What is the problem with the run game?

[bengals67]

Lots of people on this board know more about football then me

But- when I watch the Steelers, their line seems to hold their block for enough time for Bell to pick out a hole.

In contrast, when I watch our running game, our backs seem to get hit very quickly with very little time for them to spot an opening. They either hit a hole immediately or get smashed immediately.

Maybe this is the result of different blocking schemes but the Pittsburgh style sure seems to be more consistent year to year and work better than our system.

[Shake n Blake]

(03-13-2017, 02:51 PM)Wyche Wrote: We ran a SHIT TON of unbalanced sets that season, remember Roland at "TE"?  My memory may be fuzzy, but I think we ran more sets with a FB too.  That made for easier sledding.

Even in 2009, we ranked 24th in yards per carry. We ran a ton, but we weren't exactly efficient.

(03-13-2017, 02:59 PM)bengalhoel Wrote: 2014: Cincinnati 132.8 yards a game 6th in the NFL

2015:         Cincinnati   111.5  yards a game 13th in the NFL

2016:         Cincinnati  110.6 yards a game 13th in the NFL

So we were excellent in 2014 and above average in 2015 and 2016 according to how much stock you put into rush yards a game.
These stats seem misleading because of the eye test last year , I figured we would be worse.

Like I mentioned, we're a run first team. We were top 8 in attempts in all of these years, so naturally we had the bulk yards.  The only year we were efficient though was 2014 (12th in YPC). Even 2014 wasn't exactly "excellent", and that was easily our best year.

(03-13-2017, 03:47 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: Blocking at the second level.... We hardly ever have the big runs.

& at the first level to some point..

This is some of it, I'd say. We've had a couple small good stretches with run blocking, namely the 9 game stretch with Hill in '14 and a 5 game stretch with BJGE in (I think) '13. We were breaking off chunk gains in those stretches.

[bengalhoel]

(03-13-2017, 05:15 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Like I mentioned, we're a run first team. We were top 8 in attempts in all of these years, so naturally we had the bulk yards.  The only year we were efficient though was 2014 (12th in YPC). Even 2014 wasn't exactly "excellent", and that was easily our best year.

No, I'm with you on this. I just looked at the pure yards ranked and I was surprised because it seemed like we would be way worse than this.

I think playing the Browns twice a year skews the stats also.

[grampahol]

It seems to me that if you're going to be a run first team you better have some bulls on the o-line or you're just a passing team and without a great pass protection line you better be great at running.  Am I missing something here? 

[coachmcneil71]

(03-13-2017, 03:09 PM)eoxyod Wrote: A mix of poor run blocking, running Hill with a square peg/round hole regarding his running style, and Hill also just being bad while getting the majority of snaps

This is my favorite answer thus far. Obviously, the line looks to be in shambles, but Hill mailing it in for halves at a time doesn't help matters.

[SunsetBengal]

Absolutely, Paul Alexander.  He makes it no secret that he values pass protecting ability over run blocking.  Furthermore, his propensity to fall in love with the annual bench press reps champ (see Russell Bodine, Christian Westerman), is totally 1991 mentality.  Run blocking ability is something that is instinctual, a man must have the natural aggression to want to physically dominate another man of equal or larger size.  Some teams use other metrics when judging OL potential.  Things like hand size, broad jump, and short shuttle. 

Alexander claims to run a zone blocking scheme, but he certainly cannot perfect it.  Look at the Denver Broncos.  They are the ones that perfected the zone blocking scheme, they had great success in producing a series of 1K+ yardage backs, with one of the smallest OL averages in the league.  Zone blocking requires power, quickness and agility, in order to execute well orchestrated blocking schemes.  Above all, zone blocking requires synchronistic execution by all 5 components of the OL in a fluid motion.  How may times can you say that Alexander had our OL performing in perfect symphony in the running game?

[*bengalfan74*]

Like many others have said I think it's a combination of several things but IMHO the number 1 thing is schemes/play calling/coaching.

This team is disjointed ! Mike chooses who we have to play, Marvin only cares about the defense, P.A. is doing his thing, Our OC doesn't know what to do so he just runs Hue's old playbook just flipping pages and saying "oh we haven't ran that play in awhile".

There's no one leader, no single vision. So we struggle to do anything correctly.

[Millhouse]

One option not included, which I guess would be other, is/was the lack of talent on the o-line for run blocking. Too many times I just didnt see that initial push at the l.o.s. to do enough to make enough space for the rb, And that doesnt have much to do with coaching or scheming. That has to do more with not being physically capable to do so. Andre Smith was perhaps the best run blocker we have had in years, going back to Steinbachs pulling days. But other than them two, pretty much all other o-lineman have been pretty meh when it comes to the run game, even Whit when he wasnt pulling which was his strength.

[Nicomo Cosca]

Combination of options 1 & 2.

[BengalChris]

I went PA and the blocking scheme, but have to add the quality of the O-linemen to that.

How many times did we see opposing defenders hitting the RB in the backfield. That's a complete fail up front. Someone mentioned about not getting to the second level, but if you miss your blocks on the 1st level there is no second level to worry about.

I also noticed that defenses seemed expect to runs on 1st and 2nd down and were defending those. There was little originality in the play calling.

Another thing that is of note is that we signed our FB for very nice FB deal, but we didn't use him. Hill runs better behind a FB leading the way, but our offense didn't play that style the last two years while we did more of that in 2014.

Somewhere we seemed to have decided we were going to put 4 receivers (counting TEs) on the field on run plays and no FB. This line could not block well enough to eliminate the FB from the equation.

[*Go Cards*]

PA and the fact we go cheap on interior lineman.
Invest in OT's but neglect the rest.