Keeping Bill Lazor Is A Mistake

[*ochocincos*]

Facts:
- Offense under Lazor was still not good (went from 32nd in the league by a mile to 32nd in the league by like a quarter mile)
- Zampese had better blocking in '16 than he/Lazor had in '17
- OL performance was abysmal
- Paul Alexander was the OL coach
- There were a lot of screen plays (assumed to mask poor OL play), which resulted in very few, zero, or negative yards. (Were the screens called so much because of a poor blocking OL? Or are they a staple of a Lazor offense?)

The main culprit when it comes to coaching is now gone (Alexander).
That's an improvement.
Someone had the idea to change the blocking scheme and players around in December and we saw improvement. Assuming it wasn't Alexander since he's gone.
That's an improvement.
This team still has the same offensive coordinator who called a ton of screen plays to receivers who were not good at getting YAC. Those receivers are still on the team.
That's potentially a negative because even better OL won't help much for screens since it's the receiver out in space with only other receivers blocking for him or none at all. If the receivers can't get YAC on screens, they won't work very well.

The Bengals don't have many receivers who can create for themselves with the ball in their hands.
Hopefully, the OL is vastly improved this offseason, which will result in a better run game and more time for passing routes to develop, therefore also resulting in fewer screens being called. If there are a lot of screens again, this team is in trouble because they don't have the receivers that are good with gaining a lot of yards on screens.

I'm still not very optimistic about this offense, but I might be after the draft. If the same problems exist in 2018, then Lazor is definitely a part of the problem.