What If Bengals O Line is Great in 2024

[*ochocincos*]

(06-21-2024, 04:13 PM)higgy100 Wrote: I agree with you but it's not been nearly as bad as people think. They were one dropped TD pass from Boyd from being a playoff team last season. Clearly, as with 90% of the teams in the NFL, it's about your starting QB not getting hurt and the last two were very unusual injuries not the fault of the OL. 

While I liked Mixon, he didn't do the OL any favors by tip-toeing around too much, trying to bounce outside instead of hitting the hole hard and being a patient runner. I'm excited to watch the running game this season.He also left alot of yards out there in the passing game as he seriously struggled beating the 1st defender.

Question - If your team wins the Super Bowl, does every position group get a pass when it comes to needing improvement?

I ask because we've seen plenty of times certain positions perform poorly even if a team advances deep into the postseason or even wins the Super Bowl.

My biggest thing is sacks allowed.

Bengals were 25th in the league at 2.9 sacks allowed per game.
Burrow was 2nd-most in the league at pass attempts per game at 36.5, so it's clear the Bengals are a pass-heavy team.

Let's compare that to the Chiefs and Patrick Mahomes.
Mahomes led the league in pass attempts per game at 37.3.
However, the Chiefs only allowed 1.6 sacks per game, which was 2nd-best in the league.

If you're going to be a pass-heavy team, you need to keep your QB clean.
Playcalling can help some with this by having a good RB and/or TE pass blocking, but the Bengals don't use TEs much to pass block. It's either run block or run routes for TEs.
Bengals heavily depend on their 5 OL keeping defenders off the QB, and they haven't been doing that for quite a few years now.
While other areas of the team might help get the Bengals deep into the playoffs still, pass blocking for the OL is still one of the worse points of this team.

If they can get even to middle of the pack in sacks allowed per game, that would be a big step for them compared to recent years.