Let's rank the Cincinnati Bengals issues so far this year by importance and talk about
some potential solutions coming out of the bye week. 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 along with your host
James Rape and today we're joined by Joe Gibberi, whose show you can find
from First Start on YouTube Bengals on the Brain. We're going to get into
what the Bengals issues have been this year, what the importance of those issues
has been, and talk about some potential solutions. But Joe. Today's episode
brought to you by the game Time app, where you can use promo code
Lockdown NFL for twenty dollars off your first purchase of last minute tickets for the
lowest price guaranteed. We appreciate also every single one of you who makes us
your first listen and doesn't miss an episode, the every Days, who didn't
miss any of our interviews with the Bengals coordinators last week and James today before
we dive into some of those problems and solutions with Joe. Let's get some
quick injury updates out of the way, as Zach Taylor and some players.
All the players were back in the building a pay corps on Monday. Yeah,
bye week over. Everyone was back. Joe Burrow was moving around well,
and that's takeaway one, two and three. Throwing off platform, throwing
off of that right leg, pushing off of it, and so that's good
to see. Hopefully that continues and we can stop talking about Cafgate twenty twenty
three, from Cafgate to growing gate. I can't believe I just said that,
but I did. Orlando Brown Junior dealing with a growing issue. He
says he's going to play on Sunday against the forty nine ers. Zach Taylor
was less less confident, or at least didn't want to commit and said we'll
see. So I do think Orlando Brown Junior will play. We'll see if
he's elimined or practices in full on Wednesday. Other guys T Higgins, Cho
Beayo woozi A progressing nicely. Also, Charlie Jones Stone injur Reserve progressing well.
I talked to Charlie, so we'll see if he's His practice window gets
opened next week following the forty nine ers game. Interestingly, Kien Davis Gather
also still not back at practice. He last played in the same game that
Charlie Jones last played him. One of those guys went on to the IR
one of them didn't, So we'll see what happens with Keem Davis Gaither,
a situational player of course at this point in his career with the Bengals,
bringing back the two starters at linebacker just something that's interesting from a roster management
perspective. Eleona Brown did say he felt great, kind of an extra rest
day for him coming off the buyas how he wanted to talk about it.
So hopefully they get him back this week, and those are the quick injury
updates, of course, have a fuller picture on Wednesday when they're back to
putting a practice report out. But not only do the Bengals get a bye
week of extra preparation for the forty nine ers, but the forty nine ers
are playing Monday night football as well, which didn't actually occur to me until
we record this on Monday, and I realized that the San Francisco forty nine
ers hadn't played yet this week, so big rest disparity this week. That
said, let's get into the bye week retrospective, and that's why you're here,
Joe and I've wanted to kind of talk about power ranking the problems as
it were, because you could talk about a lot of the issues the Bengals
have had, and we have talked about them, and they all feel pretty
important. But when you talk about the actual significance of those issues as far
as how it's played out winning and losing football games, I think that that
might be an interesting angle to take when you discuss it. So when you
look at this team, when you've been talking about them on Bengals on the
brain, doing your film study, doing your normal analysis thing that you do,
what do you think that if you had to point to like these single
biggest problem that is why the Bengals are three and three instead of four and
two or five and one, where do you start? I start with the
quarterback play. And maybe that's somewhat easy because it's been such a topic of
this discussion since it happened in late July with the calf injury. But I
think when you look around the league. The same thing is happening to a
lot of teams, a lot of good offenses that if they can't find explosive
running options or can't create explosive runs, everything falls on the quarterback. And
I thought this game last night was pretty apparent between the Dolphins and the Eagles,
because the Dolphins have been the hey, look, this is the new
offense, is what you have to do in twenty twenty three, and when
they couldn't produce explosive plays on the ground, it was like, okay,
so what do we have to do on offense because now we are at second
and seven, now it's third and six, whatever it may be, and
the onus becomes the quarterback has to make a clean read, clean throw within
structure because two is not the kind of guy that can break out and make
a play happen. But that's really how Joe Burrow looked those first three to
four weeks, right where you couldn't really do much, couldn't extend plays,
and if he did, he got reinjured on that late play against the Ravens.
So when you can't extend plays and you are sitting duck in the pocket,
defenses play you completely differently, the Bengals didn't have anything else to lean
on. They didn't have an explosive running game that a well rounded running game
to say, hey, we're going to do this for the first month and
just get through it and then you come out with a healthy Burrow on the
other the other end of it. So, while it's yes, Burrow was
the main focus for me in how many things you can't do on offense when
you have a quarterback like that. The other part is they've had a more
dynamic running game. We maybe could have got out of a couple of those
games a little bit closer or more successfully. So your your focus is,
are your biggest questions concerns are on offense? You think over the first six
games, oh, no doubt. I haven't had much of an issue with
the defense. They had their issues I think early, but I think defense
as a whole around the league is reflective of what the offense is doing on
the other side. If you can score points, if you can stay ahead
of the game, flip the game script in your favor. I feel like
the defenses across the league are night and day, and when they can pin
their ears back, when they can rush, when you can disguise things and
pull that string when you need to on a third down and call a blitz
or back everyone out and just get that one more play, that one more
sack, that one more turnover. It's a difference in you know, in
wins and losses all across the league. And so I haven't had an issue
with the defense. When the Bengals of score points, I thought they've looked
really good. My overall issue is we had so much time of knowing that
Burrow was going to be limited somewhat that when they rolled out the offense and
it looked exactly like last year's with obviously somebody that was hobbled, that quarterback,
it just seemed like a bad plan from the get go to me,
and we've talked about this. They never expected the re injury to occur.
They thought they would have to live like this for two weeks, right,
and then they could get back into doing some of the things that they wanted
to do that we thought they were planning to do in the preseason, which
was an expanded play action game, which is leveraging Joe Burrow off the spot
where we've seen him doing a lot of work. You know, today at
practice on Monday in the offseason, a lot of play action work as well,
and they didn't get to do that. They kind of had to go
back to the drawing board after he reinjured the calf and we two. That
would be the it's an excuse, But the excuse I would offer in their
defense is, let's try to survive for two weeks. They almost do get
that win against Baltimore. If not for a bad interception coming out of halftime,
that game could go differently. Then they're one and one and then they
have a healthier burrow they hope at that point. Instead they're struggling through for
another couple of weeks. The interesting thing, one interesting thing you said as
well that I wanted to go back to was talking about the Philly Miami game
and talk about two dramatically different offenses in terms of where they're lining up,
how much shotgun they're using pre stap motion. Philly one of the teams at
the bottom of pre snap motion in the NFL, Miami the top of free
snap motion in the NFL. Philly one of the heaviest shotgun teams in the
NFL. Miami using shotgun twenty percent less than Philly. Twenty three percent less
than Philly. Cincinnati in the shotgun more than Philadelphia is but it's actually,
you look around the league somewhat comparable to teams like the Ravens who have been
good on offense, to Philadelphia, to the Kansas City Chiefs. It's not
too far off. It's certainly more because for a period of time Joe Burrow
simply could not get under center. But you look at those offenses and the
key difference with Baltimore and Philly is a running game aspect of things, and
the athleticism I think in the offensive line, the way those offensive lines are
playing, and then Kansas City it's just Patrick Mahons being Patrick Mahons for the
most part. But did you see some things from Philly that you thought it
would be nice to incorporate some of those ideas, you know, and they're
not letting Jalen Hurts run as much this year, So it's like, will
you watch that offensive past few weeks and I thought, this is very similar.
This is a lot of things that the Bengals do, except for you're
right, the explosive that running back, the athleticism on the offensive line,
and then hurts Ken run if he has to. You know, he is
a good athlete. He's strong too. Strong made critical plays outside of structure
last night Sunday night, and that's that is key. And I thought Paul
Danner's piece when he went over how many like touchdowns were out after two and
a half seconds, and yeah, there was a like week three at that
point when we were really questioning like this this passing offense. And then after
that, you know, which we always knew was true. We've talked about
for years, you have to play outside of structure to really make a difference.
Because quarterback in the league, everyone's throwing at a ninety percent or ninety
quarterback rating. The guys that really separated, the guys that can go outside
of structure and make plays happen. When Burrow couldn't do that, you start
watching it around the league and you go, yeah, man, when that
defense doesn't let that quarterback do it, it really turns that guy into a
pedestrian quarterback. I thought the Bills the last couple two of the last three
weeks against the Jags and then against Patriots, when they didn't let Allen run
and do crazy things and stiff arm and jump over guys and act like a
maniac. I'm like, yeah, man, it's just a regular quarterback.
And here we are that they're losing to teams that they probably should be.
So these are issues throughout the league that I think offenses they're dealing with.
It just became hyper focused because we were just it's you're just waiting for Burrow
to get healthy, because you feel like once he is, they'll be fine,
and they'll figure it out and he'll be able to create outsider structure.
It's just, you know, we had that setback. Let's continue the conversation
with Joe, including some potential solutions coming up next. This episode of Locktow
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a lot about offensive schematic improvements this team could make with Joe Burrow getting healthier.
They looked really good to start against Seattle, and then things kind of
got off track, what's your in season, your bye week adjustment, your
self scouted adjustment. If you're Brian Callahan, Zach Taylor, and Joe Burrow
getting together and saying, Okay, this is what we can do and this
is something that can make our lives easier on offense. Yeah, because I
do. I do think they're doing some things better than before. And you
know, while the numbers aren't a more percentage of Jamar chasing the slot,
I think there have been much more effective with it. I think the pre
snap motion or motion at the snap. They have incorporated more of that than
I would have expected originally, and you can get a lot of good,
you know, big plays out of it, but also a lot of easy,
chunk eight yard plays out of it, and getting Higgins in the slot
as well. You know, there's been a few opportunities for that where they
will adjust out of the slot, fade and you know, run the stop
rout on it. But I think largely I think everyone's are they going to
get under center and are they going to turn to a power run game at
any point this year or a wide zone and incorporate more that because you really
can't do it out of shotgun, and that's why they incorporated the pistol more
and more, But can you get under center and can you have a more
full fledged running game with more options and more different looks, and because I
think they largely want are running the same things that they normally would run,
but they're limited in how many ways they can show it right, because the
idea is that if you have a core staple of concepts, you're going to
every team runs them, but they're gonna run them out of different looks,
different personnel, different ways to align guys. They'll put a guy in motion
just to get back to where they were earlier on the same play, will
make it look different pre snap, and then run it. So they're doing
all these things, but you have maybe seventy five percent of the playbook available
because the other twenty five percent was and they were a fully shotgun team last
year, so let's not forget that. But they would go under center and
they'd come out of a drive and say, hey, listen, we got
to get the running game going. Let's get under center, Let's get it
to make and let's pomd it. Let's see if we can create something and
then get a shot play from the forty five. I think that part is
still missing for them because there are days where your quarterback just isn't on or
just isn't there, and regardless of injury, and you would like to be
able to say, Okay, today's not our day. This defense is not
giving us any big plays, or they're just the pass rush is winning.
Let's turn to a run game and hand it off, and they really haven't
had the ability to do that. How much of that is the running back
room as a whole, whether it's Joe Mixon or the lack of trust of
the guys behind him. How would you evaluate that situation, because I think
it's it certainly needs to change one way or the other behind Joe mix and
if they're going to be successful, this is probably the worst running back room
in the league right now. I would say from one to four, you
would like more dynamic athletes. You would like guys that could do more in
the passing game. Mixing should be able to do more. He did a
lot last year. For whatever reason, they're not coming back to that.
A lot of that is defense based, too, So you know, I
don't think I think teams right now are saying, hey, go ahead and
prove you can throw these outside vertical balls again, like it was really a
Burrows rookie year and then twenty twenty one when they started that way as well.
So you're not getting as many checkdowns to your running backs. But I
do think if you had a guy that can make people miss more often break
long runs, you would see adjustments in the defense, and I think you
would see a higher success rate of running and maybe get some explosives, and
maybe they would turn and lean on the run game a little bit more.
I think Mixon is still a serviceable player. Well, you don't have a
contrasting backup or somebody that you are even willing to give it to, because
Mixing's playing at an incredible high rate right now. They if they keep running
them like this, we're going to see three games at towards the midpoint or
end of the year where we're like, hey, it's Travan Williams, Chase
Brown, and Chris Sevens because they don't have anyone else because they rain Mixing
into the dirt through the first twelve weeks of the year. So you know,
I don't want to get to that point. They need to figure out
who else can help this team outside of the running game, which obviously,
look at the teams that are successful in the league right now, they can
run the ball. They can probably they can run the ball well enough to
get teams to react to it. I think the Chiefs are probably the only
exception to that. It feels like the weapons have been a letdown too.
Outside of running back. You look at the receivers not named Jamar Chase and
everybody's numbers. And I did a thread on this after the Week six game
are down this year for some metric that I think is important. We talked
about Tyler Boyd's yards per catch, but also his first down rate is half
of what it had been. T Higgins catch rate is like half of what
it had been. They're not getting virtually anything from the tight end position.
So we can talk about scheme, we can talk about run game, we
can talk about this and that. We can talk about Joe Burrow, but
what about the skill guys, Joe, Yeah, they need to step it
up, but if they can, you know, I think there is a
symbiotic relationship obviously between the quarterback and receivers and weapons. Right when we've seen
it when Andy Dalton was in there times quarter our receivers will come out of
their breaks and their arms are extended, eyes wide because they don't know where
the ball placement is going to because he was a ratic at times, right,
So, and you see this now with Higgins coming out and double clutching
things on the sideline and double catching them. And even saw with Jamar Chase,
even though he's had big days he's had, he's double caught a lot
of passes. And I think that happens when you're not getting the practice time
or you know for the last month of camp in preseason you're going with bad
quarterbacks. We talked about this plenty of times with Simeon and Browning, but
your trust in where the ball is going to be at the right time,
at the right place starts to get eroded pretty quickly. Now you can build
it up pretty back pretty quickly, and they've got enough reps with Burrow through
the previous years. But you definitely saw it had an effect on these guys,
and you would think it would get corrected, and it's something you could
easily correct. But you're you're right, because this should be the strength of
the team, the receiving cores and the weapons should be like, hey,
we've got the three best in the league. They shouldn't be averaging five yards
per ten towards them, right, It shouldn't be a seventeen percent contested catchwrate.
To Tea Higgins, these are balls you go one on one with.
It should never have been the defense's game to win against Seattle, that one
on one go shot on third down to T Higgins that he gets the past
interference on take away the past inference, he still did not come down with
the contested ball that would hit him right in the hands. Both fans like
these have to be caught. That has to happen or else this team.
Let's say this continues where Boyd maybe he's spent. Maybe that's it. Maybe
we've reached the end of talerboids of really high level effectiveness and whatever's going on
with t last the entire year, this offense is going to have a hard
time getting back on track. If that's the case, that's scary, and
let's discuss some potential solutions for that. And yeah, we do need to
talk a little bit about the defense as well as Locked on. Bengals offense
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or Facebook. You know, we haven't talked about the offensive line at all,
James either, speaking of things, we haven't gotten to man Man talking
a lot about quarterback and scheme. And you know why though, because this,
let's be honest, they've figured out ways to overcome offensive line issues and
it means that they put a lot on Joe Burrow. So I actually think
we're covering the right stuff, like what needs to change for them to be
a contender. Again, if the offensive line levels up and Burrow doesn't,
it's not going to work. If the receivers don't, but the offensive line,
it's still probably won't work. So I think we're okay. I do
you're mute to Joe? Oh there, I was gonna say, isn't it
a good thing to finally not talk about the offensive line. It's not a
major issue. We can't agree, we'll talk about it, but it's still
not a major issue though, Jake, is not a major issue compared to
some of the other things we've talked about, which is a good point.
James, No, I mean you're right. I mean you're right. If
the offensive line is better and these other things don't get better, it's probably
not as far as the skill guys. I think it's largely they just have
to play better. Maybe that is Joe Burrow playing better. Like you said,
Joe, that that symbiotic relationship between quarterback consistency and being on the same
page with the receivers and getting the reps. Part of it could also be
do we see more Yosavash? Do we see more Charlie Jones as their rookie
years go on? And they've both shown some things. Charlie Jones was ready
to have a bigger role in the offense before he got hurt. It was
certainly trending that way. And Yosavash has earned some playbook pages. Let's say
they've drawn some things up for him, they haven't gotten to all of them.
That could be part of the solution to any closing thoughts there Joe and
the skill guys before we transition to the defense. No, I agree,
the speed is something they definitely need on offense. You know, as good
as they are, it's really only Jamar Chase that you feel like you could
throw a screen to and he's going to make somebody miss or go deep and
you know, just break it between two safeties and take it all the way.
It's been that way for the last few years. And when they drafted
Charlie Jones and Yoshiba and Chase Brown, we said, hey, at the
very least day three picks, but you injected some speed. Well let's see
it. Well, you know, I'm when healthy and when you can,
but let's see it. Yeah. I think that's when you look at potential
solutions. And I'm not sure we'll have time to do this today, but
we will hopefully on our next show talk about trade deadline and everything involved in
that. They need these in house guys to step up. And on defense,
they've had their young guys step up, Dax Hill, DJ Turner,
Cam Taylor britt All, first and second year guys. Guess what there is
advertised from their speed to their playmaking. To DJ Turner, I don't know
if a balls came his way. There's been a couple, but there haven't
been many completed, and so they need that on offense and right now they're
just they're not getting it. And that includes the tight end position. Obviously
that invest a draft pick, but there hasn't been anyone there that's given them
anything. Yeah, Erv Smith is as young as their draft picks that they
made, So I mean, you could still hope for some upside there and
he there's been nothing. You're right, and he dropped two passes and largely
been ignored. I like, when I watch the tape, I don't have
an issue with IRV Smith running routes or anything like that. I don't have
an issue with his speed and agility. I never thought he was some dynamic
player to begin with. But what I'm watching, I just go down and
they're kind of just back passing him in the offense right now. Yeah,
is it a trust thing? That's my concern, honestly. Yeah. And
I wonder the same thing because he there was plays even earlier in the season.
I think the contrast of Tanner Hudson getting in and like instantly he's throwing
a Tanner Hudson on third down, You're like, what, But there was
plays where Mitch will Cox is opening it looks like Burrow just completely bypasses him
because he's a step late. The release is different, he turns a different
angle, and it's like Burrow, if you don't do it exactly, he's
just gonna skip right over you. In the progression Joe Burrow does have Mitchell
Cox's blindness, we can talk about that safely. He does not. Mitchell
Cox has been open a number of times and he's not gotten the target.
But look at it, like you said, Tanner Hudson had six targets in
two games, Earth Smith has eleven targets in four games. Why is the
ball finding these guys not always our Smith's fault? Like leak in week six,
John Williams gives up the pressure. But anyway, defense, Joe,
any concerns outside of for me, the big one is the interior backups.
I feel pretty good about the way things are trending in the secondary where it's
not perfect, but I think it's going in the right direction. But thinking
about Zach Carter and Josh Tupo and teams being able to take advantage of that.
It's just been such a theme for the defense. And we've been talking
about the defensive tackle position now for a few years because you know, if
you remember when d ger Rider was signed and it's like, well, Tino
Aikins got hurt the next year and it's then, well they need another guy,
and they trade for b J. Hill and Networks and Ogan Jobey was
a roller coaster, what effective And they lose him in free agency and it's
like, okay, that year they got to draft a dtackle. They need
a third guy, and they drafted Zach Carter in the third round, and
we'll go, okay, well, fine, let's see what happens in a
year or so. And we're here a year later and it's like, yeah,
he's still the same guy and maybe even worse somehow. I don't know
how that happened. He was at least serviceable against the run last year and
now he's getting washed out in double teams and this nap and yeah, the
amount of snaps that are being forced upon Reader and Hill because you don't trust
your backups. And then even when they do say okay, this drive or
we got to the you know, it's been six plays, let's throw of
the backups in for four plays or whatever it is, it's immediately noticeable.
When you're watching, You're like, oh my god, yeah, six yeard
run. Yeah the backup the tackles are and I start getting frustrated watching because
you know instantly that they're in the game. And the same could be said
for the pass rushers on the edge too. We haven't seen a side back
yet. Hopefully it looked like he was trending that way. He doesn't look
as bursty yet. He we haven't seen him kick inside other than one snap,
so we need to see if he can help there. The positive was
cam Sample had a few nice wins on the inside. Maybe we see more
of that, but still like if I will talk about how they can fix
some of these things and get better and maybe some trade targets, I'd be
with a defensive tackle completely. I think I don't think you can have a
truly effective pass rush. I'm surprised there a pass rush has been as good
as it is and for Hendrickson to do what he's doing only rushing from right
defense then and getting almost no help inside Other than that, I mean,
Hill and Reader have accumulated a couple of sacks, but they're playing almost every
snap, but a consistent push or a threat to penetrate that pocket really isn't
there from those two. They do their job, and they do it well,
but you know what I'm saying, I'll say it. Readers have gun
sort of been. A couple of sacks have come because he's erased escape planes
and there's no place for quarterbacks to step up. So I'll just throw that
out there. Sorry, James, No, it's all right. I think
it's a good good time to tease out of solutions trades ideas. I honestly,
I think that's where we're at. I mean, everyone's going to agree
that the secondary has been pretty good and they're going to crap on Nick Scott.
We'll see if he can figure it out and play better over the final
eleven. But that's outside of Nick Scott. What are you going to complain
about? You know? I think that the that that it's really caught.
Yeah, sure, yeah. With trick plays. Jake is on the trick
play train. I didn't buy it early. And he mentioned it in a
crossover I don't know, week three maybe, and I'm like, come on,
it's only week three, and then of course they get beat. It
was it was going into the Tennessee game. It was week four. Every
time the team has dialed up at trick play, the Bagels have lost to
the trick play. That doesn't always mean it's been completed, because the quarterbacks
have miss him throws on like flea flickers and stuff like that. But uh,
I will say this one thing, I was really impressed with against Seattle
was I thought the play action disciplined. The defense in general against Seattle was
way more disciplined in terms of backside stuff, in terms of what where they've
been gashed by a couple runs on cutbacks, in terms of play actions,
staying home doing their job kind of stuff that Marvin Lewis is, do your
job. That's something I think has improved for the defense. There's still some
concern about getting beat over the top where those haven't all been completed, but
there are a couple of instances where they're getting beat over the top and they
haven't been punished for it consistently. We're against better quarterbacks, you probably need
to clean that up a little bit more than they have. And tackling,
it was better against Seattle. Lou and Rimo seem pleased with it, but
it was still soft. There were some soft tackles where there were some yards
gained after contact where you would like to see that be a little bit better
too. But we'll as to talk about some solutions here this week and we'll
get to some trade targets stuff like that. Because the Bengals aren't back of
practice until Wednesday, anyway, so stay tuned, we'll go there on our
next episode here on Lockdown Bengals. Go check out Joe Goodbarry Stuff Bengals on
the brand. You can find it on YouTube. A couple of film breakdown
pieces per week. Does great work with first Star logistics over there on YouTube.
Until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals
podcast. Who Day, and have a good one.