Our offense has shifted to Joe Mixon

[basballguy]

I think several factors play in here. Teams figured out Chase was a #1 threat and started doubling him. Mixon stopped trying to be a finesse runner and started just hitting the holes hard. Play calling seems to be less predictable too (a la jay gruden).

What i'm most interested in is their ability to adjust at the half. How many times have we seen Marvin play to not lose (when ahead) or stick to the first half game plan (when behind)?

Leveraging Mixon though...that's only going to work as long as he's not trying to be Barry Sanders and dance his way to a first down (which he was doing in previous weeks).

[Fan_in_Kettering]

Joe Mixon is a very bad man — and I mean this as a compliment.

When he runs “angry” it’s a beautiful thing. I’ve seen Joe on television and from a distance but today I saw him up close from the lower section of the stadium and he’s a bad mother f — “Shut your mouth!”

If the offensive line run blocks the rest of the season like they did today then the rest of the league is in trouble. Joe Mixon feasted.

[*Go Cards*]

(11-28-2021, 08:31 PM)BengalsRocker Wrote: I know this thread is about adjusting the offense but can we also mention what a heck of a team player Chase is?

If it's one thing I give Taylor major props for this...  most of the marquis players are pretty unselfish.

These WRs really blocking with heart aside from running routes and catching.

Yep, the little things that make  a big difference. 

Great to see all of the WR's working hard and humbly getting the job done when asked to block. 

Plus Chase is everything the Bengals need him to be in a early draft pic.

[*rfaulk34*]

(11-28-2021, 08:10 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: In the first 7 weeks, Burrow to Chase was on a record shattering pace and almost totally responsible for our 5-2 record.

Burrow was completing 68.9% on a staggering 9.23 yards per attempt. This was mostly thanks to the dominant play of Chase, who had 754 yards and 6 TDs at 21.5 yards/catch.

Over the last 4 weeks, this production has drastically declined.

Burrow is completing 70.1% of his throws, but only for a fairly paltry 6.92 yards/attempt...which is a massive drop of 2.31 per attempt.

This decline coincides directly with Chase...who over the last 4 weeks has only 162 yards and 2 scores on 15 catches (10.8 per catch). This comes on 31 targets. So Burrow is averaging only 5.23 yards per target to Chase.

In short, teams are successfully removing Chase from our offense.

---------------

The point of this thread is this:

1. The removal of Chase from the offense directly led to the ugly losses to the Jets and Browns.

2. Zac Taylor seemingly recognized this, and adjusted the offense drastically.

In the losses to the Jets and Browns, Mixon had a COMBINED 27 carries for 97 yards and 3 TDs.

Over the past 2 wins vs the Raiders and Steelers, Mixon posted 30-123-2 followed by 28-165-2.

In summary, as long as defenses are focused on stopping Burrow/Chase, the offense looks like it's going to run Mixon down their throats. We'll see if defenses start to lean back towards stopping the run. Should be interesting.

Chargers are last against the run but I can see the passing game breaking back out vs the Chargers next Sunday.