(10-04-2016, 04:34 PM)Bengal Dude Wrote: I think the biggest snafu this offseason was our lack of urgency with the WR spot. While LaFell is an okay player, he doesn't strike fear into a defense, but we couldn't sacrifice any potential 2017 comp picks. I like Boyd, but he was basically our last chance at getting a WR in the draft. I don't know where they ranked Treadwell, but we had Thomas and Shepherd above Boyd in the pre-draft rankings.

I have nothing against Boyd, but I see him more as a Sanu replacement and we'll continue to look for a Marvin Jones replacement next season. (Although I look forward to some people screaming how Core is our answer there)

LaFell is on pace to catch 52 passes for 832 yards (16.0 avg).

Last year Jones caught 65 passes for 816 yards (12.6 avg)

So random thought here, but don't you think at 2-2 this early in the season it may be a bit early to say anyone did or didn't do a poor job? If we look bad in the season but win a post season game versus looking great during the season last year and losing isn't it still a better season? I am kind of confused how anyone can draw any conclusions right now. Our 2 losses are to teams that are a combined 7-1.

(10-04-2016, 04:40 PM)fredtoast Wrote: LaFell is on pace to catch 52 passes for 832 yards (16.0 avg).

Last year Jones caught 65 passes for 816 yards (12.6 avg)

Cool, projections mean absolute dick right now.

(10-04-2016, 04:46 PM)Bengal Dude Wrote: Cool, projections mean absolute dick right now.

Isn't this whole thread based around the projection that the current team won't be better than last years?

(10-04-2016, 04:46 PM)Bengal Dude Wrote: Cool, projections mean absolute dick right now.

Okay then.

In the first four games last year Jones had 10 catches for 165 yards.

Through his first four games this year Lafell has 13 catches for 208 yards.

LaFell has more than replaced Jones's production.

I loved Reggie Nelson. I just wish they had kept him around for 3 more seasons

I think we upgraded the wide outs, we just don't use what we have. Boyd is good, core needs to see the field, Erickson is even a good wide out. I did have a problem letting Vance Joseph go and Reggie Nelson. We are basically playing with two strong safeties. Reggie is good against the pass. We'd already would have more picks, and maybe another win with him. Leon hall we upgraded with Shaw. Hall would still be getting burnt here. I'm glad they parted ways. We just need to fix the o line and get eifert.

(10-04-2016, 05:08 PM)bengalsturntup926 Wrote: I think we upgraded the wide outs, we just don't use what we have. Boyd is good, core needs to see the field, Erickson is even a good wide out. I did have a problem letting Vance Joseph go and Reggie Nelson. We are basically playing with two strong safeties. Reggie is good against the pass. We'd already would have more picks, and maybe another win with him. Leon hall we upgraded with Shaw. Hall would still be getting burnt here. I'm glad they parted ways. We just need to fix the o line and get eifert.

You don't get a say in letting coach's go most the time. I mean at some point guys want to move up and if you don't have the spot you have to let them go.

Reggie Nelson - tough one, but he's 33 so we had to go youth at some point.
Marvin Jones - Lafell is on pace for 800+ yards and looks fine to me.
Mo Sanu - Boyd is on pace to top Sanu's numbers and looks like an upgrade tbh
Andre Smith - I guess we took a gamble and so far it's not paying off. Wish we had him back.
Leon Hall - he's a shell of himself
Emmanuel Lamur - are we really touting Lamur as a big loss?
Wallace Gilberry - old and hasn't produced in like 3 years. Hunt and Clarke are doing ok.
Hue Jackson - probably the bigget loss. There was no way to keep him as OC though.

Vance Joseph - Maybe a big loss, but I think some are really jumping the gun judging the secondary. They've been outstanding in 3 of 4 games so far.

Reggie, Hue and Andre are the only people on that list that really mattered honestly. Our biggest problem has lied with the o-line. Outside of that, I think it's been overreaction city.

We held Miami to 7 points with Burfict and locked down Tannehill completely outside of one pass. Did a fine job against Marshall/Decker, and also did a number on Pig Ben. The secondary had one bad game (Denver) and it was really just Pacman getting pimp smacked by Emmanuel Sanders.

It's getting overplayed to say this...but R-E-L-A-X. For now anyways.

(10-04-2016, 05:28 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Reggie Nelson - tough one, but he's 33 so we had to go youth at some point.
Marvin Jones - Lafell is on pace for 800+ yards and looks fine to me.
Mo Sanu - Boyd is on pace to top Sanu's numbers and looks like an upgrade tbh
Andre Smith - I guess we took a gamble and so far it's not paying off. Wish we had him back.
Leon Hall - he's a shell of himself
Emmanuel Lamur - are we really touting Lamur as a big loss?
Wallace Gilberry - old and hasn't produced in like 3 years. Hunt and Clarke are doing ok.
Hue Jackson - probably the bigget loss. There was no way to keep him as OC though.

Vance Joseph - Maybe a big loss, but I think some are really jumping the gun judging the secondary. They've been outstanding in 3 of 4 games so far.

Reggie, Hue and Andre are the only people on that list that really mattered honestly. Our biggest problem has lied with the o-line. Outside of that, I think it's been overreaction city.

We held Miami to 10 points with Burfict and locked down Tannehill completely outside of one pass. Did a fine job against Marshall/Decker, and also did a number on Pig Ben. The secondary had one bad game (Denver) and it was really just Pacman getting pimp smacked by Emmanuel Sanders.

It's getting overplayed to say this...but R-E-L-A-X. For now anyways.

Agree with most except Nelson.  Also every corner and safety got beat that game, I watched the replay, Jones did have a bad day, he also made a couple plays

(10-04-2016, 05:28 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: We held Miami to 10 points with Burfict and locked down Tannehill completely outside of one pass. Did a fine job against Marshall/Decker, and also did a number on Pig Ben. The secondary had one bad game (Denver) and it was really just Pacman getting pimp smacked by Emmanuel Sanders.

It's getting overplayed to say this...but R-E-L-A-X. For now anyways.

Miami 24 New England 31



Miami 7 Cincinnati 22



It's funny how people want to down play Miami when we shut them down, but when they can score at a high rate against what many call a very good NE defense no one mentions anything.

(10-04-2016, 03:38 PM)Shepdawg Wrote: I'm not sure where you have heard that from.  He has 31 tackles through 4 games, with 25 of those being solo.  I doubt many FS in the league are on pace for a 124 tackle season.  And if they are, I think it says more about the DL and LB's playing in front of them.  He also has an INT, a fumble recovery, and 4 passes defended.  His best year for passes defended was 2014 with 14.  He's on pace to eclipse that this year and also have a career year for tackles.  

I think the defense as a whole suffered his absence, especially early on.  Not only is Reggie a baller, but he also is a coach on the field with his experience.  He played a much overlooked "Chris Crocker" type role in making sure everyone was set correctly before the snap, and could better recognize offensive adjustments than the younger guys.  

I think having Burfict on the field will help negate this issue, as his football IQ is also extremely high.

Got to admit I have not heard that from a credible source.   I also heard - though I don't know if I heard this from a credible source - that Nelson had his problems here last season.  And I seem to recall he was whiffing somewhat in the beginning of the season .

But I agree with you that Reggie is a baller, and he was a significant Steeler killer.   Some Steeler players were quoted as saying that they would not miss Marvin Jones either.  Those were the two I wanted to keep.   I saw the logic of keeping Iloka as he was a younger player who played well last year.  He has not looked wonderful this year.  But I believe he'll improve.  And as Fred pointed out you can't keep everyone.  All in all I think the FO did a really good job of keeping what we could.

(10-04-2016, 04:02 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Zimmer was the perfect in-house candidate to replace Marvin with. Unfortunately, the FO (or at least Mike Brown) didn't see it that way. 

And it was going to be an awkward thing to let Marvin go and hire Zimmer.  Timing is so important.  And Marvin has done so much for the team that jettisoning him in order to hire Zimmer as HC would have made it hard for Brown to look in the mirror... and frankly for Zimmer to stay.   We would have had to be looking back on a sub .500 season, not just failing in the playoffs.

The only way I could have seen Zimmer being hired by the Bengals is if Marvin had wanted to jump upstairs leaving room for Zimmer to move into the HC Job.   And from what I hear Marvin has never been interested in doing that.

(10-04-2016, 03:00 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I think the biggest mistake the FO/Owner has made is Mike Zimmer. That may well go down right behind Bill Walsh on the giant snafu list.

That is just a terrible comparison... There was an actual coaching opening in 1970s  Walsh or Johnson... they chose Johnson who did not work out plus Walsh was much younger..

Now three years ago... Marvin had just finished winning the division and taking us to our third straight trip to playoffs.. no way they are going to change coaches plus if we are going to so praise Zimmer and then he has to take blame also... Chargers ran the ball down our throats, we had zero turnovers forced and one sack by our defense.. The Defense failed us that game..... if Marvin failed in that game, Zimmer failed even bigger.

Now what if Marvin stepped down after 2013 and we chose Gruden over Zimmer,, that to me would be more relative to Johnson over Walsh.

The biggest two losses we have had so far have been Vontaz and Eifert . Vontaz  looked good on Thursday in his return and if Eifert comes back healthy then this team will be fine. Also for people that are destroying the Bengals for not signing Reggie and moving on to Williams. Remember this is Williams first time as the regular  starter and its really the first time he has played with Iloka so of course there are going to be some miscues along the way. They will get those issues fixed soon enough and our defense will be just as good as ever.

I question the decision to keep Marvin and lose Zimmer. Not saying it is wrong but I can see another Tiger Johnson/Bill Walsh story developing.

However, I think the front office did an excellent job on personnel this season and the last 5 or 6 seasons. You cannot re-sign everyone and judgment calls need to be made.

None of the people who left played defensive line or offensive line except Smith and the line play on both sides is the problem with the team right now.

D-line played great against a make shift Miami line but having Burfict back may be the difference. We will know a lot more about the ability of our D line to play against upper level playoff teams after we play Dallas- which has a great O line.

Our O-line has been God awful. We gave up Andre but he was the target of lots of complaints on this board and we cannot sign everyone.

O-line is way under performing so far with a major and recurring issue at center which front office did screw up in not fixing.

No one is perfect.

(10-04-2016, 03:00 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I think the biggest mistake the FO/Owner has made is Mike Zimmer. That may well go down right behind Bill Walsh on the giant snafu list.

No kidding.  If any man was ever ready to take over, it was Mike Zimmer.  Is it any wonder that I have adopted the Vikings as my second team?

(10-04-2016, 04:31 PM)fredtoast Wrote: If you complain about every single move the Bengals make then you are bound to be right about somethings.

If we listened to "many people" around here then we would also have cut Kirkpatrick, Nugent, Hunt, Clarke, Peko, LaFell and a few others.

Sure, but if we listened to those same people around here we would have also no Fred.

Not such a bad trade looking at it that way.  

(10-04-2016, 02:21 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: After a quarter of the season, I think its fair to say. The difference in the talent and the coaching between this year and last year is very evident.

They let Reggie Nelson, Marvin Jones, Andre Smith, Sanu, Leon Hall, Emmanual Lamur, Wallace Gilberry, Vance Joseph, and Hugh Jackson walk.

I know each of those players/coaches have different circumstances around why they left, and some are justified, but how could we honestly think we were going to be better this year than last year?

Thats a CRAP TON of talent and roster depth. It kind of pisses me off looking back on it that the FO didnt make more of a push this off season to bring some of these guys back or replace them with quality replacements.

You are seeing the results from this off season. Poor offensive line, not as effective defensive line, poor secondary play, and a step back in the coaching and coordinating of this team.

Well, let's start at the top.  They let Hue walk?  Hardly, he took a head coaching job.  That's hardly letting him walk and so far I have seen nothing to convince me that he is a better coach than Marvin.

Let's also take a look at some of the other guys:

Marvin Jones, offered $8 million per year here, but took $8 million from the Lions to be a #1.
Sanu - I'm sorry, but I'm not paying that kind of money for a #3 guy.
Andre Smith?  It's jot a poor job to take 2 tackles in the first and second round to replace a guy who was tailing off.
Leon Hall?  Didn't he have back surgery?  Wasn't health an issue?  His level of play was slipping as well.  How's he looking in NY?
Lamur?  Seriously?  I'd rather have Dansby and it's not even close.
Gilberry?  I miss him.

I also miss Vance.

The problem is that you aren't comparing like things.  Eifert and Burfict missing the first 3 games cost us.  Let's talk at the end of the season and see where things are at and how it compares to last years team.

What does Zimmer have to do with this past off-season?