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Great news guys. The Bengals offense ranks 4th in the league in yards per play (6.6) and our defense ranks 12th (4.9).
The only problem is that we rank dead last in the league in offensive plays with just 50 while our defense ranks 29th in opponents plays (77).
Last year the Bills offense led the league in total 3rd down conversions with 6.3 per game. Sunday the Colts converted 11 third downs. Last year the Atlanta Falcons led the league in 3rd down conversions rate at 45%. Sunday the Colts converted 65% of their third downs.
Hopefully getting Burfict and Williams back in there will help with some of these third down conversions.
Bengals defense only allowed one completion longer then 20 yards (only 2 teams allowed zero) and they rank 12th in the league in yards allowed per attempt (6.0), But they need to do something about the shorts stuff underneath.
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It's a product of the Colts scheme, they made a move under their new coach to work a lot more underneath in a west coast fashion. I'm not too worried about it, the 3rd down thing won't be as bad a problem when we face teams that are more vertical. Off the top of my head I can only think of three attempts over 20 yards by the Colts which is pretty low. When teams go more vertical we will get more sacks and so on and so forth.
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Indy came out with 2 Tight Ends which was smart since it dictated our base run defense be on the field with Michael Johnson and not our pass rush defense. When we got behind though out the first half it's why we didn't generate much pressure. In the second half we adjusted and basically threw caution to the wind since we were behind and brought out the nickel pass rush team with a lot of Glasgow, Lawson, and Willis. As a side note it's awesome we have a deep rotation because Luck was on pace for 90 plays.
But once we got the lead the pass rush line was way more effective. This also shows other teams and ourselves why getting out to a lead will be imperative for this team. We do not want Michael Johnson on the field if possible, he sucks.
I also thought it was an odd choice to put Nickerson in the game instead of Vigil/Evans or Rey on run stops. It makes we wonder why Rey is on this team because Nickerson is not much more than a teachers pet. He is not particularly fast or athletic. With that said, he did okay and only had a few errors. I guess they realized how horrible Rey is in coverage.
The corners played well. They played a deep zone coverage so Luck didn't beat them over the top. Evans screwed up on the Ebron TD, or just got beat, not sure.
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65% 3rd down conversion rate by the Colts offense, not good....
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One downfall of having a big play capable offense, is the fact that the defense spends so much time on the field. Sure, this is concerning, but as the OL continues to gel, the running game should develop linearly.
Volson is meh, but I like him, and he has far exceeded my expectations
-Frank Booth 1/9/23
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Well we have the king of dink and dunk coming here Thursday.
“History teaches that grave threats to liberty often come in times of urgency, when constitutional rights seem too extravagant to endure.”-Thurgood Marshall
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I'm thinking the Bengals defense played cover zero (or some version of it) most of the game which lets them have that first 5-9 yards, but prevents them from being able to go deep at any point except for that one blown play with Ebron. Cover zero really does rely on the defenses ability to close in quick to make the tackles to keep the offense from being able to score on intermediate to deep passes. Apparently it worked out to perfection and we won da game . Dink and dunk can work, but you really need a decent running game to offset it and Indy had no real run game to speak of. Baltimore is going to pose different challenges and they're going to have some kind of running game to contend with..
In the immortal words of my old man, "Wait'll you get to be my age!"
Chicago sounds rough to the maker of verse, but the one comfort we have is Cincinnati sounds worse. ~Oliver Wendal Holmes Sr.