It's the Locked On podcast Network, Your Team every Day. Hi, I'm
Jake from Locked On. What do the teams you root for, your music
playlist, and your podcast feeds all have in common? Spoiler alert, They're
reflection of you. And that's what the State Farm Personal Price Plan has in
common too. It gives you options to help personalize your coverage so that you
can protect what you care about most, and an affordable price just for you
so you can see more of yourself in everything you love, like a good
neighbor. State Farm is there. Prices vary by state, options selected by
customer, availability and eligibility may vary. The Cincinnati Bengals lost DJ Reader early
on Saturday, so we got a sneak peek at what they might do to
adapt their defense without him. Let's get into it. You are Locked On
Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast Network,
Your Team every Day Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown
Bengals Podcast. I'm your host, Jake. Let's go join today by Mike
Santagatis, we review the film from a Long Time Ago. Now. Saturday,
the Bengals played the Vikings. We're going to get into some of the
adaptations we might see from the Cincinnati Bengals on defense and on offense if Jamar
Chase misses this week. But with the status in the air, we are
going to start on the defensive side of the ball. Today's episode brought to
you by the Game Time app, where you can use promo code locked on
NFL to get twenty dollars off your first purchase of last minute tickets, lowest
price guaranteed. And Mike wants to talk about on the defensive side of the
ball, including Mike Hilton fantastic day, Miles Murphy continuing to trend in the
right direction. Some things did go well for this defense, despite Nick Mullins
putting up twenty four points, despite some of the things that didn't go so
well, and despite losing DJ Reader and the run Dee was not one of
the things that for the most part in this game was very good. They
had to change the way they were approaching run defense without DJ Reader, though,
what were the big changes we saw from lou Ana Rimo when DJ reader
was to clear down essentially wholesale philosophical changes on how you defend the run,
where with Reader in, they will slow play everything. I mean by that
is guys are controlling their gap a lot of gap. Reader is going to
be two gapping or gap and a half. Sometimes they have Hill doing that
as well. And you're gonna go slow. You're not gonna try to get
penetration. You're gonna try to destroy this block and be able to clog everything
up so that these are all one yard games. They tried that for a
little bit after Reader went down. The guys were unable to do it because
he's kind of the key cog there. He's the nose. He's taken up
both A gaps tupou whoever they had in there wasn't going to be able to
take up both a gaps. And actually they were getting kind of driven off
the ball a little bit, so they switched it. And the first thing
is that they started kind of stunting a little bit pre sending some pressures,
and that is going to be playing fast. And there are two different plays.
They spiked the end and that is that end is in the C gap
and he's just gonna slant inside to the B gap and usually cross the face
of the tackle. And outside of that you still need a CE gap defender,
so out goes a linebacker, and that linebacker is going to come free
most of the time because the tackle goes, oh crap, I gotta take
this guy so that he's not a free runner. And now, well there's
a different free runner. So that happened to get Logan Wilson a free tackle.
They got a few run stops doing that, but it becomes a very
volatile way to play run defense. You'll probably more TFLs because you're trying to
penetrate, you're trying to slant get guys free. But at the same time,
you're probably also going to leave some stuff available for these backs to take
advantage of when something doesn't work, because now instead of slow playing and letting
it, you know, clog everything up and don't allow any holes. While
when you're playing fast, sometimes those holes get created. And you can kind
of think about how teams played the Bengals, not this week but the last
two weeks, which the Vikings do fast, but that's a whole different thing.
They're way different than any defense. But like the Jags, they took
advantage of Jags. They want to play fast, they want to get penetration.
So let's just trap that guy. So now you have to be able
to lookout for those type of things where they weren't trapping the three techs in
the Bengals defense very often because they're like, well, that guy's not getting
up field. He's reading run, play run, then pass instead of play
pass then run, or at least get penetration versus try to hold your gap.
It does lead to a more aggressive style of defense. You saw,
for example, on the first play of the second half, where DJ Turner
just needs to make the tackle on the edge. Logan Wilson gets a free
run through, but the running back is able to react in time and bounce
it and everybody's playing fast, like you said, and he's able to try
to cut it off of a tight end block the seals Dax Hill inside and
he has one on one with DJ Turner and makes DJ Turner miss and there's
nobody behind it. There's no help. And you did see that from both
safeties and linebackers playing more on the perimeter. You saw the linebackers trying to,
like you said, trying to feel faster, trying to find those run
throughs, and it does lead to some of those really nice tackle for losses,
but also opens you up to some things. On a scale of one
to ten, how worried are we about the run games of the next few
opponents. Obviously Cleveland has some injuries on their offensive line and that's a few
weeks away, but has presented a tough run game all year. Kansas City
and Pittsburgh in the next two weeks, though, what's your concern level on
a one to ten scale for just runs up the middle essentially for those teams?
Uh eight? Yeah, I was already concerned, but at least I
thought like, well, they won't be able to attack the a gaps with
Reader there. I was like, well, they could kind of attack a
lot of places right now, but you could probably sell out a little bit
against the Steelers. It's Mason Rudolph. It might be it was a limited
participation for Kenny Pickett apparently on Tuesday. Okay, well, whoever, it
is not that I'm worried about Nny Puckett. Whoever it is. It's not
a passing offense that you are praying that you're able to stop. It's more
so kind of the odes we can't stop that, which I guess that did
happen last Pittsburgh Gay. But the Chiefs. I feel like the Chiefs I
have more concerned though, just because they do have a really good interior than
Creed Hump for Joe Toney and Trey Smith. They also are going to worry
you enough in the past game that even though the pass game isn't what it
has been, I feel like you're never really going to sell out to stop
the run against the Pat Mahomes led Andy Reid led team. Yeah, probably
probably still going to try to play a little umbrella, keep everything in front
of you situation. So I've got quite a bit of concern there. And
then the Browns game is like, that's their entire offense, I mean,
and play action, Joe Flacco underthrown deep ball, pass interference and sometimes they'll
actually hit him apparently this year, but we'll talk about that game in a
few weeks when we get there. Mike Hilton stood out for a really fantastic
game. On defense. You only had three tackles I think in this in
the stat book, but successfully defended a screen, successfully carried Justin Jefferson on
a post that was almost kicked off because Mullin's underthrew it, had a few
really good plays as a blitzer, particularly against the run, a number of
plays right at the line of scrimmage. He also blew up the little throwback
pass by getting into Jefferson's face on that little trick play the Vikings ran,
forcing him to rush his process and throw it into the ground. Mike Keilton
can help you, and if he's going to play like that, that could
be something that if they need to get more aggressive, more creative with how
they're playing run defense. Mike Kelton a guy that is willing to do it
both from the slot corner alignment and even from you know, a linebacker alignment.
We saw even a couple of times in this game he had a run
through the linebackers. It was exciting. But also they had more saw pressures
than we've seen, and that is typically the pressure you see whenever you see
Mike Keilton make some tackle the back, and the saw pressure is both sides.
So Sam will saw the Sam and Will are coming, and so both
sides pressure coming. It's actually fun that in a few weeks or next week,
Spagnolo, that's what he's known for, are these saw pressures, and
now it feels like, yeah, Rumo's gonna have to lean on those a
little bit, and they almost got caught with one. This is kind of
a cool play from Logan Wilson. They almost got caught on one because they
brought a saw pressure in the Vikings. Perfect answer, let's start a screen
out there because it's two on one for the Vikings not the Bengals. That
is a bad situation to be in. But Logan Wilson recognize what was happening
so fast. Oh no, he's just gonna sprinting out there and he makes
a stop for like one yard. That's fantastic play. You're gonna need those
plays, and you're gonna need Mike Hilton playing well all to make up for
this because they're gonna be sending more stuff and they're gonna be sending me saw
pressures. The linebacker's got to have a quicker trigger. But yeah, anyway,
they're gonna send more saw pressures because that's at least I think they will,
because that's what they did in this game than they have in the previous
few weeks. And all that means is, hey, we might see some
Mike Hilton TFLs. It's exciting. It does lead to defensive lineman dropping into
mostly like spot drop zones as well, because they're generally dropping guys out when
they send those, not just sending like zero with the corner of blitzes for
example, a couple of okay, I mean I know that they'll run straight
zero for sure, Like the Wilson play was a five man pressure, so
they weren't in a zero situation. It was I think it was a fire
zone situation. A couple other guys that we're not gonna have time to talk
about in a great deal of depth. But Jordan battle not perfect, but
I thought was pretty good, particularly in run dye. I think he was
there where he was supposed to be. Again for the most part. There's
one play that we talked about before we started recording where he jumps into the
wrong gap that's exploited a little bit, but continues to play physical and willing
to play and getting to the right spot in the run game, which is
a welcome change of pace, and Miles Murphy continuing to trend in the right
direction with a couple of really nice plays against Christian Darisa. In this one,
we'll continue the conversation about adaptations and get into the offense a little bit
as Jamar Chase might miss some time. Coming up next. This episode of
Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by prize Picks, the largest daily fantasy sports platform in
North America. The easiest and most exciting way to play daily fantasy sports.
It's just you against the numbers instead of battling thousands of other players pros sharks,
the spreadsheet warriors. You just pick more or less on two to six
player stat projections and when you win, you get your money out real easy.
There are a ton of different ways to play with prize Picks as well.
Love that you can combine multiple sports. You can go NBA NFL crossovers.
They have a reboot policy, so even if one of your players gets
injured, your entries can stay in play. And that occurs if your player
exits a game in the first half doesn't return in the second half, that
player is rebooted. It's an insurance policy. The only daily fantasy sports platform
that has one of those right now at prizepicks dot Com slash locked on NFL.
You can use promo code locked on NFL forty first match up to one
hundred dollars. Again, that's prizepicks dot Com slash Locked on NFL promo code
locked on NFL for a first a posit match up to one hundred dollars prize.
Picks is daily Fantasy Sports made easy. Hi, I'm Jake from Lockdown.
Think of all the amazing things in life that are expressions of you.
Your favorite football team, what you wear to the playoff watch party, that
song that you stream over and over to get you pumped up for the gym,
or the recommendations that you share with your friends on the top six comedy
podcasts that are best to listen to you on a long roadship, or even
your new haircut, which may or may not be an epic ball cut from
the nineties and hopefully is everything that makes you you makes all the difference.
State Farm believes insurance should work the same way you're playing. Your coverage selections
can be personalized by you and the ability to choose the plan you want by
picking the options that fit you like choosing to bundle your home and auto policies
is what the State Farm Personal Price Plan is all about, getting the coverage
you want at an affordable price, just for you, Like a good neighbor.
State Farm is there places are based on rating planes that vary by state.
Coverge options are selected by the customer availability, amount of discounts and savings,
and eligibility vary by state. Mike Let's switch Gears talk offense, and
there's a lot to talk about in this game with Jake Browning that we can
get to. The first thing I want to talk about is how they adapt
if Jamar Chase has to miss time. Because it's one thing to not have
Joe Burrow, and it's incredibly impressive what Jake Browning has done instead for Joe
Burrow and in Joe Burrows stead the last few weeks, and they've done it
multiple ways. You credit the offensive coaching staff as well, obviously for things
that we've talked about the last few weeks, be it screen game, be
it changing up the running game this week, finding dagger as a consistent answer.
I think every single time either team ran any variation of dagger in this
game, it was successful, but more notably so I think for Jake Browning
and the Cincinnati Bengals. But Jamar Chase leaves the game. The Bengals obviously
still do enough to win, but Jamar Chase misses twenty snaps in this game
and might miss against the Steelers. And if there's a place you're pointing to
on the Steelers where you're thinking we can exploit this, it's probably in that
secondary. How do the Bengals go about doing that or what signs do we
see from them last week against the Vikings that you could see them go back
to if Jamar Chase has to mess I do think they have an understanding of
what Browning is most comfortable with. And like you mentioned, dagger, but
not just dagger, but also the wrap ds on race spools, whatever you
want to call that. It's also part of the Cobo concept. But they
got to that a lot. They got to a lot of intermediate middle of
the field stuff and it's typically some type of twelve yard in or fifteen yard
in that they just hammered these guys with, and Jake Browning is good on
that. I think they're learning that Jake Browning is not very good with the
pick aside type reads where they cut it down in the middle. It's like
millfield open, this is millfield closed that way. What he is good at
is hitting all this stuff in the middle of field. But what he's even
better at, I think, and this has actually got him into trouble is
how he threw the pick. But he he is very willing to throw an
alert, and what that is is basically a lot of times it's something that
quarterbacks kind of just skip past, like the deep ball on something that's really
just designed to clear something out. But then Charlie Jones Charlie Jones exactly,
And that's why I said this in our post game. So I was incredibly
impressed with the reed from Browning there to make that throw, because we've seen
Joe Burrow pass that throw up a number of times. Yeah, and the
first throw of the game, the Higgins deep ball that he dropped, that
was also the alert on the plane. It's like, typically not something that
you're gonna throw, but you know, he kind of hangs there. He's
like, if it's there, I'm throwing it. Type of thing where I
feel like a lot of especially backup quarterbacks, are kind of terrified of doing
that, Like, no, I need to run the offense exactly how it's
here so that I keep a job. Browning doesn't really have that running has
kind of like a whatever, man, well I'll just toss this deep ball.
They'll be happy when it's his hands. So I like that. I
like that they're finding what works best for him. I think maybe we just
cut out smash concepts. Well, so so let's let's stay on topic here.
What we're talking about first is what they did and what they can do
in the absence of Jamar Chase. Okay, well, I think you get
to that. I think you still get to the rap ed, you get
to the dagger concepts. You work intermediate, middle of the field, high
low reads. It's what he's been the best at his entire time here,
and that's like the wrap stuff. That's the dagger stuff. That's everything.
Whether it's three levels, two levels, it doesn't matter. Maybe they work
some drive concepts in there as well this past week. I don't think they
really did much with them, but I feel like drive would be the outside
receiver is going to run kind of like a drag underneath shallow route quick and
then the guy inside of him is usually going to do outside release, go
for about ten yards and then cut in and just what you're thinking, Hilo
linebacker stays on the comes down and tries to drive on that shallow route you
can hit the inn behind him. They stay back because they know that's cheese
and then you just take the underneath thing and then you usually try to get
somebody that can actually run as the underneath guy in there, so that you
know it's not just three yards you can go create, but working all this
stuff that he feels comfortable with. That's what you're gonna have to do against
Pittsburgh. Is what they didn't know that they could do against Pittsburgh last time
they played, because they had him go out there in empty and run dragon
line, which is a Burrow loves that. Burrough loves dragged line, slant
flat plus double slant. I know exactly where I need to go, and
he knows leverage and you know, midfield, open, millfield, clothes whatever.
There was a very specific example that they ran that, and Browning starts
on the wrong side and it's quick game, so you kind of have to
go throw something over there, like I can't reset completely and go to the
other side because the offensive linstick and this ball is coming out in two seconds,
so I'm just get this ball out Turfit. Now you're not seeing that
as much because he's more comfortable with the stuff that they're trying to run.
So you kind of hit that with or without Chase. I think the one
big change you're going to have is well, let's talk about two changes.
One. I don't think the Steelers are going to like play a lot too
high coverage without Chase, even though Higgins is a great receiver. I think
they're going to sell out to stop the run, kind of like they did
the last time they played. That feels bold to me when you're missing your
two starting safeties. Probably maybe I'm kind of expecting it. Well, one
thing I talked with Luke about in the crossover last week was something that the
Vikings hadn't seen a lot when they send these blitzes, is when a quarterback's
hot is throwing the vertical. The Bengals did that a couple of times.
It didn't always work, but Jake Browning willing to push the ball down the
field, and I think that that was their mentality. Like you think about
the quote that you know Browning said, Callahan told him before the game,
I think you're gonna throw for five hundred yards. Like their approach to that
game was They're going to be aggressive and Jake Browning is going to find a
voided zones and throw to them. And I think somebody had the stats,
like against pressure, Browning had a dot of like eighteen yards. Yeah,
yeah, I think that was nid twice or Robert Mays one of those guys
on the up Play, Yeah, the Athletic Show podcast. But yeah,
like I think that. But if I was guessing what the Steelers did,
like what were we successful with last time? Keeping eight in the box,
stopping the run, making that guy throw, And maybe they're not ready.
They're probably gonna watch film and see some of the stuff, so maybe they're
gonna try to take away some of the middle of field stuff and that gets
in the whole chess game. But if I was, if I'm them,
I'm kind of kind of thinking and confident of like, yeah, let's stop
the run and make him throw because that's what they did last time. It's
like, yeah, we trust our guys, So I think they're not gonna
get as much too high. We'll see, but I think they're going to
sell it to stop the run. And then the other part of not having
Chase is you might not try to run so much isolation stuff. I haven't
done a ton of. That's more of a Burrow loves doing that because he's
so good on the back shoulder balls and turns those fifty to fifties into eighty
twenty whatever you want to talk about. So maybe you're not going to see
a ton of that, but at the same time, they're going to have
the opportunity if they do play a lot of single how to just toss the
balls up to Higgins if they want to. That's what I'm thinking. It
is just the two things here are we're going to probably try to work more
true drop back conflict concepts versus try to work isolation concepts, and they're probably
going to have to have stuff that's going to beat a lot of single high
plus one in the box stuff that's a small thing. But they also lose
some of the jamar chase motion gravity stuff that they like to use to move
defenses and kind of set stuff up away from that motion or even they try
to go to him. They also lose some of the quick you know,
RPO alert or RPO access stuff that they would run the chase where they just
get chase the ball at the line of scrimmage. Maybe there's a blocker over
there to help, or usually there's a blocker over there to help and you're
trusting him to make a guy miss because he's very good at that. They
might still try to do that a little bit. That hasn't been as big
a part of the offense in recent weeks. Second, they can still hit
those if they want to. Against Jacksonville, they could, but that's something
they went away from, and I think that's such a game plan specific thing.
That's why I struggle to draw too many long term conclusions from any individual
game, because they are very defense reactive. Right now, they're changing what
they're doing on offense I think quite a bit to account for what they're expecting
to get in a matchup perspective, and that chess game aspect is quite interesting.
But one thing that is encouraging is how well Browning has been distributing it
to a ton of different targets. You go look at the number of players
that had catches, a number of players that had targets against Minnesota, and
even really for his entire tenure playing quarterback for the Bengals, he's pretty comfortable
throwing the ball to anybody, and so you do lose some of the individual
dynamism and playmaking from Jamar Chase, But maybe that's a sign of sustainability.
We'll talk ability, what else we've seen from this offense in Jake Browning that
could lead you to buy in a little bit to finish up the show coming
up next. Today's episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by the game Time app,
the fastest and easiest way to buy tickets to a Bengals game. If
you're trying to get in for that last home game of the year, or
any event via music, comedy, theater, whatever your taste, game Time
has something for you or your wife or your partner who knows they've got killer
last minute deals, all in prices, views from your seat, and a
best price guarantee to take the guest work out of buying tickets. No more
stressing about whether you're going to have an obstructive view or whether you're going to
be able to see well enough from your seat. They'll show you exactly what
you'll see, and if you find tickets in the same section in row for
less elsewhere, game Time will credit you one hundred and ten percent of the
difference, So you can take the guestwork out of buying tickets with the game
Time app. To just download it, create an account, and use promo
code Lockdown NFL you'll get twenty dollars off first purchase. Again. Creating an
account with game Time for game code locked onn NFL l o ck e d
O n NFL, you'll get twenty dollars off. Download the game Time app
today. Terms apply, Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Hi,
I'm Jake from Lockdown. Think of all the amazing things in life that are
expressions of you. Your favorite football team, what you wear to the playoff
watch party, that song that you stream over and over to get you pumped
up for the gym, or the recommendations that you share with your friends on
the top six comedy podcasts that are best to listen to on a long roadship,
or even your new haircut, which may or may not be an epic
ball cut from the nineties and hopefully is everything that makes you you makes all
the difference. State Farm believes insurance should work the same way you're playing.
Your coverage selections can be personalized by you and the ability to choose the plan
you want by picking the options that fit you, like choosing to bundle your
home and auto policies is what the State Farm Personal Price Plan is all about.
Getting the covered you want at an affordable price just for you, like
a good neighbor. State farm is there. Prices are based on rating planes
that vary by state. Coverge options are selected by the customer availability, amount
of discounts and savings and eligibility vary by state. Mike, let's stay on
the offense to finish up the show here, and if there's anything that we
need to revisit on the defensive side of the ball, they're always happy to
do that. But the big topic for me that I've been thinking about that
a lot of people have been thinking about. I mean, look at the
volume of Jake Browning analysis videos on the internet this week, from Underdog,
from jto Sullivan, the airtime that the Bengals are still getting on the Athletic
Football Show, and those are the ones that I ingest. So if you're
one of the people out there watching cable, watching NFL Network and watching ESPN,
I don't know how much they're talking about Jake Browning there, I don't
really care, but I do care about how sustainable things are. They're not
playing the best teams. They're playing backup core that continues. They're playing flawed
offenses that continues even with the Chiefs. But at three games now of pretty
good play from Jake Crowning. Not perfect by any means, but he's shown
you his ceiling I think, or that he can reach a pretty high ceiling
at least. What are the things that look sustainable for you after three weeks
versus what are the things that you think still need to be cleaned up or
give you some pass? This game gave you a little bit of the uh,
a little bit more feeling of sustainability because he worked a lot of drop
back and that was one of the big concerns before this week, where he's
always ahead of sticks. You know, he's always got the run game.
Almost everything is play action two man concept type stuff, and I don't know
if that's sustainable. What about when the run game is not working. It's
not that the run game didn't work this past week. It was perfect,
but I thought it it wasn't as bad as what it was against Pittsburgh earlier
this year. Well, and they got way behind on the game script.
Yeah, that's the problem. They fell behind the game script, and that
asked the question, okay, can you drop back and pass when they know
you're going to pass? And they were able to now is it going to
carry over week to week? I feel like that is there's a sample size
question here. There's also a question of can he get through a game without
throwing the interception that it's like, yeah, nah, it's Nick Tice once.
I've talked about how his feet are tell like Josh Allen's feet will tell
him no one something. He throws it anyway, and you do see on
that play this is in the side of Jake Brown kind of like shuffle Shuffle
throws it anyway. So it's like, I know, I need to move
off this read, but it is what it is. Can you get through
that? He did it without Chase? There are questions about it, but
I do think that it has looked fairly sustainable the past three weeks. I
think you're looking at different ways to win against different defenses, against some one
very difficult defense. In the Vikings, they're running as they have a lot
of the tenure of a healthy of a healthy Joe Burrow is a lot of
you know, solid concepts that makes sense and work. A guy that is
in Browning doing his best in terms of getting to the right read, working
you know, with what's given, finding the open guy and then a little
bit extra sometimes with like how he hangs on alerts a little bit and was
willing to throw those and probably does a little too much stunt double stuff where
he's trying to run around crash into people. But overall it looks sustainable.
It's just a question of can it be consistent? Can it work week to
week? And now you're facing the team that really made this not look like
it's going to work. Can you go and into Pittsburgh and do that against
them? I think that's a big question, and you help the second time
around with Pittsburgh helps The offensive line has been playing way better. You hope
that helps you that that continues. They against Minnesota, Browning talked about took
the responsibility of setting the protection off of Jake Browning and let Ted Carris do
Yeah, maybe they've been doing that all along, but it was notable that
Jake Browning took time in his press conference to shout out Ted Carris for handling
a lot of that work. And if Ted Carris can do that again,
it lets Jake Browning think about other things. He doesn't have to worry as
much about setting the protection. He has to hear the protection call so he
knows where he needs to be hot and all those things, of course,
but it gives him the opportunity to think more about what's the defense showing me,
what are the things they like to get to out of this look?
Against the Vikings, you never know what they're going to play based on the
pre snap look. Like that's the thing about the Vikings. If you go
watch these ex quarterbacks Colt McCoy and JT. O. Sullivan breaking down Jake
Browning's tape this week, what impressed him so much was how he was able
to deal with pre snap post snap decision making and how they how he was
able to get the ball to the right place against these very exotic and difficult
to figure out looks pre snap. And Pittsburgh doesn't do as much of that.
I don't think anyone does as much of that as as Brian Flora's defense
in Minnesota. But where Pittsburgh challenges you certainly with their pass rush and making
things uncomfortable for you in the pocket, but without the safeties in Pittsburgh,
the weakness clearly to me is in their back seven. So if you can
protect can Jake Browning settle in? Can they find that rhythm for him earlier
in the game, because that's really what it is, right. It took
them so long to figure out where those plays needed to come. Some of
the plays they could have had early in the game. You have the Charlie
Jones slow down on the alert ball that we talked about earlier. We had
the t Higgins drop on the other alert ball that we talked I guess there's
a couple of alert balls. The cup receivers off guard and Browning wasn't seeing
things great. I mess during the game that it felt like he was treading
water. It felt like he was drowning a little bit, until suddenly he
wasn't. And so you got to get to that suddenly he wasn't a little
bit earlier in the game, like more of the Colts game, and find
the right time to pull those levers. The other thing that's going to be
interesting is how the run game continues to evolve, because it did feel very
different as we said it would against Minnesota. They didn't do as much of
the trap wham toss punished opposing defense for getting up field. They did have
a pretty successful toss play Chase Brown's best run of the day, but it
was a lot more of the mixing kind of game. The patient, set
up your blocks, bounced it outside, and they do need to run the
ball better against Pittsburgh. I think it's noteworthy that they got it back on
track with Jake Browning being a drop back passer, more pure progression stuff,
not splitting the field in half like you talked about earlier. But they did
it without running the ball. They didn't establish the run. They got some
solid workout of the run as the game went on, but they got back
into the game throwing a Jake Browning. But if you have a run game
going the way it was going against the Steelers, that does make things harder
because then there's I mean, they got nothing against the Steelers that needs to
be better. What changes can they make there? Do you think schematically to
help the run game have more of a shot? Yeah, I think,
well, one, you're just going to be better execution, because I thought
a lot of the concepts that they kind of dialed up against Pittsburgh made sense
to me. They're trying to run long trap, they're trying to run counter,
they're trying to and if you watch the Bills Cowboys game, it was
almost all long trap and some counter stuff, and they're playing a similar idea.
They're playing an odd front. They're playing five guys up front, and
well, Pittsburgh was playing two and sometimes a safety walk down to make three
guys eight guys in the box, and Dallas is kind of the opposite.
They had five guys on the line and one guy behind it. But still
you're in a situation where those angles line up so that that play is going
to work. Their guard will be able to get to that end outside linebacker
whatever you want to call him, and open up a hole, but everybody
else to kind of work out on that because those concepts that they're getting to
aren't really concepts where most of the guys on those concepts can't completely fail their
block. You can lose the block, you can lose it slow, you
could lose leverage, but you can't lose so bad a guy crossed your face
and you don't only have a hand on him anymore. So that felt like
the big issue against Pittsburgh last time was that Alex Kappa would lose across his
face to Keanu Benton. The tight ends and wide receivers didn't give him anything
in the run blocking department. Which I also think the Higgins is probably their
best blocking receiver and he missed that game, so he'll be in this one.
So maybe you can use him to dig some guys out that they weren't
able to do last time. I probably, even without Chase, try to
throw on a little bit of motion sprinkle ins, a little bit of eye
candy in there. Yeah, just go away from that. You have to,
just because I don't think that the spine, especially the linebackers and safeties
for Pittsburgh are going to be a strong suit. So you give them a
little something to look the wrong way might take it, especially without Minca,
like Mink would be a guy like I don't think he's going to fall for
that. But now the other guys, yeah, and might not even play,
so I think, well, I think that he's been I think sure.
I think it would be very surprising if he plays. Okay, But
you know, let's mess with their eyes. Let's hit the angles. Let's
kind of work this so that it's uh, the angles work out. Your
running back is going to have defined reads on a lot of these plays,
so you can use brown or mix, and I think more brown would make
sense in this game to just try to generate an explosive in there, for
if this all hits, he's hitt an open field against the backup safety and
he might be able to make that guy miss and go for a huge game.
One of the most impressive plays for Chase Brown, and I mentioned this
I think on the post game show was running through the cameraon Binden tackle on
the screen early in the personnel too. That was two running backs. Just
just love seeing that power from him because I didn't really see a ton of
that in his game prior to the last couple of weeks, so nice to
see that element coming along. Last thing I'll say then we're going to get
out of here is I've been really impressed with the coaching staff the last few
weeks, finding answers, finding the right levers to pool at the right times,
and that includes on the defensive side of the ball, then includes on
the defensive side of the ball against some vikings. I thought that lou An
Riumo for the most part, not always because you're not always going to be
right as a defensive coordinator, but I thought he mostly called a pretty good
game and then just didn't really get the execution he needed out of some guys
on the field at some times, and then Justin Jefferson just went berserk at
times, or you know, Mullins would float a ball out there to Jordan
Addison that turned into two touchdowns that we're two of the stupidest touchdown passes I've
ever seen. And some of that's execution, right, like you have a
chance to make plays on the ball or to at least make a tackle there
for Jermaine Pratt and for DJ Turner, and DJ Turner had a game that
he's going to need to learn from and improve from. But I did think
that on both sides of all the coaching staffs have found some pretty good answers
and have called some pretty good game lately. But that's going to do it
for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. You can find Mike at Bengals
Underscore Sands on Twitter on It's always Game Day in Cincinnati the podcast. Until
next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast.
Who day, and have a good one.