Game Thread: Bengals vs. Browns

[jbuck]

what a god dang mess. well we had one one good game

 

[Cincyfan78]

OL grades - RG/LG abysmal. 9 of 15 pressures came from the OG position.

Williams did very well against Garret. Just 4 pressures. Season low for Garret. 88 true pass blocking grade.

Fact of the matter is - the interior of this OL is not good enough. Jury is out on Carman, but what they ran out there is not good enough. Spain has had years to show he's been better. Reality is setting in that his small stretch in Buff was likely the outlier, and the struggles are the actual expectation.

Burrow 0-7 on deep throws, but still a 78 grade - WR's dropped the ball. Literally and figuratively.

Defensively - worst tackling day of the season. Missed 22.4% of chances.

The more they run Apple out there, the less credibility they have. He simply is not good.

 

[cincygrad]

Did not watch a single second of the game. By all accounts, another lackluster performance from the players and coaches.

When Burrow and Co are on, the offense looks great, and Taylor is a good looking coach. When Burrow struggles and they need innovation to get things going, or to change things up, Taylor is exactly the coach we've seen for the last 2 years.

Outside of a big-time playoff run - if I were the Bengals, I would be looking to make changes. You cannot waste more years of the core of this group. You already lost 1/2 year on Burrow with his injury. Things change too fast in the NFL to sit around. That's what this team did in the mid-2000's and 2010's with Palmer/Dalton and Co. Just look at KC for an example. A healthy Rodgers, and they are likely yet another loss in the season - after being the SB multiple times. Window looked wide open. Then it slammed shut in a hurry.

I don't know what to make of yesterday. It was a very odd game. It's impossible to know what happens if the Bengals punch it in on that first drive. Cleveland was a fragile team playing on the road - If they give up a long drive touchdown on the first possession it's possible that things get worse for them. I know you said you didn't watch, but if you see some highlights you can see the momentum begin to build for them. When Baker hit that deep pass they were complete..... They really needed that.

When the Bengals couldn't cut it to 10 before half, the game was over. Cleveland is the wrong team to give a two score lead - With their running game and their pass rush, they are in great position to end the game quickly.

To me, the Bengals look like a classic high variance team..... They can probably beat some of the best teams in the league when getting special plays from their playmakers and they can also lose to the bottom-feeders. It's possible they can learn to win more consistently, but it isn't likely. It's also possible that they could be a very scary 7th seed in the playoffs if they sneak in.