11-26-2023, 06:50 PM
(11-26-2023, 06:43 PM)007BengalsFan Wrote: They held Pittsburgh to 16 points. This loss falls squarely on the offense. Also, no one should expect the defense to keep bailing out the offense like they have done the past 2 years. The Bengals management made the decision to weaken the defense by allowing talent to leave so the team could spend that money on the offense instead. You can't take away Bates, Bell, Apple, Ogunjobi from Lou and expect his defense is going to play at the same level. If the Bengals are going to take away from the defense to give to the offense, the offense needs to carry this team. Everyone knew this would be the case before the season started.
I'm not going to disagree that the offence was the culprit today. You win 0% of NFL games when you score 7 points. And 16 points given up (though it should've been more really), is certainly more than a reasonable target to set for the offence. I'm not disputing your point.
But this does seem to suggest the defence played well today. It ignores that they gave up over 400 yards to a joke of an offence. A decent offence will hang 30+ on these guys, as has been happening more recently. I imagine it will again next week. It may well happen for most of the rest of this season.
We know Browning at QB will mean the offence will struggle to manage 20 points. With that in mind, the defence has to be virtually shutdown to give us a chance. Giving up 400 yards plus to Kenny Pickett is not shutdown under any parameters. They are not tough to play against, regardless of holding the Steelers to 16 today.
Let's not forget, that the defence had next to nobody out for today's game either. Really is not a good sign at all.
