I didn't want to do a poll and have set answers. It gets a little tricky with coaching, because do you include Tobin in that group and blame him for the personnel?

To simplify, I am going to leave the front office out of the equation. You could make another thread about that if you wish, but there are plenty of those and all they do is point at the ineptitude. I get it, as it is like Groundhog Day around here again after a nice run with Dalton and Green early on and Palmer and Chad before that.

How much of THIS team's failures do you put on the players and how much do you put on the coaches?

I am split almost 50/50. I think the roster has huge holes and injuries sure didn't help with a lack of quality depth. Those holes are much more evident now than coming in to the 2020 season when we had high hopes for guys like Green, Atkins, and Dunlap. Now all three need replaced. I even had high hopes for Ross with Burrow. Go ahead, let me have it for that one.

I see big needs on both the inside and outside of the offensive line. The defensive line needs help both inside and outside. The WR group is talented but limited. They need a couple burners that can generate quick separation and take the proverbial top off the defense. There are very few position groups I would refer to as "strengths". That is not to say a good offseason can't make a huge difference, but then we have the coaches.

The same coaches that seemed to take 6 weeks to discover a screen pass that works on blitzing defenses. The same coaches that seemingly reversed the progress of every offensive linemen but one (Hart). The same coaching staff that had play after play of Burrow taking shots from free rushers.

As much as I am disappointed with the coaching staff, I still put half of the blame on the roster. The offensive line and defensive line play was really poor. That led to so many problems across the board. I never really saw improvement except for some personnel changes that came way too late (Margus Hunt, Spain). Could a great coaching staff win with the team that was on the field this year? I really don't think so.

It's 50% players and 50% coaches in my book. They are going to make a lot of changes (I would imagine) to the roster, but not so much in the coaching ranks. Will that get the Bengals in to the playoffs? With Burrow, I think almost anything is possible. However, the biggest achilles heel to me moving forward will not be the roster, but the coaches.

oddly the coaches seem to get better when they had less... That could have been the backup players fighting for future playing time though...

None of the units were consistant one week to the next and for me thats coaching.

-Dunlap was one of the best players on our defense. The reason we now have to replace him is that our coaches wanted to get rid of him.

-Bates played horrible last year and he has said it was because of communication problems with the coaching staff.

-Both Shawn Williams and Darius Phillips accused our coaches of "wasting talent".

-Andy Dalton had by far the worst season of his career under Taylor in 2019. He was much better the year before under Lewis and the year after in Dallas. He was not injured in 2019 so I assume it had a lot to do with the coaching.

-When our O-line gives up sacks it appears it is more often due to the inability to pick up a blitz or a stunt than players getting beaten one-on-one.

-Our defense gets much worse in the final 2 minutes of a half even with the same players on the field.


We lack talent on the offensive line and at DT. So I am not saying it is 100% coaching. But it looks like coaching is by far the biggest part of the problem.

Playcalling is a huge factor. Deciding whether to send a guy to rush the passer or drop back in coverage, stick to a receiver or stay in a zone, what particular route you're running or whether you're running inside vs outside, etc.

From what I saw (I didn't watch every single game, but I watched a majority), the playcalling could get more creative to utilize the skill set of the players better.

With that said, I do feel like some (most?) players have clear weaknesses such that they could be upgraded if they can find a better player.

I put a lot more of the failure right now on the coaching than personnel. I think a good coach adjusts as guys come in and out and finds ways to play to their strengths. If they pick a guy up in FA or draft him, they should be doing so because he has strengths they can capitalize on. This coaching staff hasn't done that, and in fact it's looked like some players regressed once this staff took over.

There are holes on this team for sure, but I don't think the team is 2-3 years of drafts and a ton of quality FA pickups away. I think the coaches have no clue what to do with the guys they have. Square peg/round hole and all of that. You can't force everyone into a particular scheme just because you like it. We all have strengths, and we're most successful when we can play into them. Professional athletes are no different.

20% Personnel
30% Coaching Staff
50% Front Office

(01-04-2021, 05:54 PM)fredtoast Wrote: -Dunlap was one of the best players on our defense.  The reason we now have to replace him is that our coaches wanted to get rid of him.

This deserved its own response.  Dunlap WAS one of the best players on defense, but he was not close to that this year.  He seemed out of shape, looked disinterested, and played very ineffectively.  The Bengals had a rookie with essentially the same PFF rating as Dunlap.  

I loved Carlos for what he did in the past here, but for half of last year and all of this year, the guy wasn't giving any effort at all.  The reason he has to be replaced is, for whatever reason, the guy just didn't play hard here and reacted very negatively (instead of on the field) to losing snaps to the far superior Lawson. 

  

(01-04-2021, 05:36 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: oddly the coaches seem to get better when they had less... That could have been the backup players fighting for future playing time though...

None of the units were consistant one week to the next and for me thats coaching.

Hmmm, same thought, but that made me think it's 60/40 players/coaches.

Some guys (dalton, dunlap, green, hart) just weren't doing well. I don't think they wanted to. New coaches came in,told them to do something different and they said 'naw, I'm alright.'  we put in guys off the bench and look better because they're on the same page or at least trying.

(01-04-2021, 06:04 PM)BrownAssClown Wrote: 20% Personnel
30% Coaching Staff
50% Front Office

Ok, so since I tried to leave off front office, we are pretty similar...you tilt a little more than 50% to the coaching and I have it at 50/50.

Curious what makes you slant more to coaches?

(01-04-2021, 06:28 PM)Benton Wrote: Hmmm, same thought, but that made me think it's 60/40 players/coaches.

Some guys (dalton, dunlap, green, hart) just weren't doing well. I don't think they wanted to. New coaches came in,told them to do something different and they said 'naw, I'm alright.'  we put in guys off the bench and look better because they're on the same page or at least trying.

more as not being able to coach to your players strenght..

And backups putting out good tape.

Maybe it could have been all the Vets...  But i doubt it.

(01-04-2021, 05:54 PM)fredtoast Wrote: -Dunlap was one of the best players on our defense.  The reason we now have to replace him is that our coaches wanted to get rid of him.

-Bates played horrible last year and he has said it was because of communication problems with the coaching staff.

-Both Shawn Williams and Darius Phillips accused our coaches of "wasting talent".

-Andy Dalton had by far the worst season of his career under Taylor in 2019.  He was much better the year before under Lewis and the year after in Dallas.  He was not injured in 2019 so I assume it had a lot to do with the coaching.

-When our O-line gives up sacks it appears it is more often due to the inability to pick up a blitz or a stunt than players getting beaten one-on-one.

-Our defense gets much worse in the final 2 minutes of a half even with the same players on the field.


We lack talent on the offensive line and at DT.  So I am not saying it is 100% coaching.  But it looks like coaching is by far the biggest part of the problem.

There was a dearth of talent on the field with Dalton.  Tyler Boyd was his only real receiving option.  

Good point about the offensive line looking somewhat unprepared for situational schemes rather than just physically overwhelmed.  

(01-04-2021, 06:29 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: more as not being able to coach to your players strenght..

And backups putting out good tape.

Maybe it could have been all the Vets...  But i doubt it.

I think a LOT of this is coaching. Many of the players we see have issues out there were excelling in college or on other teams. Our defensive  scheme is defective, hanging players out and setting them up to fail and our OL blocking scheme is poor and the linemen have poor technique. 

(01-04-2021, 06:28 PM)SHRacerX Wrote: I loved Carlos for what he did in the past here, but for half of last year and all of this year, the guy wasn't giving any effort at all.  The reason he has to be replaced is, for whatever reason, the guy just didn't play hard here and reacted very negatively (instead of on the field) to losing snaps to the far superior Lawson. 

He was recovering from injury the first half of last year.  His lack of production had nothing to do with lack of effort.

This year he was pissed at the coaches for benching him just because they wanted to get rid of him.  Dunlap did not mid losing snaps to guys like Hubbard and Lawson.  It was losing snaps to scrubs like Bledsoe and Kareem that bothered him.


And as for the "far superior" Lawson, Los had more TFL (6 to 4) and almost as many sacks (4.5 to 5.5) in just EIGHT GAMES with Seattle as Lawson did in SIXTEEN GAMES with the Bengals.

60/40 coaching. The lines aren’t good, but better coaches would have won more than 4 games with these players.

So, in general the NFL is a coaching/qb league. There's a whole country feeding 32 teams with a player limit of 53 players. The league has a salary cap. Talent level on each club should be similar unless year in and year out you are a clown show. Tough call here.

(01-04-2021, 06:29 PM)SHRacerX Wrote: Ok, so since I tried to leave off front office, we are pretty similar...you tilt a little more than 50% to the coaching and I have it at 50/50.

Curious what makes you slant more to coaches?

Well it was close, but, and I hate to use the excuse, weren't for the injuries, especially our new injured free agents, we had pretty decent players except for the oline, coming into this season. So if I were to leave the front office out of it and base the percentages strictly off Players and coaching staff it would shake out 40% Players, 60% Coaching Staff. If Burrow, Reader, Waynes, Atkins,Phillips,Mixon etc. would have played the whole season and if we finished with the same record as we did then I could see giving the players more of the blame, about 50/50. Coaches have to learn to adapt the game plan to the players they have at their disposal, which they did in a few games( 2nd Steelers game and Texans game) but failed in far too many others. The 2nd half adjustments or lack there of by the coaches, especially Coach Anarumo, is a big reason I ranked the fault a littler higher with the coaches.

It depends on what part of the season you're looking at.

I think our close losses in week 1, week 3, week 6 and week 7 were like 90% coaching, 10% personnel. Some of the defensive play calling in those games was atrocious. Lou seemed to be dead set on switching to loose zone schemes when we needed to stop them with minutes left to go. You can say all you want about the players, but when you consistently allow points in the last 2 minutes of either half, the main problem is almost certainly play calling.

As the season churned and we continued to lose players, I think it shifted to something around 60% coaching, 40% personnel. There's only so much you can do with Brandon Allen at QB. The defense showed up at times, like in Miami and New York, and the offense just didn't (the sack fumble to end the NYG game after a good return is probably the high mark for "the players' fault" section of the criticism on this team. The meme video of Bobby Hart not even reacting to a player blowing by him is also not really something you can blame on coaches.)

There's a little bit of intermingling of coaching and personnel issues, of course. I blame the coaching for Burrow's injury even though it was the player (Michael Jordan) that technically allowed a guy to topple over him and destroy Joe's knee. Like I said at the time, when you know you have a bad Oline, every passing attempt is tempting fate. And if you tempt fate at a league high average, you're more likely going to suffer for it.

As the season wore on, I think the Dallas game and Baltimore game were 25% coaching and 75% personnel issues. We obviously should have been able to hold Baltimore down with better coaching, but we were playing guys like Margus Hunt and...players I'd never even heard of on the defensive line against the best rushing team in the NFL. That's not going to end well. The Dallas game, our offense was just pathetic. We were facing one of the worst run defenses in the NFL and our patchwork Oline just could not make any holes for our RBs, to the tune of 101 yards on 30 carries (3.4 ypc, 1.6 ypc lower than their average 5.0 ypc allowed). You could tell the coaches knew what the defensive weakness was and created their game plan to deal with it and the players just...didn't execute. Now, maybe you can say they should have shifted the game plan when it obviously wasn't working but, again, Brandon Allen is your QB. What are you even switching to?

They redeemed themselves a little bit as a rushing attack against Houston, but Houston just happens to be the only team in the NFL worse at defending the run than Dallas (besides us).

Our win against the Steelers felt great, but it was more like the Steelers choking than us actually performing well. Ben had multiple open receivers that he just...missed entirely. But the personnel and coaching both seemed pliant and resourceful in that game. Who knew Finley would run options? That was an interesting wrinkle added to the offense at the most critical time that was genuinely impressive. The problem is that was one of very very few impressive moments in the season.

On the season as a whole I'd say it's probably 75% coaching, 25% personnel. It depends on how you consider injuries. Do you consider playing back ups a "personnel problem?" or just an unfortunate circumstance? We had, in my opinion, a roster capable of winning. You saw them perform in those weeks I mentioned in the first paragraph. Especially when Burrow was our QB, I genuinely felt like we could win any game we went into. But we lost most of those games due to bad coaching. This team could have been 9-7 had it not been for MULTIPLE late game collapses and I just have a hard time blaming those on the players, especially since the coaching style and game planning had a lot to do with why Burrow was injured. Don't let them gaslight you by saying it was the injuries that caused this season. We were failing in close games before the injuries occurred.

I just hope the personnel will be good enough to overcome the coaching deficiencies next season.

It's neither. Its the Owner. None of them are fans of the team. If they were, like any of us, they'd know what to do or at least try.

The only think they care about is spreading out grandpa's money for as long as they can.

If there was a Bengals fan in the family I can't imagine them not saying what we say on this board at xmas dinner, family gatherings etc. Where are the great grandchildren outrage, why aren't they asking MB and Katie why they think their failed management is working. Where is anyone in the family to speak out and speak some sense into them. There is no one, no one down the line. This is damning for the future.

There is no one. They only care about stretching grandpa's money out as long as they can. And the great great grandkids are just as bad trying to get a piece of the pie even if it is as social media director.

It's hard being a fan of a team no one in it's Ownership or the family are fans of.

If there was any Bengal fans in the family, then they would have had this thing turned around like many of us would have as we knew the coaches that needed to be hired to support Zac given the teams weakness (Callahan, Del Rio).

But this is what happens when no one in the family is successful and everyone relies' on the Bengals for income. This is their livelihood and keeping the money in the family is first and foremost. It's not like all other owners who's team is their toys and play money.

You fire a coach under contract for 2 more years, and there goes your xmas gift, college savings, etc.

This isn't the case anywhere else. But for a mom and pop shop.....

(01-04-2021, 07:14 PM)jj22 Wrote: It's neither. Its the Owner

The influence of the owner effects the plyers and coaching.

So the question is where have they failed worse.

(01-04-2021, 07:14 PM)jj22 Wrote: If there was any Bengal fans in the family, then they would have had this thing turned around like many of us would have

There is not a single person here that could compete against other NFL teams ran by NFL professionals.