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of the Locked On Podcast Network, Your Team every Day. Let's rank the
Cincinnati Bengals issue so far this year by importance and talk about some potential solutions
coming out of the bye week. You are Locked On Bengal, your daily
Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Lockdown 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 make us your first listening doesn't miss
an episode that every day's 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, we're 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 the 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 eliminated or practices
in full on Wednesday. Other guys t hit Chibaya Woozie progressing nicely. Also,
Charlie Jones Stone injur reserve progressing while 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, Keeen Davis Gaither also still not back in 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 a Keem Davis Gaither 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. Eletter Brown did say he
felt great. Kind of an extra rest day for him coming off to buy
is how he wanted to talk about it. So hopefully they get him back
this week. And those are the quick injury updates. Well, 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 Biby 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 brand, doing your
film study, doing your normal analysis thing that you do, what do you
think that if you had to point to the 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'd start with the quarterback play. And maybe
that's some wat 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 gonna do this for the first month and just get through it and
then you know, 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 that 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, or 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 the 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, have 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 of blitz or
back everyone out and just get that one more play, that one more sack,
that one more turnover. It's the 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 borrow, 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 pre
snap motion in the NFL, Philly one of the heaviest shotgun teams in the
NFL. Miami using shotgun twenty percent less than Philly is 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 and 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 mahoonmes 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 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,
explosiveness at running back, the athleticism on the offensive line, and then Hurts
can run if he has to. You know, he is a good athlete.
He strong and 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 like week three at that point when we were really
questioning like 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 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, yeah, 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 or 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,
Allen'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 are dealing with. It just became hyper focused because we were just
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
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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 they 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 wondering 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 shot, 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 give
it to mix 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 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 rushers 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 a Burrows rookie year and
then twenty twenty one when they started that way as well. So you're not
getting his 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
Evens 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 accept the Chiefs 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, and 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 erratic 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 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 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
attempt towards them, right. It shouldn't be a seventeen percent contested catch rate.
To T 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 Goho shot on third down to T. Higgins that he gets the
past interference on take away the past in efference, he still did not come
down with the contested ball that would hit him right in the hands, both
hands 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 talentboids of really high level effectiveness and whatever's
going on with Tea 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
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Dental Group on Instagram 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. 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
enough. 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's 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
Bokie 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 Josavash 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
on the skill guys, before we transition to the defense, No, I
agree, the speed is something they definitely need on offense. You know,
as far 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 Yoshibas 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 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, Eric Smith is as young as their
draft picks that they made, So I mean, you could still hope for
some upside there and there's been nothing. You're right, And he dropped two
passes and it largely been ignored. Like when I the tape, I don't
have an issue with earth 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
at 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 you look at it, like you said, Tanner Hudson has
six targets in two games. Earth Smith has eleven targets in four games.
Why is the ball finding? These guys always are Swiss 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 Tupoh 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 DJ Reader was signed and it's like, well,
Gino 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 d tackle.
They need a third guy, and they draft Zak Carter in the third
round and we'll go, okay, we'll find 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 and that,
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 in.
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, 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 up 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 trade. I didn't buy
it early, and he mentioned it in a crossover. I don't know,
week three. Maybe 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 is dialed up
at trick play, the Bengels have lost to the trick play. That doesn't
always mean it's been completed, because the quarterbacks have missing 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 of runs on
cutbacks, in terms of play action, staying home, doing their job kind
of stuff that Marvin Lewis is, do your job. Uh. That that's
something I think has improved for the d 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 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. Thanks for listening
to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Who Day have a good one.
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