10-31-2018, 10:49 AM
(10-30-2018, 01:05 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Hate to burst everyone bubble here but Marvin did not slow down the temp at all or play too conservative in the third quarter with the lead. If you don't believe me then you can go look at the play by play with time stamps at either NFL.com or ProfootballReference.com.
First drive of the first quarter Bengals are snapping the ball every 25-35 second on the game clock except on incomplete passes. Exact same with the first drives of the third quarter.
First drive of the first quarter Bengals run the ball five times an throw two passes. In those three 3-and-out drives to start the second half Bengals throw 5 passes and run the ball 4 times.
Apparently a lot of fans don't really watch what is happening. Instead they just see what people on a message board have told them to see. It is really amazing at times. Last year when we blew that big lead against the Steelers in the second half people here tried to tell me it was because Marvin was too conservative with the play calling but he only ran the ball about 5 times in the entire second half.
Basically this. I just didn’t see something in the second half to indicate to me that it was a tempo issue. No matter how you want to frame what ‘tempo’ is or means or how you change it.
When you’re up 27-9 at half time it hardly seems rational to say hey guys this is working so well why don’t we just change things go no huddle and really hit the gas.
Entering the fourth we were still up 18 points. Why would you hit the panic button with a 34-16 lead. In hindsight yes 18 wasn’t enough but to drastically move away from you game plan that up to that point was working is silly.
They didn’t slow down they didn’t move away from what was working but it certainly did stop working and midway through the fourth they need to figure out how to make a stop on defense not necessarily figure out how to score. It’s ridiculous to expect 40+ points a game to feel good about winning and not be nervous about it.
