Three stooges FO!

[*ochocincos*]

As much as I have been frustrated by the lack of production for Iosivas between the 20's and lack of snaps Burton has gotten (probably because he's still not ready to do much besides a go route), the offense still put up 33 points and 436 total yards of offense. They really did their job overall.

It's the defense that time and time again this year has really disappointed.
And for some of these, they've been problems before this season.

One example is the lack of run defense.
Reader was a huge staple in run defense, and the Bengals went out and replaced him with really a 3T in Rankins.
Add in that Hill and Rankins were both out due to injury, Jenkins had missed the first two games, and Jackson has missed all three games.
That puts a huge magnifying glass on the DT production (or lack thereof) this year.

Add in Murphy being hurt, which has impacted the edge.
No one other than Hendrickson at edge can seem to do anything.
Ossai has played 40% of the defensive snaps and has 0 sacks. I thought he would have kept building on his 3.5 sacks as a rookie, but he's gone the opposite direction.
Hubbard is probably the biggest disappointment on the DL. Also 0 sacks but 75% of the defensive snaps. He's normally a 6-8 sack guy, but age might be catching up to him. He's 29 years old.

It's hard to get on the secondary too much when your Front 6 gets so little pressure and the QB is also good at scrambling to extend the plays.
Jayden Daniels looked like prime Ben Roethlisberger out there.

At the end of the day, we knew the Bengals were going to have to start hitting and developing young guys because Burrow's (and Chase's) contract has started eating into the money they can provide to other FAs.
They haven't hit on a DL since Taylor became the HC and it shows.

On the plus side, the LBs do look good, and the offense is starting to adapt and look a whole lot better compared to Week 1.