Three plus years now of bad blocking schemes

[Joelist]

This goes all the way back to when Lazor got Piano Man overruled.

What is the infatuation this team has with these zone react schemes? They rob the linemen of aggression and initiative and also rely a LOT on communication and rapidly shifting assignments. And with the biggest issue with our line being defenders flying in unblocked because of assignment errors and missed communications it's pretty obvious the scheme is too complex for them at this point.

At this point I think they need to revert to a simple, old fashioned drive blocking scheme. At least until they play together enough for some sort of group sync to develop. It can't be worse than now, let's them aggressively engage the defense and hopefully stops the unblocked defender issue at least in part.

[bengaloo]

I'm not a big scheme guy as far as my knowledge goes, but imo, we need better OL players plain and simple. Ours suck bad outside of Hopkins and Williams. I'm not big on Turner, but I dont know if there is an OL coach who could get a whole lot more out of our guys. We get ran over an pushed around all the time.

[Joelist]

By making these guys run a complex zone react scheme they obviously cannot execute we are setting them up to fail. If we simplify it and just use drive blocking maybe they actually can execute it and lessen the problems.

[ezekiel23]

From what I observed today,the missed assignments appears to be a lot of the problem with this O-line.Of course,consider the fact that they were facing a much more complex defense than they faced last week against Jacksonville.This Ravens defense is very talented and very well coached.With their schemes and tactics they confused the Bengals O-line.Bottom line is,To have any hopes of improving this O-line,I would have to start by firing the coach.Their performance today was actually embarrassing.I don’t care if it was against one of the better defenses in the league.

[Bengalholic]

(10-11-2020, 10:45 PM)bengaloo Wrote: I'm not a big scheme guy as far as my knowledge goes, but imo, we need better OL players plain and simple. Ours suck bad outside of Hopkins and Williams. I'm not big on Turner, but I dont know if there is an OL coach who could get a whole lot more out of our guys. We get ran over an pushed around all the time.

Not only pushed around, but defenders are beating our guys off the snap far too often. I get sick of seeing rushers in the backfield before Joe even has a chance to plant. Today, guys were flying around Jonah and Hart untouched, and penetrating up the gut with regularity. 

If the o-line issues were a recent development, it would be one thing...but damn, we're about 4 years into this now, with no signs that it's going to get better any time soon. Between whiffing on draft picks (Og, Price, Fisher) and signing backup level or mediocre linemen as starters (Hart, Miller, XSF) - it's left the line in a mess, with no real options, or talent, at their disposal to try to improve much this year.

Then, there's scheme and coaching, which has also been a reoccurring problem. All these issues combined have left them with one huge fustercluck of a situation. If the o-line (adding talent and better OL coach) isn't the #1 priority this offseason, then there's no other way to look at this front office/HC as anything other than inept and clueless. 

[CJD]

We hired the wrong Callahan.

[Au165]

...it's not the scheme. Blocking schemes in football are one of the less complicated things when talking about schemes. There aren't a ton of options and frankly we have tried pretty much all of them in various forms at this point. At some point you have to accept the players are not good. Hopkins is overrated here simply because he wasn't as bad as Price. Jordan has not developed nearly as well as they had hoped and we are probably looking at needing a new LG next year. Jonah has shown flashes but has been horrible at other times, not because of scheme but because of lapses in technique. The whole right side is, and has been, a mess for a while now.

Bad players are bad, that is the issue with the O line. We have gone through three offensive line coaches hoping some magic scheme was going to fix the issues, but the issues all come back to a lack of talent. Think about this, if scheme is the issue and we have former 1st rounder Billy Price on our bench why hasn't another team swooped in to salvage Price in a league where O line is in high demand? If the issues are scheme then another team's "better scheme" should save him right?

...it's because bad players are bad.

[Bengalholic]

(10-12-2020, 10:04 AM)Au165 Wrote: ...it's not the scheme. Blocking schemes in football are one of the less complicated things when talking about schemes. There aren't a ton of options and frankly we have tried pretty much all of them in various forms at this point. At some point you have to accept the players are not good. Hopkins is overrated here simply because he wasn't as bad as Price. Jordan has not developed nearly as well as they had hoped and we are probably looking at needing a new LG next year. Jonah has shown flashes but has been horrible at other times, not because of scheme but because of lapses in technique. The whole right side is, and has been, a mess for a while now.

Bad players are bad, that is the issue with the O line. We have gone through three offensive line coaches hoping some magic scheme was going to fix the issues, but the issues all come back to a lack of talent. Think about this, if scheme is the issue and we have former 1st rounder Billy Price on our bench why hasn't another team swooped in to salvage Price in a league where O line is in high demand? If the issues are scheme then another team's "better scheme" should save him right?

...it's because bad players are bad.

Yeah, I mean at some point you just have to admit your players aren't good enough, regardless of scheme. 

There was a play in the 2nd quarter where both Hart and Redmund were beaten badly, and it wasn't even a blitz. Another time, I think late 3rd quarter, the right side collapsed again on a pretty simple straight up blitz. Hart didn't even touch his guy and Redmund barely made contact. There were times were both Jordan and Hart were drove into Burrow's lap right after, or as, he planted.

The guard play has been especially bad, and having Hart at RT certainly does them no favors. 

[Au165]

(10-12-2020, 02:37 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Yeah, I mean at some point you just have to admit your players aren't good enough, regardless of scheme. 

There was a play in the 2nd quarter where both Hart and Redmund were beaten badly, and it wasn't even a blitz. Another time, I think late 3rd quarter, the right side collapsed again on a pretty simple straight up blitz. Hart didn't even touch his guy and Redmund barely made contact. There were times were both Jordan and Hart were drove into Burrow's lap right after, or as, he planted.

The guard play has been especially bad, and having Hart at RT certainly does them no favors. 

My thing is it's not like Russell Bodine, Cedric Ogbeuhi, Jake Fisher, Cordy Glenn, etc all left and were good magically. We had two guys here as we melted down in Whitworth and Zeitler who were good, they left to "other schemes" and were still good. Everyone we keep bringing in, no matter what scheme we run has been bad. This to me screams we are horrible at evaluating talent.

The irony is that it's the college scheme that most likely is making these elite college guys look better than they are in the pros. In college, it is easier to hide flaws of guys than it is in the NFL because 1. you only face an elite rusher once or twice a year, and 2. the weaknesses in defenses are easier to identify which allows you to gameplan around elite pass rushers and working away from them quickly. In the case of someone like Price, I think it comes down to a mix of upper-level talent around him and a lack of matchups against "Elite" rushers.

[*bfine32*]

It's the scheme more so than the players.

What if I told you 5 of the 7 sacks yesterday came from DBs?

[Bengalfan4life27c]

(10-12-2020, 03:04 PM)bfine32 Wrote: It's the scheme more so than the players.

What if I told you 5 of the 7 sacks yesterday came from DBs?

Great point. A good coach can adjust and burn them for a big play. We have Zac Taylor. 

[Bengalholic]

(10-12-2020, 03:04 PM)bfine32 Wrote: It's the scheme more so than the players.

What if I told you 5 of the 7 sacks yesterday came from DBs?

Scheme matters to a point, but scheme doesn't explain why guys are getting manhandled, pushed around or constantly driven back after engaging the defender. It doesn't explain bad footwork, poor technique or lack of effort at times. 

Scheme can only mask so much. When the players in that scheme just aren't very good, it's eventually going to get exposed.

[*ochocincos*]

(10-11-2020, 10:52 PM)Joelist Wrote: By making these guys run a complex zone react scheme they obviously cannot execute we are setting them up to fail. If we simplify it and just use drive blocking maybe they actually can execute it and lessen the problems.

Yep.
These OL are not skilled enough to handle the scheme.
Simplify it and play to their strengths. I think we'd see quite an improvement from the Gs especially, as Jordan and Price are used to driving off the ball when at Ohio St and Redmond's skill set fits it better too.

[*bfine32*]

(10-12-2020, 03:17 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Scheme matters to a point, but scheme doesn't explain why guys are getting manhandled, pushed around or constantly driven back after engaging the defender. It doesn't explain bad footwork, poor technique or lack of effort at times. 

Scheme can only mask so much. When the players in that scheme just aren't very good, it's eventually going to get exposed.

1 sack yesterday came from a dlineman. Our oline held up very well in pass protection. Folks were coming through untouched. The most talented olinemen in the NFL cannot block people they don't touch. Joe was pressured a lot because of poor scheme and he held onto the ball and I dig it. It will be easier to speed him up than slow him down. I don't expect folks that have made up their minds to change their opinions. 

[Au165]

(10-12-2020, 03:17 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Yep.
These OL are not skilled enough to handle the scheme.
Simplify it and play to their strengths. I think we'd see quite an improvement from the Gs especially, as Jordan and Price are used to driving off the ball when at Ohio St and Redmond's skill set fits it better too.

You can't get any simpler than what we are running, I am not sure how else to explain this to people. We are playing B.O.B, the issue is on an odd 3-4 front you have 3 down linemen and you have to ID 2 "backers" (these can be defensive backs as well). On overloads, you HAVE to slide to the overload and play backside B.O.B there is literally no other way to play it. In a four-man front B.O.B is a little simpler to call because you are usually only designating the "Mike" and then the 6th man is either picked up by pulling in a TE/WR or you throw hot.

What makes the Ravens so tough to stop, especially for a rookie, is that when you go to ID the 2 backs they often aren't the 2 backs coming as you expect. When that occurs and you have misidentified the blitzes your O linemen are either good enough to adjust on the fly or they aren't. We either need perfect protection Id'ing (which you aren't getting from a rookie) or you need competent O linemen to make up for it...which we don't have.

Side note, to people saying "Sacks came from none D linemen so our line was good" you are 100% wrong. In an odd front look with B.O.B your O linemen are responsible for two of the "backers/DB's", simply saying since they weren't d linemen they weren't the O lines responsability is simply not true. Plenty of the misses came on bad HB pick up but plenty were guys either not getting the right protection set, or on a few issues, not getting out to their guy.

[Bengalholic]

(10-12-2020, 03:25 PM)bfine32 Wrote: 1 sack yesterday came from a dlineman. Our oline held up very well in pass protection. Folks were coming through untouched. The most talented olinemen in the NFL cannot block people they don't touch. Joe was pressured a lot because of poor scheme and he held onto the ball and I dig it. It will be easier to speed him up than slow him down. I don't expect folks that have made up their minds to change their opinions. 

They also can't block people when they make a half-hearted attempt and watch them go by, as the examples of Hart and Redmund I talked about. What scheme would have made them engage the defender better instead of flailing their arms after being beaten off the snap, losing position and displaying poor footwork?

Scheme can help. Better coaching could for sure help. Having more talented linemen would definitely help.

[J24]

Like others have said it's the players and lack of talent.

[*bfine32*]

(10-12-2020, 03:31 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: They also can't block people when they make a half-hearted attempt and watch them go by, as the examples of Hart and Redmund I talked about. What scheme would have made them engage the defender better instead of flailing their arms after being beaten off the snap, losing position and displaying poor footwork?

As I said. i don't expect anyone to change his opinion but when 5 of 7 sacks come from DBs (The first time in 30 years 5 DBs got 5 sacks) at a minimum it should at least make people say hhhmmmm..

If they were constantly getting beaten off the snap and failing to engage then Dlinemen would have gotten more than 1 of the 7 sacks. 

[Bengalholic]

(10-12-2020, 03:38 PM)bfine32 Wrote: As I said. i don't expect anyone to change his opinion but when 5 of 7 sacks come from DBs (The first time in 30 years 5 DBs got 5 sacks) at a minimum it should at least make people say hhhmmmm..

If they were constantly getting beaten off the snap and failing to engage then Dlinemen would have gotten more than 1 of the 7 sacks. 

If you re-watch the game, watch what the Ravens were doing and why the sacks were coming from the DB's. You'll see that focus on the fact that DB's were getting sacks is focusing on the wrong thing, when it comes to the o-line.

[GreenCornBengal]

I think Burrow and Hopkins both failed to recognize pressure a lot of the time. The Ravens must have changed things up because there were many times they didn’t even know where it was coming from. Part of it is scheme, but part of it is bad execution. I think yesterday was in large part bad execution by a rookie QB. I don’t know how much responsibility he has in determining if backs block and where to block but whoever has that responsibility whiffed a lot yesterday.