09-24-2024, 09:43 AM
(09-24-2024, 09:30 AM)Ell Prez Wrote: Burrow isn’t the problem. Not his play or his contract. Every single QB on a second contract is getting paid top dollar and eating the cap. If you want a second contract, you’re paying roughly the same.
Problem is, and just as I said ALL off season, and was told to relax, is the defense. Since being good, we lost Bates, reader, Chido, bell (hear me out). We replaced them with stone (one year wonder in a Baltimore system that is always good), rankins (oh we don’t need to stop the run we need to tush the qb from the DT position, Dax hill (we have these young inexperienced unproven cbs that will be just fine), and a washed up Bell (yay bell is back, after being awful in Carolina and now 2 years older than when he was last here). How is that improving? We didn’t improve at LB. We tried at DE, but missed on Murphy. Hubbard is coming off an injury and getting older.
If you didn’t see this train wreck of a defense coming, then that’s on you. I saw it, I called it. However I did think this offense would overcome it. The SB defense lived off turnovers, not actually stopping the other team. Now turnovers aren’t coming and we’re exposed as a team that can’t stop the run, can’t tackle, and can barely cover.
I said the season was over after the first game of the year. I was told to relax and I’m not a bengals fan. No, I’m a realist. This team is not good, and they’re not winning a Super Bowl, making the AFC championship game, or even making the playoffs. We got a top 10 pick coming in. I wanted to tank last year after burrow went down so we could pick higher in all 7 rounds. When do we start tanking now? When do we trade Tee for something more than a 3rd round comp pick?
The SB team defensively was opportunistic and was excellent, iirc, in the redzone but that's hard to live off of from season to season. Lou did not want to lose Bates or Reader yet they let both go and did not replace either of them with real solid players. Their DL does not have a true 1 gap DL. Somebody that commands a double once in awhile nor a guy that can shed a block and still make the play.
LB play is really only as good as their DL as they have alot of responsibility in covering and manning the middle of the field and filling run gaps and that's freakin' hard to do when their DL is that bad getting to the QB and defending the run, more importantly.
What they finally did offensively was to stick to the run game which haven't done in years. This offense is humming with alot of weapons now but you'll never win a game the way this D is.
