“We’re a Second Half Team”

[Fan_in_Kettering]

I’m not buying the “second half team” excuse any longer. Oh, sure, this worked against Kansas City twice last year but big comebacks are outliers in the NFL, not the norm. While it is statistically true the Bengals have lost two games by a combined six points this season, in reality the games were not that close.

Lou Anarumo has the defense playing at an above average level and this is why the Bengals went to the Super Bowl after running the tables in the playoffs. All those big Burrow to Chase plays took place in the regular season. The Cincinnati defense is continuing their good play in 2022 but even they will have to tighten things up significantly to allow less points than the offense can currently score.

The Cincinnati Bengals will not truly be great until they can play with physical intensity from the opening kickoff onward. Just once I would like to see the team go into halftime with a huge lead instead of going into halftime way behind thereby requiring frantic adjustments to be made in the second half. The best teams start strong and finish stronger.

[THE PISTONS]

Honestly, I don't think we have the coaching staff to be an elite team. It's Year 4 for Zac. The light should have came on by now.

Teams throw a Cover 2 at us and it puzzles them.

[Leon]

(09-19-2022, 12:24 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: I’m not buying the “second half team” excuse any longer.  Oh, sure, this worked against Kansas City twice last year but big comebacks are outliers in the NFL, not the norm.  While it is statistically true the Bengals have lost two games by a combined six points this season, in reality the games were not that close.  

Lou Anarumo has the defense playing at an above average level and this is why the Bengals went to the Super Bowl after running the tables in the playoffs.  All those big Burrow to Chase plays took place in the regular season. The Cincinnati defense is continuing their good play in 2022 but even they will have to tighten things up significantly to allow less points than the offense can currently score.  

The Cincinnati Bengals will not truly be great until they can play with physical intensity from the opening kickoff onward.  Just once I would like to see the team go into halftime with a huge lead instead of going into halftime way behind thereby requiring frantic adjustments to be made in the second half.  The best teams start strong and finish stronger.

if it wasnt for lou they dont beat kc or make it to sb or be close in the 2 games this year.. lou made zac look good an now we stuck with him for years. lou way better coach than zac is.

[THE PISTONS]

The defense gave up...what 17 1st half points? Dallas didn't score a TD last week.

We have what 1 sack in 2 games?

The narrative that Lou is some great DC is false. The defense may be average at best.

[Fan_in_Kettering]

(09-19-2022, 12:26 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Honestly, I don't think we have the coaching staff to be an elite team. It's Year 4 for Zac. The light should have came on by now.

The light flickered on and off in 2021 but the bulb is totally shot now. This smells like 2020 all over again.

[Leon]

(09-19-2022, 12:26 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Teams throw a Cover 2 at us and it puzzles them.

it confuses burrow and scares zac. not a good combo

[THE PISTONS]

(09-19-2022, 12:29 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: The light flickered on and off in 2021 but the bulb is totally shot now.  This smells like 2020 all over again.

Big plays made it appear that way. The league wasn't ready for Chase. Now they are.

[*Nately120*]

(09-19-2022, 12:29 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: The light flickered on and off in 2021 but the bulb is totally shot now.  This smells like 2020 all over again.

2020 was a (hopefully) fluke since Burrow got injured, but I did point out that there is a bit of a 2009 to 2010 feeling in the air at the moment.  We got better on paper and SHOULD be better, but we went from a 4th place schedule to a 1st place one, we aren't a sneaky surprise good team anymore, and the magic isn't appearing in the close games like it was the year before.




DISCLAIMER - It's only week 2, I'm open to the idea that Burrow and Chase and ZT will magically turn back into a SB any day now.

[Leon]

(09-19-2022, 12:28 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The defense gave up...what 17 1st half points? Dallas didn't score a TD last week.

We have what 1 sack in 2 games?

The narrative that Lou is some great DC is false. The defense may be average at best.

no one said hes great, but hes better than zac. his coaching got us to the sb last year an has kept us in games this year when offense go over half the game playing like crap an leaving them on the field. hes got way more guts than zac to

[Frank Booth]

(09-19-2022, 12:28 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The defense gave up...what 17 1st half points? Dallas didn't score a TD last week.

We have what 1 sack in 2 games?

The narrative that Lou is some great DC is false. The defense may be average at best.

run defense is great, pass rush is the issue. Bad pass rush leads to receivers getting open downfield.

you're being as big of a baby as Nicomo. Secondary has played fine, they get no help from the front 4.

18ppg allowed through 2 games. Good no matter how you slice it. Offense is the reason the bengals have lost both games. And a back up long snapper

[CJD]

(09-19-2022, 12:26 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Honestly, I don't think we have the coaching staff to be an elite team. It's Year 4 for Zac. The light should have came on by now.

Teams throw a Cover 2 at us and it puzzles them.

This is what is crazy to me. Our coaches keep saying "Oh, they are playing a lot of cover 2." It's like...do they think this is a novel defense that is tough to beat? Sure, you may need to adjust your strategy and stop running so many deep routes and take the underneath and middle stuff, especially against the tampa 2 variety, but this should not befuddle them the way that it has.

Zac is a college quality offensive coordinator playing NFL head coach and play caller and it's gotten really bad. He is ruining Joe Burrow and is failing to utilize one of the most talented groups of receivers in the entire NFL.

I've wanted the Bengals to fire Zac since the end of the 2020 season so maybe I'm biased, but these first two games are just further cementing my belief that Zac is holding this team back with poor playcalling and poor game design.

It should not be automatically known that when Burrow lines up under center that they are going to run. That is so sad that an NFL offense is this predictable. I look at teams like Miami who actually have a "genius" as a play caller and just wish we could hire a legitimate NFL head coach rather than just keeping chugging away with this sad excuse whose only game plan seems to be "Joe, go slip a sack that was caused by my poor play design and then hit Chase down the field when the defense has lost track of him." That's not a coherent offensive game plan and it is not surprising at all that we're regressing to the mean so far this year. I'm starting to believe the people who thought last year was a fluke. It sure ***** feels like it was right now.

[Nicomo Cosca]

(09-19-2022, 12:30 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Big plays made it appear that way. The league wasn't ready for Chase. Now they are.

Eh, Chase still had 130 yds and 2 TD’s last week. Elite players are going to make plays.

Today they didn’t even attempt to take any shots. Our longest play was 19 yds. And it’s not a matter of “not having time.” They had a bad OL last season, too, and the vertical is one of the fastest balls to get off.

The coaching/play calling is a big problem right now.

[*bengalfan74*]

14-34-1

This offense has looked overmatched, overwhelmed, and outcoached - BAD in both these sorry games. And at some point, you are what your record says you are.

[TKUHL]

(09-19-2022, 12:24 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: I’m not buying the “second half team” excuse any longer. Oh, sure, this worked against Kansas City twice last year but big comebacks are outliers in the NFL, not the norm. While it is statistically true the Bengals have lost two games by a combined six points this season, in reality the games were not that close.

Lou Anarumo has the defense playing at an above average level and this is why the Bengals went to the Super Bowl after running the tables in the playoffs. All those big Burrow to Chase plays took place in the regular season. The Cincinnati defense is continuing their good play in 2022 but even they will have to tighten things up significantly to allow less points than the offense can currently score.

The Cincinnati Bengals will not truly be great until they can play with physical intensity from the opening kickoff onward. Just once I would like to see the team go into halftime with a huge lead instead of going into halftime way behind thereby requiring frantic adjustments to be made in the second half. The best teams start strong and finish stronger.

Pretty sure I heard that Burrow has only one TD on the first and second drives in a game in his career here.

[TKUHL]

Maybe Lou can call the offensive plays in the first half :)

[*michaelsean*]

(09-19-2022, 12:33 AM)Nately120 Wrote: 2020 was a (hopefully) fluke since Burrow got injured, but I did point out that there is a bit of a 2009 to 2010 feeling in the air at the moment.  We got better on paper and SHOULD be better, but we went from a 4th place schedule to a 1st place one, we aren't a sneaky surprise good team anymore, and the magic isn't appearing in the close games like it was the year before.




DISCLAIMER - It's only week 2, I'm open to the idea that Burrow and Chase and ZT will magically turn back into a SB any day now.

The fourth place to first place is only three games. The Bengals were 1-2 in the last place schedule games last year so not really an excuse.

[*michaelsean*]

A second half team to me implies a slow starter. They are atrocious in the first half. How they haven’t figured out how to not be horrible in the first half is beyond me.

[Housh]

(09-19-2022, 12:30 AM)Leon Wrote: it confuses burrow and scares zac. not a good combo

Burrows not confused....he cant attack the cover 2 because the line doesnt give him time to wait for the spots to come open and Zac is calling bad situational plays

[TheCincinnatiKid]

(09-19-2022, 12:33 AM)Nately120 Wrote: 2020 was a (hopefully) fluke since Burrow got injured, but I did point out that there is a bit of a 2009 to 2010 feeling in the air at the moment.  We got better on paper and SHOULD be better, but we went from a 4th place schedule to a 1st place one, we aren't a sneaky surprise good team anymore, and the magic isn't appearing in the close games like it was the year before.




DISCLAIMER - It's only week 2, I'm open to the idea that Burrow and Chase and ZT will magically turn back into a SB any day now.

Agreed, this is like that 2010 season so far, except even fewer wins at this stage!

I'm not yet convinced the season is over. We have been an absolute mess and really could easily still be 2-0.

But we have the season we had last year.... we invest in the right way to fix the glaring issues we had. And the team couldn't look less prepared.

The thing with Burrow's appendix is bad luck, and I'm not at all convinced he's right. He currently looks so much worse than his last 3 years that something has to be up. His reads of the game etc are very worrying though as they've not been good, and that can't be an appendix issue.

The coaching... jesus. Pollack has to go yesterday really. You cannot invest what we have in the O-Line and it look this atrocious. They look worse than last season if anything. It's inexcusable to look like they did in week 1.... and then come and look just look worse in week 2.

The offensive playcalling... just a joke. Burrow has to take flack for this too as he can change the play at the line. You cann't have Burrow, Chase, Higgins, Boyd and Mixon and put up 37 points in two games. Offence had 100 snaps in week 1 and had 14 points with 2 seconds of the game to play. This week they had one good drive.

I just think a good Franchise has the season we had last year and builds on it. I wasn't expecting us to re-make the Super Bowl this year, but I was expecting there to be signs we're transitioning into a perennial contender. We look so far from that right now and I cannot believe we've come into the season as unprepared as we look. That I blame the coaching for.

[Housh]

(09-19-2022, 02:50 AM)TKUHL Wrote: Pretty sure I heard that Burrow has only one TD on the first and second drives in a game in his career here.

To me for the ineptitude to be this bad both Zac and Joe are at fault. The gameplan/plays are shit and Joe isnt bailing them out anymore