Samples arrow was pointed up too and he hit a wall this season. Are we giving up on him too? Sample had significant playoff snaps and play for back to back years were as ossai was injured his rookie year, and had only flashed in last years playoffs.

I don’t think Murphy was drafted to replace Ossai (they had higher goals for who he’d hopefully replace).

I’m not ready to give up on Sample or Ossai. Maybe they played bigger roles in those exotic sub packages we didn’t see much of with the young secondary. With a more experienced secondary, maybe we’ll see a return of Mad Scientist Lou and Ossai and Sample will benefit. Murphy run defense is probably what made him the more trustworthy backup.

Ossai had dominant games in college. Injuries have stunted his growth.

(01-02-2024, 10:45 PM)jj22 Wrote: Samples arrow was pointed up too and he hit a wall this season. Are we giving up on him too? Sample had significant playoff snaps and play for back to back years were as ossai was injured his rookie year, and had only flashed in  last years playoffs.

I don’t think  Murphy was drafted to replace Ossai (they had higher goals for who he’d hopefully replace).

I’m not ready to give up on Sample or Ossai. Maybe they played bigger roles in those exotic sub packages we didn’t see much of with the young secondary. With a more experienced secondary, maybe we’ll see a return of Mad Scientist Lou and Ossai and Sample will benefit. Murphy run defense is probably what made him the more trustworthy backup.

Ossai had dominant games in college. Injuries have stunted his growth.

I have wondered in the past if the coaches hold grudges. In particular Lou and if maybe he was still holding the AFCCG over Ossai a bit and maybe that's some of the reason for his limited snaps. Not sure what Sample would have done to find himself down as I felt he played well last year as well. I also saw where Hubbard already knows he needs off-season surgery and thought it was odd we are still playing him so much as well as noticing his play level has seemed to dip recently which must be do to said injury. 

Maybe next year if the offense can finally start to click early we can find ourselves in positive game scripts and get other players involved. But whatever the case is we need a better rotation and probably need two new DTs or one if we can retain Reader.

(01-02-2024, 10:57 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: I have wondered in the past if the coaches hold grudges. In particular Lou and if maybe he was still holding the AFCCG over Ossai a bit and maybe that's some of the reason for his limited snaps. Not sure what Sample would have done to find himself down as I felt he played well last year as well. I also saw where Hubbard already knows he needs off-season surgery and thought it was odd we are still playing him so much as well as noticing his play level has seemed to dip recently which must be do to said injury. 

Maybe next year if the offense can finally start to click early we can find ourselves in positive game scripts and get other players involved. But whatever the case is we need a better rotation and probably need two new DTs or one if we can retain Reader.

Coaches definitely can exert their ire at certain players, but let's be realistic.  Ossai's flag in the AFCCG would not be it.  It would most likely be more about attitude and insubordination issues that we do not know about. 

I doubt Sample has done anything wrong and if I were forced to bet, I'd say Ossai has done nothing wrong.  Sample is in a 4 man rotation as to receiving, Ossai simply has not produced in his limited snaps.  IMHO.

(01-03-2024, 02:21 AM)casear2727 Wrote: Coaches definitely can exert their ire at certain players, but let's be realistic.  Ossai's flag in the AFCCG would not be it.  It would most likely be more about attitude and insubordination issues that we do not know about. 

I doubt Sample has done anything wrong and if I were forced to bet, I'd say Ossai has done nothing wrong.  Sample is in a 4 man rotation as to receiving, Ossai simply has not produced in his limited snaps.  IMHO.

Sample just never seems to have the elite talent to be on the field. He's not earned the reps and been beat out year-after-year by better players.

(01-02-2024, 10:57 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: I have wondered in the past if the coaches hold grudges. In particular Lou and if maybe he was still holding the AFCCG over Ossai a bit and maybe that's some of the reason for his limited snaps. Not sure what Sample would have done to find himself down as I felt he played well last year as well. I also saw where Hubbard already knows he needs off-season surgery and thought it was odd we are still playing him so much as well as noticing his play level has seemed to dip recently which must be do to said injury. 

Maybe next year if the offense can finally start to click early we can find ourselves in positive game scripts and get other players involved. But whatever the case is we need a better rotation and probably need two new DTs or one if we can retain Reader.

Sample has played 34% of the defensive snaps this year, which is in line with the 40% he played last year and 33% as a rookie.  He has seen a big uptick in ST's snaps this year, playing 33% as opposed to 17% and 3% his first two years.  I don't think he's out of favor.  I think they just see him as a rotational guy.  

(01-02-2024, 02:54 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Too much Irwin, not enough Yoshi.

Yoshi has sadly been pretty bad this year.  He's only averaging an anemic 4.4 yards/target with a 55.6% catch rate and a brutal per game average of only 5.3 yards despite playing nearly a quarter of the offensive snaps.  In a gotta have it game, it's no wonder Irwin was a bigger part of the offense (not that he is that great, either).  WR depth continues to be a huge issue.

(01-03-2024, 11:01 AM)Whatever Wrote: Yoshi has sadly been pretty bad this year.  He's only averaging an anemic 4.4 yards/target with a 55.6% catch rate and a brutal per game average of only 5.3 yards despite playing nearly a quarter of the offensive snaps.  In a gotta have it game, it's no wonder Irwin was a bigger part of the offense (not that he is that great, either).  WR depth continues to be a huge issue.

Yoshi actually hasn't been bad. That target % is basically from Stealer game 2 and those passes he got charged with were mostly uncatchable. Before the injury Burrow was starting to use him more as a redzone target and he had 2 TD. 

(01-03-2024, 11:27 AM)Joelist Wrote: Yoshi actually hasn't been bad. That target % is basically from Stealer game 2 and those passes he got charged with were mostly uncatchable. Before the injury Burrow was starting to use him more as a redzone target and he had 2 TD. 

Neither TD was him running a route and winning against coverage it was Joe Burrow being creative and Yoshi eventually working himself free. While its smart work by Yoshi it doesn't tell us much about his development as a receiver. 

(01-02-2024, 10:55 AM)Synric Wrote: Drew Sample is still closer to a 40% snap count kinda guy because he would be directly tied to the percentage of 12 personnel formations.



The Chase Brown stuff is interesting. I thought the Vikings game was the best RB snap split of the year with Brown getting reps early and Mixon closing out the game. 

His blocking is really good.

He's barely a pass catching threat, so yeah I agree with your assessment. Ideally we'd have a complete TE.

The Bengals offense is setup to get the ball to the WR's, which is an issue when WR2 is hurt so much. And Boyd hasn't really been a factor this year most of the time.

(01-03-2024, 11:27 AM)Joelist Wrote: Yoshi actually hasn't been bad. That target % is basically from Stealer game 2 and those passes he got charged with were mostly uncatchable. Before the injury Burrow was starting to use him more as a redzone target and he had 2 TD. 

Every receiver in the league sees uncatchable balls.  He actually only has 2 games where he had better yards/target than the Steelers game.  He's played nearly a quarter of the offensive snaps and still only has 80 yards.  He had a couple of TD's in the scramble drill early in the year and that's caused some to vastly overrate him.  

(01-02-2024, 03:34 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Having Sample out there 72% of the time feels a bit like playing 10-on-11 or at least 10.5-on-11.

Makes sense to me to have your best blocking TE out there when the line is average.

(01-03-2024, 11:32 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: His blocking is really good.

He's barely a pass catching threat, so yeah I agree with your assessment. Ideally we'd have a complete TE.

The Bengals offense is setup to get the ball to the WR's, which is an issue when WR2 is hurt so much. And Boyd hasn't really been a factor this year most of the time.

Hurst and Uzomah were actually middle of the pack in targets for TE's when they were here.  The offense is built to utilize the TE, but all of our TE's suck.  That's further complicated the injuries and lack of depth at WR.  

(01-03-2024, 12:15 PM)Whatever Wrote: Every receiver in the league sees uncatchable balls.  He actually only has 2 games where he had better yards/target than the Steelers game.  He's played nearly a quarter of the offensive snaps and still only has 80 yards.  He had a couple of TD's in the scramble drill early in the year and that's caused some to vastly overrate him.  

I don’t know if it’s necessarily a case of people overrating him, more just that we already know exactly what we have in Irwin. We only have one game left and we still have massive question marks on both Yoshi and Charlie Jones.

(01-03-2024, 12:28 PM)Whatever Wrote: Hurst and Uzomah were actually middle of the pack in targets for TE's when they were here.  The offense is built to utilize the TE, but all of our TE's suck.  That's further complicated the injuries and lack of depth at WR.  

Take Hudson playing time out to start all season, he performed well and has shown something Hurst did not do much of, catching ball in middle of field and yac yards. Hurst was a Mixon as a WR, reliable tough but lack the yac