Panthers @ Bengals

[vancelot23]

It's a little misleading to say we have 10 weeks to prepare for Pitt and Baltimore. We have one or two other teams to prepare for between now and then.

 

[flamingrey]

It was only two years ago that:

LT Whitworth
LG Livings / Mathis
C Cook
RG Williams
RT Roland

Were one of the best blocking offensive lines in the league for whatever reason. They took a year off last year. And now they add Boling and Smith. They should in essence at least be somewhere between what they were in 09 and 10.

There was no game film on these guys' weaknesses. Add to that the unbalanced line and teams didn't have an answer until Week 9 or Week 10. The Oakland games is one of the first that stands out as teams that exposed that line. They absolutely abused Roland, and it was all downhill for him from there.

 

[bengaldoug]

It was only two years ago that:

LT Whitworth
LG Livings / Mathis
C Cook
RG Williams
RT Roland

Were one of the best blocking offensive lines in the league for whatever reason. They took a year off last year. And now they add Boling and Smith. They should in essence at least be somewhere between what they were in 09 and 10.

They struggled in pass protection, from the beginning....remember, they ran the ball almost exclusively two years ago, and utilized Roland as an extra TE in unbalanced lines, which actually did play to the strength of the line....I think we all overrated Cook, since we were so happy to be rid of Ghiaciuc the human turnstile.....Livings/Mathis has been the weakest spot from the beginning, also, which explains why neither could grab the job outright....

 

[bengaldoug]

It is also very possibly, Gruden, Dalton and the oline are starting to understand the new system and how to play after a few games. I think some of this success belongs to the fact that Carolina just sucks, but I think it is just going to take some of these young guys some time to understand and develop. There are a lot of rookies here.

They did execute well, but the oline was physically able to dominate Carolina's dline, they ran the ball well, which meant Dalton had a good pocket the whole first half.....they also still made mistakes, and Benson doesn't seem to have recovered from the fumbling tendency he developed last year.....they have absolutely no room for mistakes when facing competent opposition.....

 

[Tubbs1518]

I will say they looked good. I liked what I seen out of Dalton and the O-line and the RB's. The D looked good again. But I will say this is just 1 game in the preseason for the offense. While It does give me hope that they can look like this, I'm not banking on it happening many games this season. It was Carolina and they are bad. However we do play a lot of bad teams in the beginning of the season and I can see us winning 2-3 of our first 5. And when we play INDY if Peyton isn't playing or we can knock him out early that would be a win too IMO.