Why do the Bengals best players almost always leave in some sort of controversy...

[*ochocincos*]

(12-09-2020, 01:19 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Just like Dunlap, right?

AJ is definitely nowhere close to what he once was, but I highly doubt he’s truly as bad as we’re seeing either. There’s absolutely an effort issue, imo, and that comes down to being disgruntled with the coach and the team in general. He did have 2 good games against Cleveland and Indy earlier this season, which makes you wonder why it’s been so bad the rest of the time.

One thing why I'm not sure AJ Green is truly washed up but rather something else is going on is his average yards of separation is basically the same between 2018 and 2020.

2018 - 1.17 yards
2020 - 1.16 yards

So AJ Green is getting basically the same amount of separation that he did the last season he played. So let's compare the actual stats:
2018 (9 games) - 77 targets, 46 receptions, 694 yards, 6 TDs, 15.1 YPR, catch percentage 59.7%
2020 (12 games) - 81 targets, 35 receptions, 357 yards, 1 TD, 10.2 YPR, catch percentage 43.2%

The glaring thing that stands out is catch percentage. So let's look at catchable target rate:
2018 - 77.9% (60 targets out of 77)
2020 - 63.0% (51 targets out of 81)

It's also worth noting the QB Rating when targeted:
2018 - 110.0
2020 - 55.4

So it looks like Burrow is less accurate throwing to AJ Green compared to how Dalton was in 2018.
So let's see if Burrow is the same with Boyd, Higgins, and Sample...
Higgins - 83.1% catchable target rate, 107.0 QB Rating when targeted
Boyd - 84.5% catchable target rate, 95.6 QB Rating when targeted
Sample - 86.4% catchable target rate, 83.6 QB Rating when targeted

So it appears that the problem is not necessarily Burrow, but it's the sync between Burrow and Green, and/or the routes that Green is running in Taylor's scheme vs what he did under Lazor's scheme.

I collected these metrics between pro-football-reference.com and playerprofiler.com