My takeaways from the Bears game

[Timanky12]

Bengals keep playing not to lose, instead of playing to win. We wait until we fall behind, before they start opening up the offense.
I grow tired of watching the same play calling over and over with no results. Last week, we didn’t start moving the ball until 3/4 way thru the 2nd quarter, this week until end of 4th quarter. What are they waiting for.

[Essex Johnson]

(09-20-2021, 01:33 PM)Timanky12 Wrote: Bengals keep playing not to lose, instead of playing to win.  We wait until we fall behind, before they start opening up the offense.
I grow tired of watching the same play calling over and over with no results. Last week, we didn’t start moving the ball until 3/4 way thru the 2nd quarter, this week until end of 4th quarter. What are they waiting for.

Posted earlier, we were effective moving the ball in 1st half, we had first downs 1 to 3 on every series in 1st half except the one right before half with like 40 secs left.  What hurt us in 1st half was sack killed one drive and Burrow ineffective on 3 and 4/5 twice.  We had 3 passes at least that went for 10 or more yards in 1st half.

2nd half, started with 1st down, had Higgins just open on a deep pass but Burrow throw it on back end of shoulder and just missed it, sacked also did that drive in.  On our 2nd possession in half, we threw a nice pass down field to Higgins was going for over 20 or more but he fumbled, after that we had 3 more straight turnovers.. which just blows out any game plan you might have had, your not winning most games with 4 straight turnovers in 2nd half... by the time we got ball back , party was over, Bears played more prevent and we had to throw deep which we connected on 1 of 2 but that was it.... 

[CJD]

1 year ago (to the day), I made this thread and I feel like basically every point still stands today.

[XenoMorph]

(09-19-2021, 05:21 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: 1. Zac Taylor and Brian Callahan must be fired soon.
Their offensive play calling and lack of adjustments were the worst part of the game. The Bears CBs were squatting on come backs and curl routes all game because the Bengals absolutely refused to call any deep shots until the last 10 minutes of the game (where we, magically, started scoring some points). The 5 WR plays did nothing all game and they didn't abuse the defense's aggressiveness with screens at all the entire game. A sound coach would notice what was happening and start calling double moves, but those calls never happened. These two are not fit to call games in low level college games, let alone the NFL. They need to be replaced immediately.

2. Joe Burrow is still suffering from his injury in some way; either physically or mentally.
He didn't move in the pocket at all, he didn't try to escape any sacks like he usually does and he took the check down way too quickly, even when he wasn't immediately pressured. He was staring down his receivers and kept throwing the short passes even when it was clear the Bears were squatting on everything short, as you could see with his second interception intended for Tee Higgins. I think he will recover as the season goes on and I think Zac's shit play calling also had something to do with this, as the 5 WR sets obviously made Burrow uncomfortable holding onto the ball, but he did not play well today.

3. The play calling was awful.
This is a bit of a re-hash, but I think it deserves it's own observation. The problem with running on first down and second down is it makes your only passing attempt a "must convert" play. So, you run for 3 on first, run for 3 on second, you have a manageable 3rd down (3rd and 5), but the defense also knows that you need 5 yards or they win the drive. This means they can sit on short routes, relying on their pass rush to force Joe to throw short. This worked wonders for the Bears all game. If they were to pass on first or second down, they could call some deep shots or even intermediate routes and, if they are incomplete, no big deal. You have 1 to 2 more chances to get the first down. When you run on both 1st and 2nd down, you are telling the defense what your 3rd down play will be, and that is WAY too easy to predict and stop.

4. This Oline is not good.
I know that we already knew this, but I think our game against Minnesota gave us some hope that is not merited. We need a new RG, a new RT and our average center and LG could probably be replaced as well. Pressure was getting to Joe way too quickly and the play calling was not doing us any favors either (5 WR sets, very little protection assistance from TEs and RBs).

5. This defense is solid.
It isn't a lockdown defense by any means. Dalton really exploited the defense on that first drive and our CBs need to work on tackling (and not committing pass interference 30 yards down the field, Eli...) but overall they're not going to be the reason this team loses games most of the time. Our secondary is good, our LBs are ascending and our Dline has some good players who flash real potential. I'd prefer we get better at containment on 3rd down because the QBs ran a bit too easily on us (even Dalton who is not a great runner), but overall I can't complain too much about what they brought to this game. They did what they needed to do to win the game. We held Dalvin Cook to 3.05 yards per carry in week 1 and we held David Montgomery to the exact same stat line in week 2 (20 carries, 61 yards). If they keep that up, we'll be fine. We just need to get this offense right, which I think means we need to fire our play callers. But, of course, I don't expect this to happen.



This game was insanely frustrating to watch. From the short passes all game to the run run pass scheme that never ever works, it was actually painful watching this offense for most of the day. But even with how bad this offense was, we still had a chance to win at the end because of our defense.

I have hope that this team can put together a full game at some point this season and I'm looking forward to that day. But, for the time being, we're the definition of a work in progress.

Add pollock in with Zac and Brian