I was reading the NFL draft forum threads and someone mentioned, as a reason not to draft the LSU LB White, that Austin was the problem and that once we fired him, our defense improved to the point that we don't really need to overhaul the defense anymore.

I found this to be an interesting topic for discussion. I also noticed an improvement in the Defense once Austin was fired, but how substantial was it?

Well, this conversation could go on for hours if you break every single statistic down and relate them to the competition faced and the averages of those teams (it really could go on forever). I wanted to do some sort of analysis without getting into the nitty gritty with things like 3rd down percentage and strength of opponent etc.

So, instead, I boiled it down to 4 basic categories:
Pass Yards allowed
Rush Yards allowed
Points allowed
Time of Possession Allowed.

That final one, granted, is also a factor of your offense. If your offense keeps going 3 and out, your defense will inevitably allow a longer time of possession. But, really, you could say that about ANY defensive statistic that is measured quantitatively (such as yards or points allowed), so I will disregard that for now. If you want to dive into the qualitative stats such as 3rd down percentage, I would love to read what you have to say.

But anyway, this is what I came up with:



This grid is set up in three sections. Each section is used to compare what we allowed while Austin was our DC (in red) to what we allowed after he was fired (in green).
The first section is listing our opponents and how many yards/points/minutes we allowed to them. "Our Game"
The second section is each of our opponent's stats over the course of their season. "Opponent Average"
The final section compares the difference between what we allowed and what they averaged over their season. "Difference"

I did this in order to add a measure of consideration to when we allowed a bunch of yards to a team that just...gets a lot of yards (like New Orleans, Tampa Bay or Kansas City) compared to when we allow a ton of yards to a team that doesn't typically produce that many yards (such as allowing 105.9 more yards to Atlanta than they averaged over the season.)

Obviously, this doesn't account for a team that changed dramatically at some point in the season, like Baltimore and Cleveland switching QBs. For example, we did allow 493 yards to Cleveland in the penultimate game, but their average was pulled down by several weeks of Tyrod Taylor at QB, so we weren't as blatantly horrible against them as it appears (though we still sucked ass in that game).

But...it's the best I got.

For the third section, I color coded the cell red when we allowed more yards/points/time than their season average and green when we allowed fewer.

Below the entire grid, I added a single line: Difference between time periods. This is a straight subtraction of what we did under Austin vs what we did without him. Without Austin, they allowed 91.7 fewer yards per game and 8.1 fewer points per game. They didn't get off the field any easier, as their average TOP allowed was only ~1 minute less but, keep in mind, they had an absolutely anemic offense in the second half and still held onto the ball longer...so that indicates the defense did succeed in getting the opponent's offense off the field more often.

Finally, I put a grid at the bottom comparing our seasonal rankings for the total of 2018 to the period with Austin and the period after Austin. I compared each set to the end of the year rankings, as I did not have the rankings available from Week 1 to Week 10 and Week 11 to Week 17. So it isn't perfectly accurate, but it's something to compare to, at least.

TL;DR
Here are the basic results that I see:

We improved in every way once we got rid of Austin (32nd to 9th passing, 31st to 28th rushing, 32nd to 19th in points, 32nd to 22nd for total yards.) But, it's worth pointing out that we did face 3 of the best offenses while Austin was employed (New Orleans, Tampa, KC). So take that information with a grain of salt. But our latter half schedule did have better rushing teams, so it almost balances out (a net difference of 14 yards per game and 3.5 points on average more for the first half vs the second half opponents' offenses)

The thing that sticks out the MOST is the fact that our passing defense jumped from 32nd to 9th once we removed Austin. But, like I said, not having to face NO, KC and Tampa probably had an awful lot to do with that jump.

In the third section, you can see that, for the 5 categories (pass, run, points, time, total), over 9 games, the Bengals defense held their opponent's below their season average a total of 11 times (a total of 45 chances, or a 24.4% success rate).
For the final 7 games, the Bengals held a team below their season average a total of 20 times (a total of 35 chances, or a 57.1% success rate).
Those numbers may not mean a whole lot, depending on the context in which you view them.
But what is clear is that we did, in fact, dramatically improve once Austin was ousted.

If Marvin had been our defensive coordinator for the entire year of 2018, who knows what we would be saying right now. The good news is that it is clear that Austin was causing some sort of problem.

Was he the whole problem? It's hard to say. But what we do know, based on these numbers, is that he is a bad defensive coordinator, or at the very least, did not match the personnel we have here in Cincinnati in any way.
I'm glad he's gone

Worth also pointing out the records with and without Austin...
With Austin: 5-4
Without Austin: 1-6

Without having looked up the specifics of when the Bengals started to fall behind in the games that Marvin took over the defense, I assume the rushing was up and the passing was down because the Bengals were losing and therefore the opponents were running the ball more than passing.

(01-14-2019, 04:10 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Worth also pointing out the records with and without Austin...
With Austin: 5-4
Without Austin: 1-6

Without having looked up the specifics of when the Bengals started to fall behind in the games that Marvin took over the defense, I assume the rushing was up and the passing was down because the Bengals were losing and therefore the opponents were running the ball more than passing.

Well, even still, they allowed fewer rushing yards after Austin left. 133.3 rypg after vs 143.1 rypg before.

Every single statistic improved without him. And the teams we played against were actually better at rushing the ball after Austin was fired.

That's not to say that we were good at stopping the run once he was gone. But I don't think you can take how quickly we were losing as the reason we allowed fewer yards in any regard. If that were the case, we'd almost certainly have gone up in rushing yards allowed per game.

(01-14-2019, 04:00 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: I was reading the NFL draft forum threads and someone mentioned, as a reason not to draft the LSU LB White, that Austin was the problem and that once we fired him, our defense improved to the point that we don't really need to overhaul the defense anymore.

I found this to be an interesting topic for discussion. I also noticed an improvement in the Defense once Austin was fired, but how substantial was it?

Well, this conversation could go on for hours if you break every single statistic down and relate them to the competition faced and the averages of those teams (it really could go on forever). I wanted to do some sort of analysis without getting into the nitty gritty with things like 3rd down percentage and strength of opponent etc.

So, instead, I boiled it down to 4 basic categories:
Pass Yards allowed
Rush Yards allowed
Points allowed
Time of Possession Allowed.
    
That final one, granted, is also a factor of your offense. If your offense keeps going 3 and out, your defense will inevitably allow a longer time of possession. But, really, you could say that about ANY defensive statistic that is measured quantitatively (such as yards or points allowed), so I will disregard that for now. If you want to dive into the qualitative stats such as 3rd down percentage, I would love to read what you have to say.

But anyway, this is what I came up with:



This grid is set up in three sections. Each section is used to compare what we allowed while Austin was our DC (in red) to what we allowed after he was fired (in green).
The first section is listing our opponents and how many yards/points/minutes we allowed to them. "Our Game"
The second section is each of our opponent's stats over the course of their season. "Opponent Average"
The final section compares the difference between what we allowed and what they averaged over their season. "Difference"

I did this in order to add a measure of consideration to when we allowed a bunch of yards to a team that just...gets a lot of yards (like New Orleans, Tampa Bay or Kansas City) compared to when we allow a ton of yards to a team that doesn't typically produce that many yards (such as allowing 105.9 more yards to Atlanta than they averaged over the season.)

Obviously, this doesn't account for a team that changed dramatically at some point in the season, like Baltimore and Cleveland switching QBs. For example, we did allow 493 yards to Cleveland in the penultimate game, but their average was pulled down by several weeks of Tyrod Taylor at QB, so we weren't as blatantly horrible against them as it appears (though we still sucked ass in that game).

But...it's the best I got.

For the third section, I color coded the cell red when we allowed more yards/points/time than their season average and green when we allowed fewer.

Below the entire grid, I added a single line: Difference between time periods. This is a straight subtraction of what we did under Austin vs what we did without him. Without Austin, they allowed 91.7 fewer yards per game and 8.1 fewer points per game. They didn't get off the field any easier, as their average TOP allowed was only ~1 minute less but, keep in mind, they had an absolutely anemic offense in the second half and still held onto the ball longer...so that indicates the defense did succeed in getting the opponent's offense off the field more often.

Finally, I put a grid at the bottom comparing our seasonal rankings for the total of 2018 to the period with Austin and the period after Austin. I compared each set to the end of the year rankings, as I did not have the rankings available from Week 1 to Week 10 and Week 11 to Week 17. So it isn't perfectly accurate, but it's something to compare to, at least.

TL;DR
Here are the basic results that I see:

We improved in every way once we got rid of Austin (32nd to 9th passing, 31st to 28th rushing, 32nd to 19th in points, 32nd to 22nd for total yards.) But, it's worth pointing out that we did face 3 of the best offenses while Austin was employed (New Orleans, Tampa, KC). So take that information with a grain of salt. But our latter half schedule did have better rushing teams, so it almost balances out (a net difference of 14 yards per game and 3.5 points on average more for the first half vs the second half opponents' offenses)

The thing that sticks out the MOST is the fact that our passing defense jumped from 32nd to 9th once we removed Austin. But, like I said, not having to face NO, KC and Tampa probably had an awful lot to do with that jump.

In the third section, you can see that, for the 5 categories (pass, run, points, time, total), over 9 games, the Bengals defense held their opponent's below their season average a total of 11 times (a total of 45 chances, or a 24.4% success rate).
For the final 7 games, the Bengals held a team below their season average a total of 20 times (a total of 35 chances, or a 57.1% success rate).
Those numbers may not mean a whole lot, depending on the context in which you view them.
But what is clear is that we did, in fact, dramatically improve once Austin was ousted.

If Marvin had been our defensive coordinator for the entire year of 2018, who knows what we would be saying right now. The good news is that it is clear that Austin was causing some sort of problem.

Was he the whole problem? It's hard to say. But what we do know, based on these numbers, is that he is a bad defensive coordinator, or at the very least, did not match the personnel we have here in Cincinnati in any way.
I'm glad he's gone

Wow, that is a nice breakdown. That pretty much sums up Austin doesnt it? Marvin had the same players and he also had to try and coach the team at the same time and the defense was respectable minus the LB core.  Defense is his specialty and if he would just focus on that solely, he would be a good DC in this league still. I think Marvin has too much pride for that though.

(01-14-2019, 04:10 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Worth also pointing out the records with and without Austin...
With Austin: 5-4
Without Austin: 1-6

Without having looked up the specifics of when the Bengals started to fall behind in the games that Marvin took over the defense, I assume the rushing was up and the passing was down because the Bengals were losing and therefore the opponents were running the ball more than passing.

You also have to factor in Driskel at QB and and a shit ton of injuries when Marvin was DC. All those final games were close except for the first Cleveland game, though we did make a mini comeback at the end.  

Our offense left our defense on the field for way too long at the end of the season and we still could have won most of those games so I think he did a much better job.

We don't need an overhaul.

Fix the LBs, stay healthy, our D is back to fearsome.

Period.

Oh, there is ZERO doubt we need help at the LB position.  Aside from that, your research reveals what I thought it would.  Teryl Austin was just not very good, and Marvin improved on his defense.

When you say that Austin played against better offenses, that it true.  However, we also must consider that Marvin was also using lesser talent due to injuries.

Marvin did a respectable job with the defense.  He messed up royally by hiring Teryl in the first place.  Also, Austin is now the Stoolers' problem, so that is good.....lol.

(01-14-2019, 04:21 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: We don't need an overhaul.

Fix the LBs, stay healthy, our D is back to fearsome.

Period.

That can't really be guaranteed. So the only way is to ensure that the depth is good if/when injuries happen.
The depth on both sides of the ball are bad.

heres my real issue with Austin etc.
what in the heck did he accomplish that made Marvin want to hire him in the 1st place.yeah he created turnovers in Detroit.
theres more to being a effective DC than forcing TOs.
How did .Lewis look so smart in hiring Zim but yet so stupid hiring Austin? there was better DC available.!
Austin and Lewis are polar opposites in scheme

I'll add that while it was obvious Austin's influence wasn't good, the terrible health and performance of the LBs, Lawson going down, and the inability for the CBs to get a single INT definitely impacted the defense.

I thought we played well against the Ravens, Colts, and Dolphins to start off the season. Then we played the Steelers, Cheifs, Bucs, and Saints without Vigil, Dennard, and on top of that Lawson was underutilized and then hurt during that stretch of games.
I think we added a new system which didn't mesh with our players early on and we had a major weekness in our LB core which was easily exploited once Vigil left the lineup.

The LB's gave up by far the most receiving yards in the league. It was nearly 2000 yards. Something like 1884 yards if I recall correctly. Some 200+ yards more than the next worse unit.

The LB's just aren't that good. That's not really an Austin thing.

Now, I lean more towards drafting an offensive lineman #1 and signing LB's.

In todays NFL, you need mobile LB's that can cover. It's a must. We have 0 guys at LB who can do that consistently.

Marvin did more with less....

(01-14-2019, 05:06 PM)Sled21 Wrote: Marvin did more with less....

He did. But Dalton and Green also got hurt and we were not longer in shootouts on offense.

I do think Austin was really bad. But that doesn't negate the fact that our LB's were terrible in coverage.

(01-14-2019, 05:08 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: He did. But Dalton and Green also got hurt and we were not longer in shootouts on offense.

I do think Austin was really bad. But that doesn't negate the fact that our LB's were terrible in coverage.

Absolutely, and have been for some time. We've struggled with TE's forever it seems....

For some reason the front office or Marvin or whoever targeted the slow, plodding type of LB. Hopefully that changes now.

Austin sucked and the linebackers are terrible. I really hope I don't have to watch another season of Jordan Evans and Hardy Nickerson.

(01-14-2019, 05:13 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: For some reason the front office or Marvin or whoever targeted the slow, plodding type of LB. Hopefully that changes now.

It was because of AFCN football in December.... for years the thought was you need a thumper to stop the run in the AFCN once weather comes into play.....

(01-14-2019, 05:13 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: For some reason the front office or Marvin or whoever targeted the slow, plodding type of LB. Hopefully that changes now.

And then, when we did go for faster guys, we got little(Evans) to nothing(Jefferson) out of them.

(01-14-2019, 05:18 PM)McC Wrote: And then, when we did go for faster guys, we got little(Evans) to nothing(Jefferson) out of them.

At least Evans is showing steady improvement. A new LB coach will do him wonders....