9 hours ago
(9 hours ago)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: No they didn't. The put up a lot of yards, but had a chance to win/put away good teams and they failed almost every time.
We were very productive down 2 scores or early on. Much less so 1 score either way or even or late on.
NE, KC, both Baltimore games, and Chargers were games the O had a chance to win & failed. Multiple chances. Lost shootout to WASH. Couldn't keep up with Philly.
We were 6th in scoring. Eagles were better on points per drive and almostcscored as many points. No way we were better than 7th offensively. 7th/32 is good, but not great or dominant.
And we outright sucked @$$ in short yardage.
The line and the running game are also bad. And we don't have a healthy 2 way TE on the roster.
A kick ass offense wins you games. A kick ass offense gets crucial first fowns late and ends up in victory formation late. We RARELY get there.
The Denver game was the high point. The O did perform well vs terrible teams (Carolina, Raiders, Tenn).
We got a FG late to go up 10 vs Carolina. We legit blew the Raiders away and hammered Tennessee. And Burrow legit bailed us out after we slmost blew the Denver game. But even there we went punt, missed FG, TD in OT.
Yeah, Mac missed a FG, but we got the ball first & punted, too.
Yes, the D was a much bigger problem. Yes, the FG unit cost us 2 games. But the O eon us exactly 1 game vs a non-garbage team. Not great.
I have seen many Bengal teans with better or as good offenses than whatcwe had last year. Anderson teams. Esiason teams. Palmer teams. Dalton teams. In terms of straight scoring, we were better than 6th in: 1981 (3rd), 1982 (4th), 1985 & '86 (3rd), 1988 (1st), 1989 (4th), 1996 (5th), 2005 (4th).
6th in 1969, 1977, 2013.
Burrow is great. Chase is great. The offense isn't. Last 4 years: 7th, 7th, 16th (Buerow injured), 6th..
....and with all of that, Mac hitting a 53 yarder against the Ravens and Daijon Anthony not getting PI on 4th and 16 and this team is 11-6 and no one really talks about it as they head into the playoffs.
We will never truly know some of the chicken or egg issues with this team, offense specifically, I think. Does Burrow take too many sacks because the line is bad? Yes. Does he also take a bunch more because he believes he can make something happen? Yes. Are we bad at rushing especially in short yardage? Yes. Are we bad at rushing in short yardage because we cater to our elite QB who doesn't want to play from under center? Yes. Is Zach Taylor's play calling bad at times? Yes. Does Joe Burrow check into plays at times that make it look worse? Yes.
I think at the end of the day though what we can say is, the offense is good enough to win right now and was good enough to win 11/12 games last year including against two of the best teams in the AFC. I get the desire to protect Burrow, but as mentioned above, I don't know if we are ever going to be able to actually do that because I fear with more protection he just becomes more emboldened to take more risks. It's a double edged sword.
