Game Thread: Bengals vs. Ravens

[Cincyfan78]

Nice to see Williams make it through a complete game.

He made a difference tonight.

 

[BKBroiler9000]

Flacco has thrown for over 300 yards, but the majority of them have come off broken plays and missed tackles/sacks.

Clean that up, and this game isn't even a contest despite the frigid way the offense operated in the 2nd half.

Yep. This game shouldn’t be close. I’ll take a win, but a lot of this game was typical sloppy Marvin Lewis Bengals.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Vigil with an actual tackle in pass coverage.

It was Dennard he tackled, but I guess I'll give it to him.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Yep. This game shouldn’t be close. I’ll take a win, but a lot of this game was typical sloppy Marvin Lewis Bengals.

Not running the ball at the end of the 1st half to start the clock is just inexcusable for a coach of 16 years of a team, and however many NFL years he has.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Nice to see Williams make it through a complete game.

He made a difference tonight.

Spoke too soon.

Left injured with about a minute left.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Well, I guess a positive is that the Bengals have been on both sides of the spectrum.

On the road, down multiple scores, and had to claw back to win.

At home, up multiple scores, and had to claw to finish the game to win.

Eitherway, it's a great start, and I have a bet with a buddy of mine that the Bengals would win more than 6 games. I can already taste my steak dinner.

 

[Be Weary of Query]

“Hear them Bengals growlin’”.

It’s okay to enjoy first place and hopefully a Steelers loss this Sunday to the Chiefs.

 

[Ickey Shuffle]

Lol.

Now no one can suck off the Ravens now. Good. They're fucking horrible. Media's have no chance now but to cover us.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Just have to really tip your cap to the OL.

As bad as they were beaten around in Indy last week, they really rebounded well this week. 42 pass attempts, 0 sacks and only 4 times was Dalton hit.

Add in Hopkins coming in to play Center and not missing a beat. Just a solid effort. Could have been better in some areas, but overall, a very encouraging sign.

Also, can we stop running out of power sets? It's nearly a dead giveaway that this team is running, and the RB/OL are simply not built for it. Everything needs to be a RPO set with Mixon and Gio.

For the life of me, I'll never understand why brilliant (and I am not using this in terms of Marvin) football minds continue to believe that the best way to gain a yard, is to group a bunch of fat men in a small area and hand the ball off 4 yards behind the line of scrimmage and have the RB run right into a pile of fat assess. Meanwhile the defense stacks the line with 8-9 guys. The advantage will always lie with the defense since the OL has to not only hold their ground, but also push back to gain the yards needed. Spread the DL out, give your RB options and let them do their thing. Especially with today's RB's.

 

[CrashDavisSports]

Is there a worse team in the league with a double digit lead?

Bears?

 

[jbuck]

our year

 

[CrashDavisSports]

Not running the ball at the end of the 1st half to start the clock is just inexcusable for a coach of 16 years of a team, and however many NFL years he has.

So we can't have it both ways. You want Marvin to be conservative or more aggressive and put his foot on the throat of the opponent? I don't like the fact we didn't convert for a 1st down, but I like the balls. We are up 28-7 and we have a couple time outs with 1:20 on the clock. Offense was humming, they were not in the middle of 3 consecutive 3 and outs. I like the fact he actually tried to push that point total up. I will take that Marvin, versus the play not to lose Marvin. If the offense had been struggling and he goes and does that, then I question that logic more.

I am not going to fault Marvin for actually playing aggressive there.

 

[CrashDavisSports]

Pray Price is back quickly, and when you get Burfict and Brown on the field together, scary. I would platoon Vigil and Evans as the coverage LB though.

Really excited about our defense this year. Have a feeling this may be the only year we get Austin as our DC.

 

[Cincyfan78]

So we can't have it both ways. You want Marvin to be conservative or more aggressive and put his foot on the throat of the opponent? I don't like the fact we didn't convert for a 1st down, but I like the balls. We are up 28-7 and we have a couple time outs with 1:20 on the clock. Offense was humming, they were not in the middle of 3 consecutive 3 and outs. I like the fact he actually tried to push that point total up. I will take that Marvin, versus the play not to lose Marvin. If the offense had been struggling and he goes and does that, then I question that logic more.

I am not going to fault Marvin for actually playing aggressive there.

You can attack while starting the clock. Once the first pass fell incomplete, you had to think about not getting the 1st down, kicking the ball, and how much time would be left on the clock. They still had timeouts to use, if needed. That drive took exactly 12 seconds off the clock.

I don't fault them for going for it at all, but you still needed the clock to run a little bit.

 

[CrashDavisSports]

You can attack while starting the clock. Once the first pass fell incomplete, you had to think about not getting the 1st down, kicking the ball, and how much time would be left on the clock. They still had timeouts to use, if needed. That drive took exactly 12 seconds off the clock.

I don't fault them for going for it at all, but you still needed the clock to run a little bit.

Then you need the QB to complete 1 of 3 passes. Perhaps a TE or RB screen would have been more advantageous there to try and get a guy in open space and let them athletically take over and try to gain yards.

 

[ckhokie]

Mixon out 2 weeks

 

[cincygrad]

You can attack while starting the clock. Once the first pass fell incomplete, you had to think about not getting the 1st down, kicking the ball, and how much time would be left on the clock. They still had timeouts to use, if needed. That drive took exactly 12 seconds off the clock.

I don't fault them for going for it at all, but you still needed the clock to run a little bit.

The flip side to this is that if you really have a top 10 D, they should be able to hold the Ravens to a field goal at most when they have to go 82 yards in less than 2 minutes. That was a horrible job by the D.

 

[cincygrad]

Mixon out 2 weeks

Sucks, but I don't think Gio get enough opportunity as it is... Lets lean on him for 2 weeks.

 

[Cincyfan78]

The flip side to this is that if you really have a top 10 D, they should be able to hold the Ravens to a field goal at most when they have to go 82 yards in less than 2 minutes. That was a horrible job by the D.

You are right. Some of that falls on players needing to make plays. Some of that falls on the D-Cord who put them in some stupid situations. If they had played more normal defense like they had, instead of going nearly all prevent, I think they would have done better, IMO.

I get not wanting to get beat deep. Play a Cover -2. Putting a cover 4 in there and Vigil out there in space was not great coaching, IMO. Vigil is a decent 1st/2nd down LB, but he's nowhere near where he needs to be in pass-coverage. I know he is pressed into this due to Brown and Burfict both being out, but you are almost better served using another Safety or DB in that spot.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Sucks, but I don't think Gio get enough opportunity as it is... Lets lean on him for 2 weeks.

People seem to forget that Gio is a pretty darn good RB.