(03-31-2019, 06:58 PM)Jakeypoo Wrote: 100% healthy maybe not but losing your starting QB, #1 Wr, and top Edge Rusher in one season is tough to over come. 

Also would add that our defense finished the year out pretty well last year.

(03-31-2019, 06:33 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: And most importantly, they had a Top 5 line last year and should have atleast an above average one last year.

I really think Mayfield is the wild card. Will he turn into a great QB or will he just be average?

I didn’t even mention their OL, as JP was only talking about the skill positions on offense. Theirs is obviously much better.

(03-31-2019, 06:19 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The Steelers and Ravens have quality management and you'd have the think that they'll find the right mixes.

The Browns appeared to have stumbled upon the correct formula after being inept for years.

I think it's possible that we go 1-5 or 2-4 within our division.

We do play a last place schedule though. Some of the teams like the Raiders appear to have improved.

IF forced to pick a record now...I'd say 8-8.

Now, I think there is atleast some chance that the new staff falls flat and we win 4-5 games. I think those odds are fairly low.

I couldn't give a prediction simply because I have no idea what Taylor and company will bring to the table.  We could be 3-13 or 13-3.  I would say that roster wise, we are a little bit stronger than we were last year and should see a bit more improvement in the draft.  

(03-31-2019, 06:13 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: I keep hearing the 4-1 before injuries thing. And it's possible that if healthy, we won 8-9 games last year.

But, the year before that...our roster was fairly similar and we won 7 games.

I guess I wouldn't bank on health making us a contender alone. With $50+ million cap space, why not clearly upgrade 2-3 positions?

I never bought the injury excuse last year. We won a few games by the skin of our teeth. The main reasons we lost was terrible defense (which was awful before injuries) and poor pass blocking. Hopefully Zac Taylor makes a big difference because our defensive personnel is probably worse.

(03-31-2019, 07:25 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I never bought the injury excuse last year. We won a few games by the skin of our teeth. The main reasons we lost was terrible defense (which was awful before injuries) and poor pass blocking. Hopefully Zac Taylor makes a big difference because our defensive personnel is probably worse.

That's where I'm at.

The offense SHOULD be ok. Why I say should is 2 years ago the offensive line totally derailed it. This past year, they looked really good while healthy.

The defense though, I don't see how it has improved. Is a healthy Preston Brown what improves it? Brown is mainly a run stuffer. His pass coverage is improving, but I don't see him making our LB group that much better. We still need a 3rd starter too.

Basically it boils down to hoping that largely the same roster plays much better next year than they did this past season. Injuries were some of the issues. Just having bad starters was another. For instance, a guy like Cordy Glenn underperformed. Yeah he was injured. Well he was injured each of the past 3 years. He'll likely be injured this upcoming season too at some point.

The reality last season was the OL looked early on like it was starting to gel, then injuries torpedoed it. The one Glenn had to play through slowed him down and losing Price for 5 games right when he was starting to get it hurt. Also remember Boling played hurt a lot of the year. Losing Eifert should not have been as bad as it was - that alone showed Lazor was not the guy as he seemed to have no good Plan B once his two TE concepts could not be used.

Defensively we looked awful all year - Marvin simply stanched some of the bleeding by going to more Man looks in the secondary. Once Andy got hurt it was all just pointless as Driskel is not NFL materiel.

Before the Andy injury you need to look at the losses and you see a lot of defensive failures (Pittsburgh, New Orleans, KC, Stains game 1 and Rats game 2 in particular). You also see us being decisively outcoached on the sidelines and schematically.

If all ZT accomplishes is get them out on the field ready to play and not lethargic and does not get constantly outcoached at game time we will be better.

Steelers lose Brown & Bell and they are projected 9 wins. If we lost those same two players there's no way we would be projected at 9. I get it, we are the Bengals but I'm so sick of this Steeler love fest the media has for Pitt. What have they done to convince anyone the teams not falling apart. Nothing.

(03-31-2019, 08:28 PM)Joelist Wrote: The reality last season was the OL looked early on like it was starting to gel, then injuries torpedoed it. The one Glenn had to play through slowed him down and losing Price for 5 games right when he was starting to get it hurt. Also remember Boling played hurt a lot of the year. Losing Eifert should not have been as bad as it was - that alone showed Lazor was not the guy as he seemed to have no good Plan B once his two TE concepts could not be used.

Defensively we looked awful all year - Marvin simply stanched some of the bleeding by going to more Man looks in the secondary. Once Andy got hurt it was all just pointless as Driskel is not NFL materiel.

Before the Andy injury you need to look at the losses and you see a lot of defensive failures (Pittsburgh, New Orleans, KC, Stains game 1 and Rats game 2 in particular). You also see us being decisively outcoached on the sidelines and schematically.

If all ZT accomplishes is get them out on the field ready to play and not lethargic and does not get constantly outcoached at game time we will be better.

The offense was equally as bad against KC and NO. We scored 10 points against KC and 14 against NO. Not going to win many games with that kind of production.

Those teams hung a ton of points on most of their opponents all season. Some teams like LAR and NE could actually match their scoring though.

(03-31-2019, 08:34 PM)TKUHL Wrote: Steelers lose Brown & Bell and they are projected 9 wins. If we lost those same two players there's no way we would be projected at 9. I get it, we are the Bengals but I'm so sick of this Steeler love fest the media has for Pitt. What have they done to convince anyone the teams not falling apart. Nothing.

Tbf they hardly ever miss a beat when their players go down/leave. They just plug in the next guy up. Look at Conner last season. Ben is really the only player they can’t win without.

It will be interesting to see how JJSS does as a #1 though.

(03-31-2019, 08:34 PM)TKUHL Wrote: Steelers lose Brown & Bell and they are projected 9 wins. If we lost those same two players there's no way we would be projected at 9. I get it, we are the Bengals but I'm so sick of this Steeler love fest the media has for Pitt. What have they done to convince anyone the teams not falling apart. Nothing.

We have 3 losing seasons in the past 3 years.  The Steelers have 3 losing seasons in the past 20 years.  

1st 4 games of the year 3-1 offensive yards per game( + Andy, AJ, Eifert)
376.5 yards(+ 24)
Next 6 2-4(No Eifert, 1/2 AJ, Andy)
297.8(-55.2)
Last 6 1-5( no Andy, No AJ, no Eifert)
279.8 yards(-72.4)
The Average NFL offensive yards per a game in 2018 was 352.2

Man, I’m getting almost as tired of hearing about the “first 4 games” as I have been about 2015 for the past few years...

We’re not the only team to deal with injuries. At some point the excuses need to stop, and we have to just admit we’re not a very good team. If a few injuries can totally derail the season then your depth is for shit.

Having Driskel as QB2 certainly cost us. We rely way too much on AJ. And counting on Eifert to be healthy is not very smart.

(03-31-2019, 09:26 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Man, I’m getting almost as tired of hearing about the “first 4 games” as I have been about 2015 for the past few years...

We’re not the only team to deal with injuries. At some point the excuses need to stop, and we have to just admit we’re not a very good team. If a few injuries can totally derail the season then your depth is for shit.

Having Driskel as QB2 certainly cost us. We rely way too much on AJ. And counting on Eifert to be healthy is not very smart.

I hear ya.  It's hard to talk up the first 4 games and blame the bad season on injuries and still claim that we HAD to fire Marvin.

(03-31-2019, 08:41 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Tbf they hardly ever miss a beat when their players go down/leave. They just plug in the next guy up. Look at Conner last season. Ben is really the only player they can’t win without.

It will be interesting to see how JJSS does as a #1 though.

Honestly, I think JuJu is gonna thrive. He's a nice player man.

But you're spot on. Before Connor, DeAngelo Williams (who was supposed to be spent) would tear it up when Bell was suspended or injured. He goes down too, and some guy named Toussant ran all over us in the playoffs...

Sorry for referencing 2015 in my post. No mention of last September though...

(03-31-2019, 09:35 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I hear ya.  It's hard to talk up the first 4 games and blame the bad season on injuries and still claim that we HAD to fire Marvin.

Not really... We HAD to fire Marvin all the back in 2010 amirite???

(03-31-2019, 09:35 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I hear ya.  It's hard to talk up the first 4 games and blame the bad season on injuries and still claim that we HAD to fire Marvin.

We had to fire Marvin because of fan support more so than anything else.  With the way the defense finished last season and with all the injuries that happened to this team last year I felt he made a solid case for himself.

(03-31-2019, 08:37 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: The offense was equally as bad against KC and NO. We scored 10 points against KC and 14 against NO. Not going to win many games with that kind of production.

Those teams hung a ton of points on most of their opponents all season. Some teams like LAR and NE could actually match their scoring though.

The Saints had their best scoring game and 3rd best yardage game against us.
The Chiefs had their 2nd best scoring game and their best yardage game against us. 

Our offense was able to overcome 36 point (Falcons) and 34 point (Bucs) games early in the season, but by the time KC and NO rolled around, we didn't have the horses. Besides, you shouldn't have to hang 50+ to win. The offense has it's issues, but our defense was beyond atrocious last year. Offense is the only reason we had a 5-3 start last year. 

(03-31-2019, 09:26 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Man, I’m getting almost as tired of hearing about the “first 4 games” as I have been about 2015 for the past few years...

We’re not the only team to deal with injuries. At some point the excuses need to stop, and we have to just admit we’re not a very good team. If a few injuries can totally derail the season then your depth is for shit.

Having Driskel as QB2 certainly cost us. We rely way too much on AJ. And counting on Eifert to be healthy is not very smart.

Agreed. The Packers won a Super Bowl with the most players on IR that year, and many of them were key players. 

We just didn't have the depth. We still don't.

(03-31-2019, 09:35 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I hear ya.  It's hard to talk up the first 4 games and blame the bad season on injuries and still claim that we HAD to fire Marvin.

Being totally honest, I don't think we lost last year because of Marvin. He proved that he could win with a solid roster, which is something we didn't have last year. It was just a good excuse to finally move on. 

Oh we had coaching problems aplenty last season. Lazor not having a good Plan B after losing the TEs is one, so is not using Mixon consistently, run-pass balance being off, and of course the horrific defense. We had issues stopping the run all season and yes passes to the LB area of the field were like playing catch.

(03-31-2019, 09:37 PM)jason Wrote: Honestly, I think JuJu is gonna thrive. He's a nice player man.

But you're spot on. Before Connor, DeAngelo Williams (who was supposed to be spent) would tear it up when Bell was suspended or injured. He goes down too, and some guy named Toussant ran all over us in the playoffs...

Sorry for referencing 2015 in my post. No mention of last September though...

In the 2015 playoff game, Bell was out and Jordan Todman and Fitzgerald Touissant ran wild on us.

(03-31-2019, 09:40 PM)Jakeypoo Wrote: We had to fire Marvin because of fan support more so than anything else.  With the way the defense finished last season and with all the injuries that happened to this team last year I felt he made a solid case for himself.

I feel like after 3-4 playoff losses we had to fire him as players would stop believing in him as a leader.

We let him go to 0-7 and then gave him 3 more seasons after that.