of gambling. But that was before the vast sums of money being bet and made in gambling. Just one ref is all it takes.

A little bias here lol. Wilson had BOTH hands on Kupp and his arms were extended. He didn’t hold but his arms and body were in the position to where it made it look like a hold. It wasn’t pulled out of nowhere.

(02-14-2022, 05:39 PM)PocketAces32 Wrote: A little bias here lol. Wilson had BOTH hands on Kupp and his arms were extended. He didn’t hold but his arms and body were in the position to where it made it look like a hold. It wasn’t pulled out of nowhere.

So, what you are saying is that it wasn't a hold, but the official could have imagined a hold.  So, in the last two minutes of a tight game, the official decided that, although he couldn't actually see a hold, it was a good idea to call one.  Yeah, that's very comforting.  

I mean, have you see any reputable person who said it was a hold?  The former VP of officials, quite a dependable source, said it wasn't a hold. Others have watched the play and shown video of the play demonstrating it wasn't a hold. So, the official could not have seen a hold if there was none. Are officials just supposed to call a hold even if they don't see one?

Missed actual holds make sense. Calling phantom holds do not make sense.

Bengals players on the calls within 2 minutes (from bengals.com):

"Wilson thought it was clean.

"Cooper came up to me and tried to push off of me and I thought I made a good play on the ball and the refs saw otherwise so, it's a tough call," said Wilson...

It was a tough sequence for past playoff heroes. On the next snap from the 4, the Bengals couldn't take advantage of a Rams holding call when strong safety Vonn Bell was called for what looked to be a nebulous roughing penalty against Kupp."

(02-14-2022, 05:49 PM)Nepa Wrote: So, what you are saying is that it wasn't a hold, but the official could have imagined a hold.  So, in the last two minutes of a tight game, the official decided that, although he couldn't actually see a hold, it was a good idea to call one.  Yeah, that's very comforting.  

I mean, have you see any reputable person who said it was a hold?  The former VP of officials, quite a dependable source, said it wasn't a hold. Others have watched the play and shown video of the play demonstrating it wasn't a hold. So, the official could not have seen a hold if there was none. Are officials just supposed to call a hold even if they don't see one?

Missed actual holds make sense. Calling phantom holds do not make sense.

I’m saying in real time…it was very close. They didn’t pull the call out of their a$$. Im more upset about the fact Taylor didn’t keep running Mixon. Im not going to blame the refs. They weren’t trying to put the game in one teams hands or the other.

(02-14-2022, 06:28 PM)PocketAces32 Wrote: I’m saying in real time…it was very close. They didn’t pull the call out of their a$$. Im more upset about the fact Taylor didn’t keep running Mixon. Im not going to blame the refs. They weren’t trying to put the game in one teams hands or the other.

Okay. I don't disagree with that at all.