Week Seven Geno Atkins/Carlos Dunlap NonParticipation Trophy

[MaximumSam]

It's a new day for the NonParticipation Trophy, where two players win instead of just one. The Bengals blew a 21 point lead. That's the sixth time in team history, which is most of any team in the Super Bowl era. So it's not like going up 21-0 really gave us any sort of confidence. But for a time, it did look like a competent outfit. The defense was flying around, and the offensive line was finally able to open up some holes and protect Burrow against a decent team.

So it's really the defense that was absolutely putrid. The coaching staff deserves all sorts of blame, considering it looked like they went to the prevent defense in the second quarter. Everyone in the back seven looked like trash. But the real trash was up front. We had a 21 point lead, and the Colts QB is broken down old man Phillip Rivers. He can't move, and the Colts have to throw. The Bengals have two very highly paid pass rushers on the team in Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins. I believe Dunlap is on a 45 million dollar contract and Atkins is on a 65 million dollar contract.

So what did we get with that 110 million dollar investment? They combined for 1 tackle, zero sacks, zero tackles for loss, and zero hits on the quarterback. Dunlap had the tackle, you won't even find Atkins on the stat sheet. They signed Xavier Williams off of Walmart's practice squad on the Wednesday before the game - he played in more snaps than both guys and almost more than both put together. He had 4 tackles and hit the quarterback. So congrats to Carlos Dunlap and Geno Atkins for their mutual effort of not impacting the game.

 

[cincygrad]

I'm probably missing something here..... You have a defensive line that is basically all free agents at this point..... Partially because they two biggest contracts on the line are not playing for some unknown reason (injury, too old, no longer effective, etc). Now, you have a three touchdown lead - Couldn't you throw some blitzes at the old man? Knock him down a few times? I mean, I know Phillip will beat you sometimes when you blitz. The guy has seen everything. But I'm guessing he's also at an age where getting hit a bunch is not going to go well for him. Why not just throw the kitchen sink at him and see if you can get him to make a mistake or two. At that point, you're only one or two Indy mistakes from breaking the game wide open and sending Phillip to the bench. I just don't get the mentality of our coaches.

 

[MaximumSam]

It's rather inexplicable how the Bengals could rush 3, drop 8, and still leave open guys all over the field.

 

[Cincyfan78]

Easy - if you point to having to use all crap F/A signings - you have an excuse for why things were so poor, and Mike Brown is dumb enough to believe it. Playing Atkins and Dunlap more would only be counter intuitive to ZT's argument - therefore, they cannot play and have an impact in the game.

And the non participation is clearly the coaching staff with ZT and the D-cord.

 

[CrashDavisSports]

It is the defensive coordinator. We play too much soft zone leaving guys wide open across the field even with 8 guys in coverage. We have a couple pretty good defensive backs that have speed and size. I would use that too our advantage and try to play more man to man press on the outside with a zone underneath while Bates plays CF. If you are in a dime package, you would be much better off playing more tighter man with some safety help. This will give you 4 to 5 guys able to blitz while still providing a little run support from t he underneath zone with our speedy LB's, as long as they tackle.

You play 10 yards off a guy when it is 3rd and 4, you are never going to stop the inside slant for a 1st down.

 

[BKBroiler9000]

I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were trying to do defensively. One week prior they dialed up pressure and threw in some disguised blitzes and honestly flustered Lamar Jackson. Got him off his mark. The scoreboard just didn’t reflect it because the offense got their heads torn off.

How do you not run those same concepts against 50 year old statue Philip Rivers? The epitome of folds like a cheap tent when pressured this year. Among the league leaders in turnovers off of pressure. It’s mind boggling to me that they would rush 3 (DL full of street FAs) and drop 8 in zone and literally leave everyone open.

This coaching staff is as spare as a Mike Brown bargain bin coaching staff can be. We are literally back in the Coslet/Shula/LeBeau years of Bengals football.

3-18-1...zero road wins in almost 2 years...

I’ve asked several times now...what exactly were Zac Taylor qualifications for to be a HC? Other than taking a dump in the stall next to Sean McVay? What exactly does he do well? Certainly not a wizard playcaller. Knowing the Brown family they hired based off familiarity with his one season under Tommy Tuberville at UC. Running the worst offense in school history.

If this organization had any foresight whatsoever, they’d acknowledge that Zac and his staff were a cheap stop gap to endure a massive rebuild after Marvin left the cupboard bare. Suffer through tons of losses while they restock both sides of the ball. Now with Burrow entrenched as a future stud QB, you fire Taylor and his staff and are able to attract a more qualified coach with less work to be done building a program from scratch.

This is the Bengals though. They’ll give Taylor 5 years to prove he sucks and by that time Burrow will be selling real estate along with Andrew Luck.

 

[cincygrad]

I can’t for the life of me figure out what they were trying to do defensively. One week prior they dialed up pressure and threw in some disguised blitzes and honestly flustered Lamar Jackson. Got him off his mark. The scoreboard just didn’t reflect it because the offense got their heads torn off.

How do you not run those same concepts against 50 year old statue Philip Rivers? The epitome of folds like a cheap tent when pressured this year. Among the league leaders in turnovers off of pressure. It’s mind boggling to me that they would rush 3 (DL full of street FAs) and drop 8 in zone and literally leave everyone open.

This coaching staff is as spare as a Mike Brown bargain bin coaching staff can be. We are literally back in the Coslet/Shula/LeBeau years of Bengals football.

3-18-1...zero road wins in almost 2 years...

I’ve asked several times now...what exactly were Zac Taylor qualifications for to be a HC? Other than taking a dump in the stall next to Sean McVay? What exactly does he do well? Certainly not a wizard playcaller. Knowing the Brown family they hired based off familiarity with his one season under Tommy Tuberville at UC. Running the worst offense in school history.

If this organization had any foresight whatsoever, they’d acknowledge that Zac and his staff were a cheap stop gap to endure a massive rebuild after Marvin left the cupboard bare. Suffer through tons of losses while they restock both sides of the ball. Now with Burrow entrenched as a future stud QB, you fire Taylor and his staff and are able to attract a more qualified coach with less work to be done building a program from scratch.

This is the Bengals though. They’ll give Taylor 5 years to prove he sucks and by that time Burrow will be selling real estate along with Andrew Luck.

What really boggles the mind is that the front office allowed almost the entire coaching staff to be turned over.... And then they allowed Taylor to build the biggest coaching staff in franchise history - By far. It's such an odd, mixed message. On the one hand, they looked willing to modernize the entire operation and to give it over to a young guy. On the other hand, the young guy they chose is woefully outmatched and didn't have many interested folks when he went searching for key coaching positions (d-coord, offensive line coach, etc).
Again, I know I've harped on this before, but there is one key component to all of this that ISN'T related to the Brown family.... That is Duke Tobin. I'm not impressed by his ability to select Joe Burrow number 1.... Even if we give him credit for selecting Boyd, Mixon and Higgins, the guy really has failed repeatedly over the past 5 or 6 years.

 

[DanBengalfan]

It's rather inexplicable how the Bengals could rush 3, drop 8, and still leave open guys all over the field.

yea, it didn't make since to me, we don't exactly have the correct personnel to do this.

 

[MaximumSam]

No Mixon or William Jackson

 

[MaximumSam]

Does AJ Green remember how to jump?

 

[MaximumSam]

Carlos Dunlap continuing his campaign

 

[alf8478]

Gio is better than Mixon

 

[DanBengalfan]

our defense...

 

[alf8478]

our defense...

What defense

 

[MaximumSam]

Man, tough to decide which defender was the biggest chump out there

 

[cincygrad]

Its funny how much more efficient our offense is when we drop the pretense that we might be able to run the ball. The force-feeding Joe Mixon has led to a lot of stalled drives this year. None of that going on today. Then again, the Browns D isn't very good.

I realize that no matter who coaches this D, there is only so much improvements that can be made. They are playing at least 4 or 5 guys (at least) that are clear back-up or practice squad material....But, you have to do something schematically. I mean, you can't keep lining up with 4 guys rushing while quarterbacks pick apart your secondary.

 

[cincygrad]

BTW - Joe Burrow was unstoppable with an offensive line of Fred Johnson (LT), Michael Jordan (LG), Billy Price (C), Alex Redmond (RG) and Bobby Hart (RT). And no Joe Mixon.

 

[cincygrad]

And here's the defensive leadership we need:

 

[alf8478]

The line seemed to be a lot better in the second half, without Williams and Hopkins. I don’t know what that means.

 

[alf8478]

And here's the defensive leadership we need:

Dunlap is definitely going about this the wrong way, but it amazes me that people would side with the inept coaching staff over Dunlap on this one.

 

[cincygrad]

Dunlap is definitely going about this the wrong way, but it amazes me that people would side with the inept coaching staff over Dunlap on this one.

From what I read from the reporters covering the team, it sounds like most of the players are on the coaches side of this one.... I'm with you - I can't really understand it.

FWIW - Dunlap has been a great player in Cincinnati. Mostly healthy his entire career. Very productive. A team leader. Big contributor to the community. I'm not sure if this is just a player acting out of character because he's reached the end of his career or if the coaches are causing some trouble.