(02-15-2022, 05:09 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The double teaming with Hopkins worked. At the end of the 2nd half, the Rams overloaded a side and put a guy over center so Hopkins couldn't double.

We had no counter for that.

Sadly you expect Hakeem Adeniji to block a quality defensive lineman in the NFL one on one.

(02-15-2022, 06:47 PM)Webbtown Wrote: Sadly you expect Hakeem Adeniji to block a quality defensive lineman in the NFL one on one.

I think te/wr screens and running the ball more were the answer.

We did a delayed draw to Mixon once and it worked great.

The Bengals offense is like Madden where they try to pass every down and go for it in bad spots on the field on 4th down. We basically spotted the Rams the 1st 7 points of the game doing this.

Fans are the same everywhere. I go to the Chiefs forum and everyone is second guessing Reid.
I don't know how people never get tired of second guessing everything.
For all I know the Bengals did not run screens because they may have saw something in the Rams defense that prevented it.
The Rams were getting home fast with 4 down lineman. The linebackers were probably sitting on screens.
I am overjoyed that we came that close to winning a Super Bowl in a rebuild year. I am also overjoyed that they did not listen to me last year when all I wanted was to spend everything on the offensive line. I was pretty pumped up the way our defense was playing in the Super Bowl. It is not like they ignored the line. They hired Pollack and hoped that signing Reiff and having Spain with Jonah getting another year would help turn things around especially with a second round draft pick in Jackson Carmen. It did not pay off. They could have changed the offense to protect Burrow more but he probably did not want that. That being said I am still holding out hope our draft picks will turn the corner and they are not bust. For once I don't doubt our front office ability to fix the problems this team has. ZT, Lou, Pollack and Tobin have earned my respect with their decision making. I just want to sit back and wait for the free agency bell to ring to see what is in store for next year.

(02-15-2022, 05:17 PM)2MinutesHate Wrote: Kinda makes you wonder if we are good because of Zac Taylor or just in spite of him?  He did call a strange game at the Super Bowl.  I did like Mixon's TD toss though.

I'd be nice if he'd just let Brian call the plays for 1 game, just to see how we do.

Callahan may be taking over more (or all) of the playcalling. I'm not sure. I thought it was still Taylor though.

(02-15-2022, 07:13 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Callahan may be taking over more (or all) of the playcalling. I'm not sure. I thought it was still Taylor though.

Pretty sure it's Taylor too.

WE did exactly one draw and one screen all game - both worked.

I don't get it and this silliness predates Taylor - why don't the Bengals practice and use the plays everyone else does to get aggressive DLs to pause a little? We haven't used screens properly since 2005 (?) . And this against the worst screen defense in football no less - screens should have been on tap all day to force the Rams to spread out and cover the ends of the field.

(02-15-2022, 06:47 PM)Webbtown Wrote: Sadly you expect Hakeem Adeniji to block a quality defensive lineman in the NFL one on one.

No, but you can run away from that and take your chances with Vonn Miller.  He is not nearly as good against the run.

I don't want to bash ZT as I think he's still learning.  Unfortunately the lack of adjusting to what the Rams adjusted to probably cost the Bengals their first Super Bowl.  With those empty sets they were really operating at a disadvantage.  Not to mention putting the franchise at a huge risk.  To be honest, they probably thought that Joe Cool would bail them out again.  Didn't happen.

Hopefully valuable lessons were learned.

And btw, can't pin that all on Zac.  There are a lot of coaches up in the booth, including the Offensive Coordinator, who are responsible to make and suggest adjustments to counter what's happening on the field.

It's just heartbreaking.  I'm sure McVay felt the same a few years ago - second guessing

(02-15-2022, 07:20 PM)Daddy-O Wrote: No, but you can run away from that and take your chances with Vonn Miller.  He is not nearly as good against the run.

I don't want to bash ZT as I think he's still learning.  Unfortunately the lack of adjusting to what the Rams adjusted to probably cost the Bengals their first Super Bowl.  With those empty sets they were really operating at a disadvantage.  Not to mention putting the franchise at a huge risk.  To be honest, they probably thought that Joe Cool would bail them out again.  Didn't happen.

Hopefully valuable lessons were learned.

And btw, can't pin that all on Zac.  There are a lot of coaches up in the booth, including the Offensive Coordinator, who are responsible to make and suggest adjustments to counter what's happening on the field.

It's just heartbreaking.  I'm sure McVay felt the same a few years ago - second guessing

In some ways this team is a victim of its own success. Generally you have a complete roster to get to a sb. We dont.

(02-15-2022, 05:14 PM)Oasis5055 Wrote:  It’s like they just expected burrows ability to keep bailing them out

That’s what concerns me about this coaching staff and how Burrow is wired like a coach even by QB standards. I feel like he’s the smartest guy in the room and masks a lot of the inadequacies. Needs a real coaching staff. Unfortunately ZT has to stay.

Gotta think McVay may be on the hot seat soon, only beating our scrub coaches by 3 with an all world paid for team. 

(02-15-2022, 07:20 PM)Daddy-O Wrote: No, but you can run away from that and take your chances with Vonn Miller.  He is not nearly as good against the run.

I don't want to bash ZT as I think he's still learning.  Unfortunately the lack of adjusting to what the Rams adjusted to probably cost the Bengals their first Super Bowl.  With those empty sets they were really operating at a disadvantage.  Not to mention putting the franchise at a huge risk.  To be honest, they probably thought that Joe Cool would bail them out again.  Didn't happen.

Hopefully valuable lessons were learned.

And btw, can't pin that all on Zac.  There are a lot of coaches up in the booth, including the Offensive Coordinator, who are responsible to make and suggest adjustments to counter what's happening on the field.

It's just heartbreaking.  I'm sure McVay felt the same a few years ago - second guessing

....and McVay did mention that during a pregame interview. He said he learned a lot from that loss. 

It's hard to know who's calling what, but it's been my issue with their playcalling the past few years and the real issue I've had with Zac. Not really designing around who they've got on the field, but sticking with their plan and then just waiting till the right pieces are dropped onto the roster to make it zing. I think the level of talent on the offense this year was able to compensate for it on several occasions. And the defense stepped up in a huge way as well. Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to get them past the Rams. For all the credit we give Lou about halftime adjustments, I see less adjustments on the other side of the ball. Fixing the O-line this offseason is a huge step obviously, but there still needs to be some flexibility at the end of the day because there are injuries and you can't just roll over and die because of it. Zac calls a lot of play types based on analytics, but the actual plays themselves sometimes have you scratching your head.

On the last drive when Rams kept shifting the 3 linemen we had to counter with 6 linemen. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea I know the linemen stink regardless of numbers but another body would have allowed another double team to clog the middle. I’m no pro. Just thinking

(02-15-2022, 08:00 PM)Boomer Anderson Wrote: On the last drive when Rams kept shifting the 3 linemen we had to counter with 6 linemen. It was like Moses parting the Red Sea I know the linemen stink regardless of numbers but another body would have allowed another double team to clog the middle. I’m no pro. Just thinking

I agree. It’s so simple it’s bizarre and just stupid. Keep a rb in or sample solely to help block Donald. His defender would be close enough to the line to iin no way negate uzomah on chase (on the final play) getting open

What’s the worst that can happen. Donald bowls over sample as well? I can tell you for sure burrow would have gotten more than an extra second to make the throw to someone

Fortunately this was the last time the Bengals’ offensive staff will have to game plan behind Pushover, Waddle, Flinch, False Start, and Turnstile.

Those guys’ highlight films are now on the History Channel.

(02-15-2022, 07:19 PM)Joelist Wrote: WE did exactly one draw and one screen all game - both worked.

I don't get it and this silliness predates Taylor - why don't the Bengals practice and use the plays everyone else does to get aggressive DLs to pause a little? We haven't used screens properly since 2005 (?) . And this against the worst screen defense in football no less - screens should have been on tap all day to force the Rams to spread out and cover the ends of the field.

I agree. Mystifying.

(02-15-2022, 08:05 PM)Oasis5055 Wrote: I agree. It’s so simple it’s bizarre and just stupid. Keep a rb in or sample solely to help block Donald. His defender would be close enough to the line to iin no way negate uzomah on chase (on the final play) getting open

What’s the worst that can happen. Donald bowls over sample as well? I can tell you for sure burrow would have gotten more than an extra second to make the throw to someone

Makes me question Zac going forward. I'm a simple math teacher who just knows football by watching it on TV sets and even I could wrap my head around that. Two weeks to prepare for a test and the Bengals HC failed the test.

(02-15-2022, 09:29 PM)Science Friction Wrote: Makes me question Zac going forward. I'm a simple math teacher who just knows football by watching it on TV sets and even I could wrap my head around that. Two weeks to prepare for a test and the Bengals HC failed the test.

He was what...6-25-1 coming into this season?

It's a minor miracle this team achieved so much. I think Burrow and Chase deserve a lot of credit as well as some other key players too.

We are poor on 3rd and short. Have been all year. Not real good in the red zone. Have settled for field goals. Need to improve at both to win.

Still not excited by Zac play calling but it lt kind of worked this year.

It was an exciting year. I was a 8 or 9 win so, far exceeded my expectations. Line sucked nothing new there

Who dey

(02-15-2022, 06:51 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: I think te/wr screens and running the ball more were the answer.

We did a delayed draw to Mixon once and it worked great.

The Bengals offense is like Madden where they try to pass every down and go for it in bad spots on the field on 4th down. We basically spotted the Rams the 1st 7 points of the game doing this.

It honestly seemed like the Rams conceded the run at times, but could lock it down at will.  Case in point, look at our second to last drive.  We had a few good runs early in the drive, then the Rams just shut it down and it was nothing but 1-2 yard runs.  And how many times did they stuff us in short yardage situations?

We can gripe about play calling in general during the game, but put things in perspective.  As you mentioned earlier, the Bengals had an 18% pass block win rate.  The lowest PBWR for a team over the course of the season was 47%.  You can't gameplan your way around that.  That's akin to your QB only completing 25% of his passes.  

It's very strange that last week we had a big long thread about Zac getting robbed for CotY and now he's a bum because he can't gameplan around a historically bad OL performance.