Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - ALL-22 TAKEAWAYS: Dexter Lawrence helps DL DOMINATE Bengals-Texans Film

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Cincinnati Bengals’ retooled defensive line dominates as Dexter Lawrence’s “gravitational pull” lifts the entire unit—can this pass rush fuel a return to the AFC North throne? Jake Liscow an...d Joe Goodberry break down the All-22 film and reveal how newcomers Boye Mafe, Cashius Howell, and Cedric Johnson are fueling record-setting pressure rates, while Al Golden’s creative blitz packages leave offenses scrambling.Offensively, Joe Burrow shakes off the rust as Tee Higgins and Ja'Marr Chase deliver explosive plays despite persistent execution hiccups. Can Zac Taylor’s offense strike the right balance between play design and execution as the Bengals gear up for a key matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers?Photo Credit: Troy TaorminaEverydayer ClubThe improved Everydayer Club brings you access to ad-free audio, the Subtext insider club where you can text Jake and Joe and get Bengals updates in your text messages, and Joe Goodberry's members-only Discord with over 1000 other Bengals fans—all built for our most loyal fans. Click here to learn more: https://lockedonbengals.supercast.com/Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!OdooGreat organizations win because operations matter. And that’s why you should get Odoo. Try for free today at https://Odoo.com/lockedon. Butcher BoxIf you're looking for an easier way to get great meals on the table, give ButcherBox a try.Go to https://ButcherBox.com/LOCKEDONNFL to get $20 off your first box, plus your choice of free ribeye, new york strip, or filet mignon in every box for a year — with free shipping always.IndeedListeners of this show get a $75 Sponsored Job Credit to help give your job the premium placement it deserves at http://Indeed.com/podcast.PrizePicksVisit https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNFL and use code LOCKEDONNFL and get $150 if you win your first $5 lineup!KALSHIToday's episode is brought to you by Kalshi. For a limited time, Download Kalshi and use code Locked On to get $25 when you trade $25. Kalshi. Trade what’s next. GametimeToday's episode is brought to you by Gametime. Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDON for $20 off your first purchase.FanDuelGet three hundred fifty dollars in Bonus Bets — GUARANTEED — when you bet five dollars every day for seven days. Join all the action at https://FANDUEL.COMFANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN) Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Transcript
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Starting point is 00:00:00 The Cincinnati Bengals just about entirely remade their defensive line in the offseason, and that investment is paying huge dividends through two weeks of this NFL season. You are locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked on Podcast Network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. He's Joe Goodberry. I'm Jake. Let's go.
Starting point is 00:00:32 Today we dive into a film breakdown that all. all 22 takeaways from the Bengals victory over the Houston Texans in which they piled on the pressures and everyone got in on the party. We'll start with Dexter Lawrence leading the transformed Bengals defensive front. We're going to get into Joe Burrow in this offense, knocking the rust off a little bit. It's going to come. It's chugging along. Another tough defensive assignment next week as well with the Pittsburgh Steelers. But there are signs of life from Joe Burrow and this offense in week two, especially when you turn on the tape. And we're going to have a conversation about execution versus play calling.
Starting point is 00:01:09 There was some frustration about play calling during the game. We have our own issues with some of the offensive play design, but largely there are some execution issues on offense. And the Texans will do that to just about every offense in the NFL. We're going to get started with the defensive line in today's episode brought to you by Game Time. Download the GameTime app, create account, use code locked on. You'll save $20 on your first purchase.
Starting point is 00:01:30 But Joe, we tried to convey this in week one. that Dexter Lawrence was awesome. And then in a weaker offensive line matchup for Dexter Lawrence, he took it to another level in week two. But so did everyone around him. There were a ton of guys making big contributions on that defensive front. I'd like to talk about Dexter Lawrence for 30 minutes. We can't do that.
Starting point is 00:01:51 That doesn't make a good show. But it's worth it. You're going to see a lot of content pushing Dexter Lawrence this week. And they should. I did the film review. It was fantastic. As good as you imagine watching the game live, didn't really need a film review to see the three extra wins and a couple other plays where he
Starting point is 00:02:08 almost batted balls three he almost batted he's getting close to one of these uh but it is worth watching because he was that dominant but the the gravity of dexter lawrence the thing they've been selling us the entire time of how he's going to make everyone else better and i'm like yeah maybe he will but the giants didn't have a lot of sacks last year the edges did but overall they wasn't a great defense and the linebackers like bobby o'caric he still graded poorly so did he really help the Giants? But then you're starting through two weeks now. And I think really into week two, everyone is performing at such a level around him.
Starting point is 00:02:42 And even Al Golden, what he can call because of the gravity of Dexter Lawrence, I'm buying in. And it's really starting to make these other guys look very, very good. I think namely, if we can right away, Cedric Johnson. We want to talk about Cedric Johnson, I think at some point here. But I think if that's one guy that I did not expect to look this good, and it's because Dexter is having this gravitational pull of defenses needing to focus on him that they don't even have time to scout out of Cedric Johnson being the eighth, ninth guy on the defensive
Starting point is 00:03:12 line. Maybe there's something to it. It's not just Cedric Johnson either, but it's not noteworthy because we're talking about Cedric Johnson here. Like what Cedric Johnson has done through two weeks and it's not a ton of snaps. He's played 24, played 24 snaps in week two had 19 pass rushes because the Houston Texans ran a ton of plays. They dropped back 61 times. But he won a ton and they're clean wins on tape for Cedric Johnson to the point that like there should be a Cedric Johnson cut up out there on social media this week because he did enough to warrant it. But it's not just him, like I said, we'll circle back to Dexter Lawrence, Boye-Mafé and Cassius Howl. Three new contributors. And I know Ced Johnson played last year.
Starting point is 00:03:55 It looks like he's taken a step through a couple weeks this year. We'll see what it looks like over the course of the season. But Boye-Mafé and Cassius Howell have shown. some serious disruptive chops. And boy, Maffa got to kick inside a couple of times this week, won those matchups cleanly a couple of times. Cassius Howl hit a ghost move.
Starting point is 00:04:14 So we now officially, Joe, have our first Bengals edge rusher dominating on a ghost move for a quick pressure in probably 10 years. I don't know. It's been a really long time since we've seen a Bengal win on a ghost move. And that was one of the things that excited me the most about Cassius Howe
Starting point is 00:04:30 in the drafts him. But he's also winning with a spin move. numerous times in this game and generally pretty impressed with the Bengals second round pick. And the collection of players that the Bengals can throw at this thing, we've been a little bit critical at times of the hockey shifts, Joe, and that's maybe something that over the course of the game is paying dividends. Yeah, no doubt. I mean, Senator Johnson's leading the team and pass rush win rate, 26 or 24 percent, if I remember correctly, get, boy, Mappi's in the 18 percent, Cassius Howells in the 15 to 16 percent range.
Starting point is 00:05:01 Those are contributions that you need to replace Troy Hendrickson with. And they're doing that. And they're causing chaos. They're winning in different ways from different sides of the field. That's good stuff. But also then Jonathan Allen has a sack in each of the first two games, right? He's on base for 17 sacks this year, Jake. Not going to happen.
Starting point is 00:05:20 But that seems like a little bit of a rebound. Some of the narrative when they signed him was he was playing too many snaps. He needed that lesser, and he did play the most defensive tackle snaps of anyone in yesterday's game and the Texans game. But at the same time, it's less than what he was getting with the Vikings. And I assume over the course of the year, he's going to get less than the 880 snaps. He's playing in Minnesota, right? And if BJ Hill was healthy, that probably looks a little bit different in this game. I think missing BJ Hill leads to a little bit of a different defensive tackle rotation because of Bengals just went with one fewer defensive tackle this week.
Starting point is 00:05:54 Last week, Chris Jenkins had eight snaps. And this week, that was up to 30. snaps and that was on the lower end of defensive tackle snaps for the Bengals this week. And that basically was all of BJ Hill snaps because what do you have 22 or 21 week one? So that makes sense that Chris Jenkins just slid into there. But yeah, and then you're getting contributions from even Shemar Stewart, five snaps, one sack, the other four plays or whatever. But, you know, getting him to be productive is the goal. And, you know, he needs a snaps. He hasn't played all preseason. It was the first day of camp that he got hurt. So good to see him
Starting point is 00:06:25 making those plays. But I also saw T.J. Slayton, right? He's making plays again. He's making big stops and wins, flash wins, throwing down Trent Brown and making a tackle for a loss on a third and one, I think it is. There was
Starting point is 00:06:41 another one on the left side where he knifes in. He's getting single blocked because he's not at the nose this year. He's off at a three tech spot and Dexter's at the nose and immediately he's getting all the attention. And Slayton's beating his one-on-one block for a guy, you know, tackle is trying to block him here. You got a lot more power and density trying to block a
Starting point is 00:06:59 T.J. Slayton at that point helps him out, helps the linebackers out. There was a couple of plays. I don't think the linebackers had great days. I think Barry Carter had a much worse day than he had week one when I watched the film. But I think Demetrice Knight has been steady and with clearer pictures of where he needs to attack and how he needs to attack. And when he has that, I think he moves at a much faster speed and a much more aggressive pace. And I think that's largely because the defensive line is holding down the point of attack. Yeah, you're seeing the impact for the linebacker specifically in the run game where both guys have been able to play a little bit more free.
Starting point is 00:07:34 They're not getting linemen releasing to the second level as cleanly because of the impact of the veterans that the Bengals batted up front and the skill that they've added up front, the talent they've added up front. The coverage is still an issue for the linebackers. I think more than anything, that's been persistent. Over a couple of weeks, we saw very ugly, obviously, coverage for Bear Carter, covering Dalton Schultz in week two, that looks the same on tape. But let's go back to Dexter Lawrence and the impact that he's had because you're starting to see not only, you know, the one-on-one
Starting point is 00:08:06 opportunities that you're getting elsewhere on the defensive line because you know that Dexter is going to get the double team and the impact on linebackers in the run game. You're also seeing Al Golden. Yes. Starting to scheme things up a little bit. Let's discuss some of the cool things that we saw from Al Golden's defense in week two coming up here in just. a minute and then we'll shift gears talk about the offense seeing joe burrow this offense knock off the brus after we wrap up the conversation about what we saw on the defensive tape coming up next david harrison here at the lots on commanders podcast talk about butcher box i'm someone who's always trying to make sure i'm getting enough protein for me that gets a whole lot
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Starting point is 00:10:32 Cal-She products are not available in all jurisdictions, prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned today. For more information, see calshy.com slash regulatory. Jake, let's break down two of my favorite L. Golden Plays, and they were the exact same play on defense. It's not a heavy blitzing team, right? And the Bengals pulling and playing that card at the right time is going to be critical in my evaluation of El Golden, I think, in general. And so we had two plays, same concept. That was very nice to see on tape. What they're at doing is showing blitz, but really only rushing four. And they're bringing, it's kind of a fire zone, meaning they're going to drop guys out from one side and blitz from the other. But they're using Dexter Lawrence to attract
Starting point is 00:11:18 this much attention because they know, based on how offenses have deployed their pass protection against the Bengals so far through two weeks, they're going to slide that center towards Dexter Lawrence pretty much every single time, rarely giving him that one-on-one. So the Bengals are saying, okay, if we have Dex go one way and drop that end out, you're going to get the right tackle, right guard, and center all going with Dex because there's no one else to block on that side. Now you have three linemen going towards Dexter Lawrence's side, and they're bringing the Blitz. They'll bring both safeties or a slot corner and a linebacker, or in this case, I believe it was Brian Cook and a linebacker from the other side. And you end up with three blockers, four rushers from the other side.
Starting point is 00:12:01 And they, the Texans had no answer for this because you have to block towards Dexter Lawrence or he's going to kill you. And if not, well, then the other side blitz is coming and they had no answer all day. See, they tried out terrible against pressure. and the blitz this week. So shout out Dale Golden. Yeah, the blitz for the Bengals on nine of C.J. Stroud's 62 dropbacks is only a 14% blitz rate, nine blitzes, which in a normal game, nine pass blitzes is like a pretty fair number of blitzes. You know, that would be a respectable percentage. But against those plays, CJ Stroud had a passer rating of 45. That's the same roughly passer rating is when he was pressured.
Starting point is 00:12:41 42.4% passer rating was. and pressure. The Bengals got pressure to CJ start on a staggering 43 and a half percent. Do you see 41 total pressures from PFF? 33 and true pass sets. Like people are going through the data trying to see how long they think. This is a lot. This is a record type of game potentially for the Bengals. And it was all sorts of guys getting in on the party. Like I said at the beginning of the show, Boy, Amafi had eight, Cassius Hal had six.
Starting point is 00:13:10 Dexter Lawrence had five. Cedric Johnson had five. Jonathan Allen had five. Demetrius Knight on some of these blitzes that you're talking about. Had three. Brian Cook had two talking about these blitzes. St. Marstir came in and got that sack. Miles Murphy had a couple.
Starting point is 00:13:23 DJ Ivy, Chris Jenkins, T.J. Slaten, Jordan, I mean, name a guy. Just not everybody that played defense for the Bengals in this game.
Starting point is 00:13:32 Literally. Other than T. He's not allowed to get a pass rush. He did. Everyone else was getting. He had a pressure. He had a pressure that played significant defensive stats for the Bengals in this game were DJ Turner, Jalen Davis,
Starting point is 00:13:44 Barrett Carter and Daxa. Wow. Those are the guys that did not have pressures that played more than like 50 snaps in this game. I guess Chicago Davis didn't have a pressure either on his strong snaps. They were all coverage snaps. That shouldn't be a surprise. In addition to those kind of replacement zone blitzes that you're talking about
Starting point is 00:14:00 where the Bengals were rushing for, there were also a couple of plays where they actually went to true fire zone. There were five pass rushers. They dropped some guys out. They got that. It was kind of from depth and Mike's antagonist. shout out, Bengal Sands pointed this out, friend of the show, and it's linebackers coming from depth and you're getting the just free pass rushing lanes because the linebackers are coming
Starting point is 00:14:21 from depth, not necessarily identified in the past protection responsibilities that the offensive line is setting up on the Houston side. So nice to see some of these designs hitting for the Bengals, creating pressures, the diversity of source of pressure where we talked about the idea for the Bengals defense this year. This is exactly, and we talked about this last week, like the plan is doing its thing, right? This is what they envisioned when they went out and added all of these pieces, four new pieces to the defensive line, Dexter Lawrence, Jonathan Allen, Cassius, Halboy, and Moffey.
Starting point is 00:14:59 They add these pieces to the defensive line. They keep T.J. Slating around. They keep the rest of their guys around. The idea is that we're going to be so diverse and the way we're going to get a after you, it's going to make life really hard. And that has been the case through a couple of weeks, I think. And we'll see how they carry that forward. The Steelers' offense has been terrible, gets a little bit harder.
Starting point is 00:15:19 I think with the Jacksonville offense in a couple of weeks, but Denver just did a great job against Trevor Lawrence and Liam Cohen. And that might be another team that turns out to be a slow starter. Maybe Liam Cohen needs a little bit of time to figure out how to get his offense going. But it'll be fun to watch if this team keeps up this kind of stuff with the effect that Dexter Lawrence has had both schematically as an individual and just on the players around him by his presence being on the football field. Yeah, I was thinking, yeah, the Jags last year lost that week two game or Jake Browning had to come in. So yeah, they rebounded big time after that.
Starting point is 00:15:51 But yeah, the Dexter Lawrence impact, the vision we, the episode we did last week, talking about like their vision coming to fruition was a lot of the 12 personnel stuff, which they had some big plays again and 12 personnel this week. I can't wait to break that down. But, But yeah, the defense side this time, 14 carries for the running backs for the Texans, 18 yards. I don't think we can hammer that home enough. If you're doing that, you're going to win Dexter Lawrence. I think when he was on the field, Next Gen stats said one yard per carry for the Texans offense. Like what else do you want at that point?
Starting point is 00:16:28 That is controlling the line of scrimmage. That's a defensive tackle depth winning. This is exactly what they envisioned. The other quick hits on the defense. You got to some NASCAR packages this week. That was a boy Maffa kicking inside. The Bengals had some good success with that. DJ Turner, I think, had a nice game.
Starting point is 00:16:44 Again, we haven't really talked about him very much this season. Had a couple of past breakups and was generally not tested a ton on the day. And Brian Cook, steady yet he is a tackler. The tackling was better for the Bengals this week. Overall, there's still some issues there. It's not perfect. And it's still the usual suspects there. But Jordan Battle also made a few nice plays.
Starting point is 00:17:05 in the run game this week as well. So should credit him for the work he did there. Well, Barr, Carter, Demetriusite also had some miss tackles again this week. But let's talk about this offense a little bit, Joe. The stats weren't great. There's a early season slow start discussion that we can have around this. There's an execution versus play calling conversation that we can have around this.
Starting point is 00:17:31 But Joe Burroughs knocking the rust off. And the one most encouraging thing I think that we saw from the Bengals in week two against the Texans was they still found those explosive plays. T. Higgins and Jemar Chase showed why they are those dudes that should have had an explosive run that got called back with Chase Brown on a Dylan Fairchild holding penalty in this game. So the explosive stats, both on the defensive side, by the way, and the offensive side really going in the right direction through two weeks. And that's an encouraging sign as well as Joe Burrow, Zach Taylor. and this offense are waking up and we'll start to figure out more and more what's going to work for them, especially when they're not playing the Houston Texans defense. It makes it really hard to execute at a high level.
Starting point is 00:18:16 We'll finish the show with the offense coming up next. Welcome to your most rewarding NFL season ever. And that's not just a Bengel starting 2 and 0. We're talking about Fandle. How rewarding are we talking? More rewarding than a 2&0 start and Seoul first place in the AFC North after two weeks. more rewarding than a touchdown with time expiring, even more rewarding than an offensive lineman catching a touchdown or sexy dexie hitting the sexy dexie when he gets that
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Starting point is 00:19:17 Burrow and the Bengals rode underdogs last week. Now we're back to the part of the schedule where the Bengals are favored. So if you want to get in on all the action for your most rewarding season ever, check it out at Fandul. Fandul.com to get started. The NFL is full of games. you plan for all year, but sometimes the best memories come from the games that you almost missed. Game time makes it easy to find tickets for NFL matchups that you want to see with prices that
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Starting point is 00:20:22 games are feeling like that right now. Get your friends together, get your tickets, and tell them it's game time. Download the game time app, create an account and use code locked on for $20 off. Your first purchase terms apply. Again, create an account and use code locked on for $20 off. Joe, I think we're seeing this offense wake up a little. I know it was an ugly game in terms of consistency of success against the Houston, Texas, but they found some explosives this week.
Starting point is 00:20:49 You would like the success rate to be better than 25%. It's really tough to win games when you do that. Luckily, the Bengals have a defense this year that can put them in position to win some games when the offense isn't perfect. But despite the stats and the amount of points to Bengals have, remember they lost three points on a false start on a field goal. They decided to punt from yard line where Evan McPherson had earlier in the game, made a field goal.
Starting point is 00:21:16 And he's been just the best kicker in the NFL through two weeks, by the way. But some signs of life from the offense and they're pretty close to hitting on some more place. They are. There's one play in particular. I'll start off this segment with that because it's tantalizing. I watch the film sometimes looking for was there a deep shot on this play? Did he have someone?
Starting point is 00:21:37 Was there someone open but the pass rush got to him? There was one play in particular and it ended up being an explosive play. It's one of one yard pass to T. Higgins on a dig route while Burrow buys time to the right, right? He sees pressure, gets pressured, bails to the right, makes a guy mystic. It's Logan Hall around his feet, stays on his feet and hits T over the middle. His eyes are pretty much locked to the middle as its middle field open. but it's an invert covered two situation. And so the corners are going back to be the deep.
Starting point is 00:22:02 And Jamar just beats Derek Stingley down the field. Stingley almost leaves him as he's retreating to the middle of field to play his zone. And Jamar is gone. And he waves his hand. He does the I'm open, just launch it. And it kind of made me think of when we were previewing this game. And we just got done watching Josh Allen by time and just launch the ball downfield.
Starting point is 00:22:22 They just were the bombs away against Texans. Because the Texans will give you one-on-one with their number one corners. They have two really good corners. We have two good really good receivers. It's a very good comparison and matchup. But the Bengals get these one-on-ones rarely throughout the season. So it's kind of nice to see when you got a good matchup because they're going to get them.
Starting point is 00:22:39 But he beats Stingley. Stingley just leaves, lets him go at this point. And Jamar is gone. Burrow doesn't see him. And I went, ooh, that would have been, that would open the game up. I think it would have changed everything because it was fairly early second quarter that I thought, man, missed the big play there. But yes,
Starting point is 00:22:56 the big plays are there. There to be had. I think a lot of mix of Burrow needs another half a second versus Burroughs getting the ball out lightning fast right now. And these plays aren't really developing how to balance that. I think it's tough because you want Burrow to be a quick processor. It's good when he gets the ball out. Plus you're playing against a really good pass rush versus letting things develop and taking these one-on-one shots versus these top corners. They struck a balance enough to hit these big plays and get the touchdown to Jamar. But yeah, little things to iron out still. I think you could see where Joe in the second half in particular was feeling out where he
Starting point is 00:23:33 might maybe had a few more opportunities to try to extend plays where even in the first half there's a play where he knows he has to sit in there and maybe get hit and deliver the ball over the middle to T. Higgins on dagger, which is where you get Mike Kosaki running the clear out route and the end breaker coming behind it. It goes for a nice play for the Bengals. there are a ton of plays where the ball is out immediately. And you got guys not even really getting into their past walking, past rushing battles before Joe Burroughs thrown the football. And that's part of the game plan.
Starting point is 00:24:04 That'll be part of the game plan next week. They are going to continue to lean on quick game and Joe Burroughs ability to process pre-snap, post-snap, and just nickel and dime his way down the field against these teams that if you do hold onto the ball, they make you pay. And that generally happened for the bank. goals yesterday. Joe Burrow escaped the pocket a couple of times for incredible plays. The Samajai P. Ryan conversion on third and 16 where Burroughs going to the ground and he
Starting point is 00:24:28 manages to flip the ball out. The Jamar Chase touchdown, of course, which is an absolute dot on the run. And after escaping the pocket on that play, he nearly escapes that. Will Anderson sack in the very beginning of the game. Yeah. But defensive tackle, Logan Hall gets his hand on the nameplate and holds Burrow in place. So like you're starting to see that escape ability a little bit. I thought it's feel for the pocket, which was very muddy in this game, improved as the game went on, because they had some pass protection issues and wasn't as good as it wasn't week one. This is a better Texans front. And I think that played out. There's more veteran and the edge guys are just incredible.
Starting point is 00:25:07 Shelton Rankin's had a good week this week. Dalton Riser did not hold up as well in past protection as we're used to this week. But I was pretty pleased with what Amarius men did. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't as perfect as it first appeared. If you saw the PFF grades early last night, early on Sunday night, wasn't a shutout for Marius Mims, but it was still pretty dang good, especially when you consider the level of competition.
Starting point is 00:25:29 They're going to have to figure out what's going on with Orlando in these tough matchouts, probably be a little quicker to adjust if you're dealing with the T.J. Watt next week over there, and T.J. Wads given Orlando issues, we know that Amarius has done well against T.J. Watt in the past, but he's moving around this year for the first time on that Steelers defense. So we're going to need to see those adjustments a little bit sooner. But the other point I want to make on the offense, Joe, is while there are very stark, and you're going to start to see this. We're going to have the, oh, crap, here we go again.
Starting point is 00:26:00 You're going to have this moment where you're going to see the Bengals shotgun passing splits or 20 out of 24 shotgun plays or passes and 20 out of 24 under center plays or runs or whatever it is. You're going to see this crazy run-pass split shotgun under center. The run game is so fun right now, despite these splits, they're so. diverse in what they can get to in the under center run game right now that I'm really encouraged by the long-term outlook for the run game for the Bengals would like to see them get a little bit better, a little bit more invested in running from Gun to be a little bit more diverse there.
Starting point is 00:26:34 And the big thing here is, as encouraged I am as I am about the under center run game, the under center passing game, the play action concepts that the Bengals have in right now, we need to push the ball down the field a little bit more with those. So what we're getting from that in this Bengals offense just isn't good enough. And it looks pretty ugly at times. Yeah. So let's think of what probably sticks from what we saw in the second half of last year and then into the off season so far.
Starting point is 00:27:02 And I think it's the diversity of the run game. They can throw the kitchen sink at you. They can give you everything. And that's valuable. And I would say like if we're doing play calling execution, they're not executing it as good as they should. Eric All missed a handful of blocks. Dylan Fairchild got thrown around a little bit too much as a run blocker.
Starting point is 00:27:19 And I think he is a very good run blocker. He had a tough day against Tommy Togai and the other more powerful nose tackles other than Sheldon Rankin's out there. And Orlando Brown, if he can do anything well, he doesn't lose too quickly as a run blocker. I think Mims and Reisner do a good job comboing and run blocking. But when they're individual, they're not as good. There's a lot that could still happen. And Chase Brown, I thought had opportunities while watching live.
Starting point is 00:27:46 on TV that, oh, man, if he just made another guy miss, if he could keep his balance. Actually, on review, there was only one play where I felt that way. And I thought he made a lot out of nothing. So I thought it was a better Chase Brown day than expected. But the run game is exciting for what it could be. But in terms of the under center throwing, it's not there. They worked on it. And we're two games in.
Starting point is 00:28:06 And I would say, no, it's not any better. It doesn't look creative. It doesn't look exciting. There's nothing there that they're missing. I will say this about Borough, though, for some, criticisms of, you know, I kind of said like, oh, I missed the play. I don't, I don't want to be clear on this. His PFF grade through two weeks now, 75.5 is the highest of his career through two weeks. Last year, it was good, but he got hurt week two. So five quarters doesn't
Starting point is 00:28:29 really count for me. This is his best start. There's some rust to knock off still. There's some things to clean up. But if this is the launching point, we're looking at things about to be set on fire very, very soon. Yeah, I mean, the splash plays are still there, right? Like the digs to T. Higgins that he hit one of them when he's scrambling, of them when he stands in and knows he's going to get hit. And it's a tight window. The first throw that is overturned to Jamar Chase, incredibly tight window throw that you can't really step into. The sideline throw to T Higgins on the back shoulder is an excellent throw. Elite ball placement. Great catch as well. Don't get me wrong. Not taking anything
Starting point is 00:29:01 away from T. T's been awesome to start this season as well. We have a holy bleat moment for T in week one and a what the bleat moment for Jemar Chase in week two. Like those guys are making the plays too, you know, but Joe's putting the ball in a good place on a lot of these throws to give his guys a chance. So I don't have any huge issues with the offense through two weeks in terms of play calling, in terms of design, except the undercenter play action passing. I want to see that get a little bit more aggressive in pushing the ball downfield, taking second and third level shots, and not just using these elaborate play actions and misdirections to set up little screens. The screen game is not very good, but a lot of that
Starting point is 00:29:43 tight-end direction. Yeah, but I like that being sprinkled in. I want there to be some multiple options. That can't be your only options because that is a good easy button play to have. On tape, they got the Texan second level two bite also with that young linebacker that they had in there. There's pretty much linebacker number four for them. He was biting on, like you had opportunities.
Starting point is 00:30:03 They just didn't get to it and actually I tried to exploit it. We'll have some more thoughts on this film. Joe and I might get together a little bit later. Monday for a little live film review. You can find that on our socials where we'll have some links to those videos. But everyday or club? Yeah, the everyday or club will get those notices as well. You can check that out at lockdown bengals.supercast.com. In the future, there will be some live streams happening in the everyday or club. That feature not live quite yet. But when it is, we'll let you know. But that's going to do it for this episode of the lockdown bengals podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening. Hootam. And have a good.
Starting point is 00:30:43 Thank you.

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