More Schein Love

[BFritz21]

NFL.com’s Adam Schein predicts that the Bengals will win more games than the Steelers!

He mentions how seeing Burrow take the field in OTAs is all that he needed to see to know that we'll bounce back this year!  Pairing him with Chase to regain their college form will make something special, like I've been saying all-along!

Quote:Joe Burrow took the field at Bengals workouts on Tuesday. That’s all I needed to see. Burrow will hit the ground running with old LSU teammate Ja’Marr Chase. This connection was special in that 2019 national championship run — I can’t wait to see these two make sweet music together once again

He makes notes of our other offensive weapons in Higgins and Boyd, which I have mentioned could give us one of the best receiving groups in the league, and also how Mixon should bounce back and have a big year!

Quote:Joe Burrow took the field at Bengals workouts on Tuesday. That’s all I needed to see. Burrow will hit the ground running with old LSU teammate Ja’Marr Chase. This connection was special in that 2019 national championship run — I can’t wait to see these two make sweet music together once again

I keep mentioning all of that but that we can't do anything if our offensive line can't open holes for Mixon and give Burrow time to throw, but he mentions that the line looks better on paper:

Quote:Like colleague Gregg Rosenthal said, the offensive line looks better on paper than you think

On paper doesn't always translate to the field and that still scares the shit out of me, but it does give me a bit more faith that "experts" are expressing faith.

He says the defense is a question mark, but we could have such a good offense that we could win some shootouts:

Quote:Lou Anarumo’s defense remains a big question mark — with a bunch of notable losses and gains in free agency — but the offense has the kind of firepower to win some shootouts.

I think the rookie additions and the switch to a 3-4 could help us get after the opposing quarterback and help win some shootouts by stopping the other team.

Then he mentions the Steelers........

Quote:All in all, I think the arrow is pointing up in Cincy. Meanwhile, in Pittsburgh ...

He mentions how Big Ben fell off at the end of the year, how Ben's aging (39), and how Pittsburgh hit a wall when Ben did after starting 11-0:

Quote:The Steelers still have a Hall of Fame quarterback in Ben Roethlisberger, but he’s not Benjamin Button. Now 39 years old, Big Ben clearly hit a wall down the stretch last year. So did Pittsburgh. From 11-0 to first-round playoff exit.

Their line was always a problem but Ben could shake off tackles and extend plays, which his age looks like it's preventing him from doing that in the same way that he used to.  It also says how Harris is a stud runner, but he needs blocking because he's not Barry Sanders:

Quote:And I don’t see the trend reversing for the better in 2021. While first-round pick Najee Harris is a stud runner, the offensive line remains problematic.

Losing pieces on defense will also hurt them, especially since they lost one piece to us:

Quote:The defense lost Bud Dupree (who’d become a fabulous edge-rushing complement to T.J. Watt) and Mike Hilton (the stud slot corner who just so happened to relocate to Cincy). And it sure doesn’t help that the aging Steelers drew the NFL’s toughest strength of schedule.

The rest of the article mentions how Burrow is ascending and Ben is descending!

Here's the rest, which is just more pointing to us taking the next step over them!

Quote:The thing in the NFL is the quarterback is such an important piece to the team. Of course one man can’t do it all, but there is a reason the teams that seem to always be contending have the best quarterbacks.

At the root of Schein’s argument is Ben Roethlisberger is over the hill while Joe Burrow is ascending. That is pretty easily shown by how terribly Pittsburgh’s 2020 season fell apart on the shoulders of Roethlisberger, which included an upset via the Bengals led by Ryan Finley on Monday Night Football.

There was a time where the Steelers seemed untouchable, but this past season showed that their seemingly endless factory of talent is running a bit dry. JuJu Smith-Schuster failed to step in and replace Antonio Brown’s production, which sent a ripple effect across the offense. Suddenly, these receivers weren’t only facing single coverage, and Roethlisberger’s job got that much harder.

Meanwhile, you could see Burrow and this offense starting to click. We even saw Tee Higgins finish the season with some strong performances with Brandon Allen taking snaps.

Now with Ja’Marr Chase coming in to fix on of the Bengals biggest issues from last season (the deep passing game), the only real limit is how quickly he and former college teammate Burrow pick back up that connection.

It also helps that the Steelers didn’t have a strong offseason. They saw key players walk away, and they didn’t really go out and replace them. They also didn’t help rebuild their offensive line that was a major issue in 2020. Najee Harris seems like a great guy, but Bengals fans know what it is like to watch a good running back try and create behind a struggling offensive line that can’t open holes.

It is exciting to see another national writer speak out in support of the Bengals, which seems to becoming more of a popular thing to do. The day will come soon that this won’t be seen as a bold prediction, and it will just become the expectation with Burrow leading the way.

My bold statement would be that if Burrow wasn’t coming off a major knee injury that people wouldn’t even think this was a bold take by Schein.

It's going to be a hell of a year!