We suck

[flamingrey]

The sack/fumble was certainly on Dalton. Whitworth can't be expected to hold a block for half an hour. Dalton has been showing terrible pocket awareness all season. He panics too early, or inexplicably holds the ball. He's thrown 9 INTS in 6 games, 3 of them for TDs. He can certainly improve, but right now, he's not very good.

I attribute that part of it to the sophomore slump. He knows one way to play right now, and that's what he saw from defenses as a rookie. Teams have film now and have picked up on his tendencies. It may take some time, but I fully expect him at some point to pick up on those nuances that other teams are seeing and correct many of those errors.

 

[flamingrey]

I'm not saying Dandy Andy is anything comparable to those guys, I'm just pointing out that the league has winners and good QBs that don't have running games to fall back on, so I don't think it should be an excuse for us either. And Eli won the Super Bowl with the worst running game in the league last year.

Exactly. Because of his limitations in the passing game, Dalton NEEDS a running back to not only fall back on, but open things up for him even the slightest especially against those better defenses. It would definitely help him and that's something the front office has to get on immediately. And it starts from the o-line, not RB.

 

[Servo]

I'm not saying Dandy Andy is anything comparable to those guys, I'm just pointing out that the league has winners and good QBs that don't have running games to fall back on, so I don't think it should be an excuse for us either. And Eli won the Super Bowl with the worst running game in the league last year.

Yeah but all those teams have better RB's than the Bengals. The Broncos have MacGahee and Knowshon Moreno. The Pats Ridley and Bolden. The Saints Pierre Thomas and Ingram + Sproles. I already pointed out the talent on NYC and SD. Compartively, Dalton has very little to work with in terms of ground game. He also desperately needs a WR outside of Green (on the outside) that can not just catch the ball but make plays. It was good to see Marvin Jones on the field...maybe he can be that guy.

I'd also say to put the entire offensive output on a 2nd year QB is not a good situation for Dalton or any other young QB. I see him getting better. Rey is correct that he does struggle v. good defenses. That is the next step in his progression.

 

[Servo]

The sack/fumble was certainly on Dalton. Whitworth can't be expected to hold a block for half an hour. Dalton has been showing terrible pocket awareness all season. He panics too early, or inexplicably holds the ball. He's thrown 9 INTS in 6 games, 3 of them for TDs. He can certainly improve, but right now, he's not very good.

Can we expect him to hold the block for a half second? If I remember correctly Dalton just dropped back and got blasted from his blindside. He was expecting at least some protection from Whit...he didn't get it.

 

[flamingrey]

And just to add a bit more to what I was saying regarding Dalton's stats:

1) Dalton had a terrible game last night. End of the day, he threw 3 interceptions, yet had a QB rating of 87.3 (QBR was 35.1, but I'm not a huge fan of either one). That's pretty misleading.

2) Up until Sunday afternoon, Alex Smith was number 1 in several QB statistics, including QB Rating and the new QBR that they use. After 1 game, he's down to number 7. Just a cuople weeks ago, Ponder and Dalton were in the top 3 or 4. Ponder has since receded to 10 and Dalton 12. It's still early, so stats can change real fast.

 

[ckhokie]

Gruden has been Dalton's best friend. The scheme gives Dalton easy passes to complete and piles on plenty of yac. Green has been Dalton's close second best friend. Dalton just has to throw the ball to him when he goes long and the safety is out of the picture or still a distance away, and Green will snatch it whereever it is. This is what has resulted in nice passing stats.

Against the easy defenses the above works out great and will lead to gaudy statistics when we play those teams.

However, the problem arises when we play respectable defenses and they take away Gruden's easy passes and that yac and they don't give Green as much space underneath or overtop.

Dalton simply has not shown the ability to complete passes in double coverage where the ball has to be on the spot. And if you paid attention in the Miami game, even on the single coverage out routes, he was leading his receivers too much away from coverage, and he consistently overthrows his receivers. Some of this can be improved, others - such as completing passes in double coverage - I'm very skeptical at this point.

In my books, this puts him in the same category I used to put Vick in his heydey in Philly (even when Tubbs had him as the best QB in the league at one point). He's a player that will look great against bad defenses, but falter against the good one due to limited passing abilities (as mentioned above). It may keep you around .500 or may even get you in the playoffs, but it won't get you very far in the playoffs.

It won't happen anytime in the near future, but I'm ready to draft the next project, perferably in the first round.

I totally agree with this post.

Stats can be misleading at times, and there is a lot more that goes into validating how good a quarterback is than a stat sheet. Watching Dalton, there are many throws he is just physically unable to make that an upper echelon NFL qb should be able to make.

I think on this board, guys are often overly enamored with 'stats'

 

[ckhokie]

Yeah but all those teams have better RB's than the Bengals. The Broncos have MacGahee and Knowshon Moreno. The Pats Ridley and Bolden. The Saints Pierre Thomas and Ingram + Sproles. I already pointed out the talent on NYC and SD. Compartively, Dalton has very little to work with in terms of ground game. He also desperately needs a WR outside of Green (on the outside) that can not just catch the ball but make plays. It was good to see Marvin Jones on the field...maybe he can be that guy.

I don't think Magahee (now), Moreno (now), and Ingram are necessarily any better than Benson was. Ridley probably is, but he benefits from being a back in an offense where the D's entirely based around the pass. Bradshaw has been more effective this year than in years past. The NYG have had terrible running games the last couple years, and still have won Super Bowls. Either way, as I originally said, all of those QBs have sub par running games at best.

 

[JBUCK66]

I think running the football is a total waste of time


a 5 yrd out is a cakewalk, where as a RB has to be Godlike to get 4


these people have no idea what they are doing

2nd and 16.....ellis up the middle for no gain.....no YOU kill me

 

[Tubbs1518]

Rivers is SO much better than Dalton......

 

[flamingrey]

He is and it isn't close.

 

[Tubbs1518]

Didn't say he wasn't, just found it funny after him mentioning Rivers as one of the better QB's that he laid an egg like he did tonight. However Rivers isn't elite. He has led his team no where and they have had legit talent for years. This is actually probably one of the worst teams he has had there.

 

[DanBengalfan]

Rivers is bipolar obviously.

 

[bengaldoug]

Rivers is bipolar obviously.

The whole AFC seems bipolar this year. No lead is safe, and almost nobody plays any defense. Seems almost WWE-esque.

 

[cincygrad]

Rivers is overrated. We had this discussion last year - He put up big numbers in his first few seasons, but few players had the talent he did. Now that the talent has eroded, his flaws have been exposed. I won't argue that Dalton is better because Dalton has shown some major weaknesses, but I don't think they're much different.

 

[cincygrad]

The whole AFC seems bipolar this year. No lead is safe, and almost nobody plays any defense. Seems almost WWE-esque.

Wait until the rules 'force' everyone to spend the same..... I have a feeling that modern NFL football will be defined by most teams finishing between 10-6 and 6-10, with injuries being the deciding factor between who is good and who isn't. I suppose it's nice that it isn't baseball where the finances between teams are out of whack, or basketball where location seems to dictate where the talent exists, but something feels off with the competitive balance.

 

[vancelot23]

Yeah, every year, it seems that the worst teams and the best teams just aren't as far apart as they were the year before.

 

[vancelot23]

This year, in particular, the Falcons are the last undefeated team, but they have been on the verge of a loss in virtually every game. Houston has been the best team over the course of the season, but got throttled by Green Bay, who is beatable. Baltimore's defense is abysmal. Pittsburgh stinks. New England is inconsistent. There is no dominant team.

 

[Servo]

I totally agree with this post.

Stats can be misleading at times, and there is a lot more that goes into validating how good a quarterback is than a stat sheet. Watching Dalton, there are many throws he is just physically unable to make that an upper echelon NFL qb should be able to make.

I think on this board, guys are often overly enamored with 'stats'

What else are we supposed to measure QB's by in terms of individual performance? It's not like he accumulated all those stats on plays when the DB just fell down or all of his WR's are just wide open. I think you have to give him credit for the plays he's made. He's also made some really poor plays which are reflected in the INT #'s. But I think Dalton has shown that he can make all the throws. He has gotten much better with the deep ball over the past few weeks, he can make intermediate throws, he can definitely dink and dunk. He just needs to limit his mistakes and make better decisions at times.

Also, I was driving home from work yesterday and Artrell Hawkins made an excellent point re: the offensive design. Artrell pointed out that the Bengals do the same things over and over. Namely, Binns never goes deep. It's always a short route with him. When Gresham lines up in a certain spot he will always go deep. BC of this as the game goes on the D get's very comfortable and will sit on routes (we saw that with the Binns plays). We need to be less predictable, do more to take the D out of their comfort zone and find a guy outside of Green that can take the top off the defense. Artrell also basically said in a very PC way that Marv coaches like a pussy which I loved.

 

[Servo]

Rivers is overrated. We had this discussion last year - He put up big numbers in his first few seasons, but few players had the talent he did. Now that the talent has eroded, his flaws have been exposed. I won't argue that Dalton is better because Dalton has shown some major weaknesses, but I don't think they're much different.

He's one of the most annoying athletes in professional sports. I feel like he should be a St.Louis Cardinal with his whiney disposition.

 

[bengaldoug]

What else are we supposed to measure QB's by in terms of individual performance? It's not like he accumulated all those stats on plays when the DB just fell down or all of his WR's are just wide open. I think you have to give him credit for the plays he's made. He's also made some really poor plays which are reflected in the INT #'s. But I think Dalton has shown that he can make all the throws. He has gotten much better with the deep ball over the past few weeks, he can make intermediate throws, he can definitely dink and dunk. He just needs to limit his mistakes and make better decisions at times.

Also, I was driving home from work yesterday and Artrell Hawkins made an excellent point re: the offensive design. Artrell pointed out that the Bengals do the same things over and over. Namely, Binns never goes deep. It's always a short route with him. When Gresham lines up in a certain spot he will always go deep. BC of this as the game goes on the D get's very comfortable and will sit on routes (we saw that with the Binns plays). We need to be less predictable, do more to take the D out of their comfort zone and find a guy outside of Green that can take the top off the defense. Artrell also basically said in a very PC way that Marv coaches like a pussy which I loved.

Marv said after the game that the team plays too nice. The team is just a reflection of its coach's personality. He coaches too nice, which is why they are incapable of putting teams away when they get them down. Marv's strategy keeps both teams in the game.