How bad our offense is, by the numbers

[BigPapaKain]

(10-16-2023, 09:29 PM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: 1. Yes. 
2. Yes. His ribs are broken. He's dropped a bunch. Had 1 good game.  
3. IDK. But his accuracy & decision making have both been poor.  
4. Yes. 

His ribs weren't broken the first 4 weeks.

[TheCincinnatiKid]

Clear the offence hasn't been good at all, but it's not perfect to look at the whole season and rank us statistically based on that.

Our Franchise QB looked like a guy from this board for a lot of the first 4 weeks. 4 weeks out of 6 will be a big proportion of our stats currently.

I'd rather see weeks 5-6, and how we rank based on those alone. Due to the Seattle 2nd half, I doubt it's a wonderful rank, but this isn't the same offence from a lot of the first 4 weeks.

[Shake n Blake]

(10-16-2023, 05:26 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: The offense is very disjointed right now. Due to Burrow's injury, they have been operating strictly out of the gun and haven't been able to move the pocket for him. In seasons past, they had nice wrinkles mixed in like nakeds, QB draws/read options (first career TD), different ways of utilizing his mobility. All of those are gone right now, along with his ability to extend plays. At least, to an extent. He is looking better in this regard.

The running game has also been miserable. It started off nicely but has gone downhill fast. We beat this horse to death over the offseason, but Mixon is nothing special. He will eat up what the offensive line gives him and nothing more. So far, the offensive line hasn't given him much. Cincinnati is averaging 2.2 yards before contact, which is 27th in the league. Mixon's elusiveness ranks 48th out of 59 qualified RBs so far this season. You put those two together and you have a recipe for a bad time - he struggles to break tackles and the offensive line is struggling to give him running lanes. I don't have data on this, but this is going to allow defenses to sit in cover two against Cincinnati and take away their vertical options because Cincinnati simply can't run well enough to take them out of it.

Tee has been abysmal this season, and is now injured. He has had major drops issues and has been completely ineffective. One of the most effective receiving options in the offense is MIA. 

The offense has been very simple so far, in my eyes. Hopefully with Burrow getting healthier, they can introduce some more under center looks and move the pocket for Burrow. Get some of the depth running backs involved and attack the edges. Cincinnati is running everything right between the tackles, I think largely because of the simplistic run game (shotgun, attack A & B gaps.)

I'm sure it doesn't help that we won't commit to the run in any way, check out of runs often, and our commitment to the shotgun is very limiting.

I'd say that makes creativity with coaching even more important. I'll say we had a very good game plan vs the Cardinals, but that seems to be the exception.

(10-16-2023, 06:44 PM)Joelist Wrote: By the way, some pass stats after 6 games:

252 dropbacks
14 sacks good for 16th in NFL
42 total pressures for a 16.6% pressure rate, good for 9th in the NFL
10 dropped passes (5th most in the NFL)
59.8% of passes On Target (24th in the NFL)
15.2% of passes classed as Bad Throws (22nd in the NFL)
63% overall completion pct.

These stats tell a story of dropped balls and inaccurate throws being the primary issue. As Burrow gets healthier and more fully up to speed I expect both the Bad Throw and On Target numbers to move big time in the right directions. The drops are for the receivers to work out.

So we have an offense that has been leaning heavily on Burrow and the receivers (as usual), but instead of playing like their usual all-pro selves, they've been playing like Akili Smith and Ron Dugans. Except for Chase. That poor dude is on an island out there by himself.

Also, I'm surprised the o-line has been fairly average to slightly below average. They should be an asset, and they're definitely not, so I'm still looking at Pollack. That said, they haven't been abysmal.

(10-16-2023, 09:29 PM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: 1. Yes. 
2. Yes. His ribs are broken. He's dropped a bunch. Had 1 good game.  
3. IDK. But his accuracy & decision making have both been poor.  
4. Yes. 

So all of the above.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(10-16-2023, 05:23 PM)RegularGuy22 Wrote: Maybe it is Burrow checking out of calls from Zac to his own choice that he thinks is correct at LOS. They gave him control to change plays didn't they? Maybe take that away for a game and see if Zac's calls work better.

Maybe it isn't Zac's play calls that are the problem but Burrows?

I think it's a little bit of both.

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(10-16-2023, 05:29 PM)KillerGoose Wrote: IIRC Zac gives Burrow two plays and Burrow has the freedom to check out of one into another. I don't know much control Burrow has to just completely change things up and go off script. If he does have that control, I would wager a guess he doesn't do it often. Most of those checks are just from the built in playcalls that Zac provides. 

I thought he got two plays, then an audible built for each of those. 

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(10-16-2023, 06:40 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote:

Of the 54 RBs that have carried the ball at least 25 times this season, Joe Mixon ranks...

40th in Yards After Contact Per
42nd in Breakout Run Percentage
44th in Elusive Rating

— Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) October 16, 2023

Higgins is on pace for 136 targets, with just 56 catches and only 596 receiving yards for a full season.

— Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) October 16, 2023

These are two glaring issues right here.

Holy shit that's bad!

[*bengalfan74*]

I didn't read entire thread and I'm sure it's been beat to death but we have to get the run game figured out!!

I read parts of an article yesterday where Calahan said we're probably going to have to go to some under center plays, duh. We are totally ineffective running from the shotgun the bulk of the time.

It's like we've never come out of the preseason vanilla mode calling plays. We get in shotgun and there's like 15 different plays we run the entire game, that's it. We're very easy to figure out, we don't get any defense off balance at all.

I don't have the stats on this but it sure seems we don't throw much to the middle of the field, why??

Mixon is just slightly above "a guy". I'm just not sure we have much behind him either? But perhaps we should try?

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(10-17-2023, 03:46 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: I didn't read entire thread and I'm sure it's been beat to death but we have to get the run game figured out!!

I read parts of an article yesterday where Calahan said we're probably going to have to go to some under center plays, duh. We are totally ineffective running from the shotgun the bulk of the time.

It's like we've never come out of the preseason vanilla mode calling plays. We get in shotgun and there's like 15 different plays we run the entire game, that's it. We're very easy to figure out, we don't get any defense off balance at all.

I don't have the stats on this but it sure seems we don't throw much to the middle of the field, why??

Mixon is just slightly above "a guy". I'm just not sure we have much behind him either? But perhaps we should try?

There's a little bit of nuance to the under center part.... here's Cally talking about it.

""There's a balance of being able to not just fully telegraph all of it," Callahan said. "It's hard to run the ball for explosive gains a lot of time in the shotgun. So just a mix and a balance is always going to be better for the offense in general, instead of being exclusively one thing. There were things we worked on over the course of the offseason that we had to move away from a little bit due to Joe's mobility. I feel like it's something that we can get more out of.

"I'm not going to say we're going to sell out and all of a sudden you're going to see us under center every play. But there's an element of the offense that does run through the under-center part of it. Some of the run-game schemes are better. Some of the play-action is better … as Joe felt comfortable, really back to pretty close to normal, that's something that we can hopefully do more of.""

I look for some changes people have been clamoring for out of the bye. Mainly because they won't be looking to protect Joe as much. 

[Joelist]

I would note we saw Mixon's lack of tackle breaking, elusiveness and home run ability in spades Sunday. We had multiple plays where Mixon had only to break one tackle attempt and he would have had a big gain. He even had one on a screen where he got tackled by one hand on his foot otherwise he likely goes all the way. It was frustrating to watch because they HAD the plays setup but for inability to break the first attempt these plays went for "okay" gains.

[125250]

Still look terrible.

[Frank Booth]

(10-16-2023, 06:40 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote:

Of the 54 RBs that have carried the ball at least 25 times this season, Joe Mixon ranks...

40th in Yards After Contact Per
42nd in Breakout Run Percentage
44th in Elusive Rating

— Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) October 16, 2023

Higgins is on pace for 136 targets, with just 56 catches and only 596 receiving yards for a full season.

— Goodberry (@JoeGoodberry) October 16, 2023

These are two glaring issues right here.

Shouldve kept Perine

[Frank Booth]

(10-17-2023, 04:29 PM)Joelist Wrote: I would note we saw Mixon's lack of tackle breaking, elusiveness and home run ability in spades Sunday. We had multiple plays where Mixon had only to break one tackle attempt and he would have had a big gain. He even had one on a screen where he got tackled by one hand on his foot otherwise he likely goes all the way. It was frustrating to watch because they HAD the plays setup but for inability to break the first attempt these plays went for "okay" gains.

home run ability is overrated. Homerun ability is the argument people kept shouting when explaining why Mixon is better than Perine.

When Perine ran, it was a consistent 4-5 yards per carry. With Mixon, it's 1-3. But suuuuuuurrreee I guess once in a while he can break a run for 30 yards lol

total bullshit argument

[Joelist]

Perine actually broke tackles. That was the point. Mixon for some reason is not breaking them at all. And yes that is a big thing. Mixon breaking at least SOME tackles would lead to a lot more yards and pull defenses up out of any shell they are in. Imagine the Sunday game if he pulls his foot out of the single hand grip - add another 7 to our score and the entire endgame scenario changes.

I'm not saying we need a lightning back - but we need our backs to be able to break SOME tackles and also to be able to drive forward (pumping those legs) to grind it out a bit - Perine did that well. I'd like to see more of a rotation to see if Trayveon Williams can do this or Evans or even Chase Brown. That's part of the mystery - VERY limited snaps for Brown and Evans.

[J24]

(10-16-2023, 08:35 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Just shows how much they relied on Chase, Burrow, and Higgins playmaking to win.

Take that away or part of it...and the offense is bad.

In some ways, Zac won the lottery.

Yes take away The second best QB in the game, the best WR in the game, and the best #2 Wr in the game the offense will struggle mightily. 

[J24]

The offense will be fine eventually. The biggest reason for our struggles has been Joe injury + missing all of training camp.

He has to get in rhythm with WR core.

[ezekiel23]

The first half,as opposed to the second half in that game against Seattle was just weird.
I know Seattle made some adjustments at the half,but that wasn’t the only reason this Offense tanked.

Looks like they have a lot of things to get figured out during the bye.Hopefully they be successful,as they’ll be facing S.F.atS.F.

[hoosierbengal]

Number of carries for running backs this season….

Joe Mixon 96 carries
Trayvon Williams 5 carries
Chase Brown 2 carries
Chris Evans 2 carries

Pretty much Mixon is the only one getting carries.

[Essex Johnson]

Even with Burrow playing hurt just have not felt the team has come together well... Higgins as been off to a bad start... Love Boyd but seems not to be able to get it into a higher gear after catch.. Though TE is not a high priority still getting very little from the, Mixon is running better but Oline does not seem to be really opening holes.. Burrow accuracy is off and seems to not be adjusting well the defense schemes.. 49ers and Bills back to back will probably decide if we have a shot at a run or not.. go 0-2 those games, playoffs will not be looking good, 1-1 and we are still floating.. 2-0 and we are looking like we are back on track..

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(10-16-2023, 04:36 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: 27th in scoring
32nd in yards
3rd in pass attempts, yet 28th in pass yards (wow)
31st in rush attempts, 32nd in rush yards and 26th in YPC

Burrow's average of 5.30 YPA is the lowest in the NFL (for a QB with over 1000 yards) since Jimmy Clausen in 2010.

From 2009 to present, only the 2018 Cardinals have averaged fewer yards.

Burrow is running around like he's fine. Something else is contributing to this type of ineptitude. I've never been a pin it all on Zac guy, but I have to ask questions.

1. Are Zac and Brian failing to make necessary changes to counteract defenses catching up with our offense?

2. Is Tee holding our offense back with some kind of health or attitude problem (contract)?

3. Is Burrow still unhealthy or turning into Carson Wentz?

4. No Tight End?

What do yall make of the stats, and what do you think the problem is?

1. Yes
2. Maybe
3. Hell no, he has been injured and cleary still is
4. Need to have another safety blanket, but I don't know if Burrow would go to him anyways unless he is open. Our TE's aren't open.

The problem is a mixture of the slow start process with Zac, Burrow's injury, the new OL, Tee's injury/lack of contract and some ego maybe...

Need to clean these things up and I think we can for sure. We will see.

[*bengalfan74*]

(10-17-2023, 09:37 PM)ezekiel23 Wrote: The first half,as opposed to the second half in that game against Seattle was just weird.
I know Seattle made some adjustments at the half,but that wasn’t the only reason this Offense tanked.

Looks like they have a lot of things to get figured out during the bye.Hopefully they be successful,as they’ll be facing S.F.atS.F.

yup

Like the first 3 series Joe Burrow and co. were very good to on fire. The bulk of the rest of the game it was like Joe forgot how to throw, the WR's forgot their routes, the Oline was lost, and the coaches were out to throw the game. Very weird

I have no explanation.