02-26-2025, 07:57 PM
(02-26-2025, 11:28 AM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I think I'm one of the very few that doesn't buy into the whole slow start thing: if this was a recurring, "problem," like many try to make it out to be, then it would mean the team would come out flat/uninspired/play poorly/etc.
If we go back and look at every game and situation for each game, since '20:
'20:
- We beat the Chargers, refs took it away from us and then Fat Randy missed a FG that should've been made.
- Lost to the Browns, who were a well-oiled machine in '20 and our defense couldn't stop anyone.
- Tied the Eagles, really was a weird game, but we didn't play poorly.
'21: (Burrow coming off of knee reconstruction)
- Beat the Vikings, played well throughout.
- Lost to the Bears, Burrow had a rough go at it, but the D played well and when Burrow got the ball to receivers, it was a good thing.
- We played VERY WELL against the Stoolers and exposed Ben for being done. D and O outplayed them.
'22: (Burrow coming off of appendicitis)
- Really should've beaten the Stoolers. Took Burrow's worst game of his career, a concussed Higgins and a LS injury to make us lose it, otherwise this would've been a win.
- Weird loss to the Cowboys. Played a decent game, but something was missing it seemed, the game was always within reach, but we weren't able to capitalize.
- Dominated a lowly Jets team and this was clearly a, "get back on track," game for the team.
'23: (Burrow couldn't walk)
- Burrow couldn't move and the Browns clobbered him, was an ugly game indeed.
- Played well against the Ravens, D just couldn't stop them.
- With Burrow still unable to walk, the D stepped up and played a superb game, coming up with timely plays.
'24:
- Another ugly game, still should've won, a lot of stupid shit happened.
- Another game that we won, but the refs took it from us with a piss-poor call that I barely saw get called for the rest of the year. We played well.
- D was a sieve: the Offense played masterfully, but the defense was putrid.
So looking at these games, we really only played, "badly," on all sides in 2 games, both losses. We had mediocre/one side of the ball played well only showings in 8 of those games, going 1-6-1 and then we had 5 really good games and were 3-2 in those.
If there was one thing we could point to in order to say, "THAT'S the reason why they're losing games," then I can absolutely agree about changing something about the offseason, but truly, a lot of the games have been weird or just mediocre: only 2 of these 15 games were we truly BAD and played like we didn't belong and one happened when Burrow was hurt, the other was just flat-out weird (NE game this year). And then in half of these losses, a bounce here or a bounce there (which actually includes the NE game from this year) meant a win for us.
Thus, I've never subscribed to the whole narrative around, "slow starts," as each season has had different reasons why we've lost games, without one singular thing to point at AND we've played well-enough in 13 of the 15 games. I am hopeful that changing up the offseason program may shake things up a bit for the better (if even to try something different, just for difference sake), but I wouldn't be surprised if things aren't different wholesale from the previous 5 years, simply because the on-field product hasn't been as bad as the narrative seems.
There does seem to be a common thread though and it's Burrow. This past year he seemed to get thru it much quicker only the one game so the injuries may have prolonged in the previous two seasons and in 21' we may not have had that high of a bar for him being his 2nd season and coming back from knee surgery. But following people on Twitter it's been a common thread of is Burrow okay? He's not seeing the field properly and pulling the trigger when he normally does. To me this falls more on the coaches not gameplanning to help him out enough and just getting some preseason work although I realize that hasn't been possible some of these years. I certainly don't think we need to completely rethink our offseason training as I read Zacs words to be but as long as it's done smartly it shouldn't hurt.
