Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Bengals-Chiefs Film Takeaways: Silver Linings Give Reasons For Optimism

Starting point is 00:00:00 A day later, we've had time to watch the tape. Mike Santagana joins the show to break down the reasons for encouragement after a rough week to loss in Kansas City. You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. What are Bengals fans and welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. I'm your host, Jake Liskow, joined today by Mike Santagana, our weekly. film breakdown guests. You can find Mike on Twitter at

Starting point is 00:00:39 Bengals underscore Sands. You can find his podcast. It's always game day in Cincinnati and you can find his writing on Cincinnati Bengals talk, the SI website for the Cincinnati Bengals. This show is part of the locked on podcast that we're covering

Starting point is 00:00:55 your team every day. We're on YouTube. We're everywhere you get your podcast. Welcome back to the everyday or shout out to those of you who make us your first listen today. We will get to some of those reasons to be encouraged, some of the reasons for optimism and some of the things that went down when we had a chance to review the tape of Week 2's game in Kansas City. And today's episode brought to you by Fandall, where now through September 22nd, you can

Starting point is 00:01:20 bet $5 to get three weeks free of NFL Sunday ticket from YouTube and YouTube TV. You can visit fandle.com to get started. And Mike, we, of course, will start with Joe Burrow. there was a lot of hand-wringing, a lot of concern over Joe Burrow in week one. My impression, watching live and digesting the game was that it was a step forward for Joe Burrow. It was a better performance for Joe Burrow. He looked more comfortable.

Starting point is 00:01:50 He looked more confident. He looked less hesitant. I thought he was a little bit better in the pocket. But I didn't think he was all the way back. Let's take some time to break down how this game went for Joe Burrow. What were your takeaways from watching the tape? I mean, I thought it was market improvement where I would give his first game somewhere around like a D minus.

Starting point is 00:02:11 This was probably more like a B. And that's a huge improvement to climb all the way up to there. Don't think it was perfect. But for the most part, though, made the right read, made the right throw the entire game. There weren't very many, you know, lucky bounces that went his way in terms of ball hitting a defender and just get swatted or tipped up or dropped or something like that. overall thought he played well um i think one of the first thing that comes to mind when i think about how he played in this game was oh my goodness his body was a battering ram in this game after

Starting point is 00:02:42 he didn't run the ball on that third or second down where he had room and threw it to irwin instead yeah yeah after that it felt like he made a you know made a point i'm going to run when i have the chance and uh sometimes that was good and then sometimes he's trucking over two guys and you're kind of hoping like he's got to get up right it's going to get up fine and he gets up flexing it's like okay maybe maybe roll that back a little bit there's somewhere in between these two that you can do um but yeah i thought he played i thought he played well i think there were just a couple key plays that didn't go his way maybe they don't happen if he gets a hundred percent grade from you know his castmates in terms of the offensive line or the

Starting point is 00:03:31 wide receiver and tight end dropping a couple of key passes. But when that happens, you still got to be able to overcome it. And I felt like there were two plays, just a few plays that he probably went back. And that's fine. I think getting a B grade against maybe the best defensive coordinator in the NFL, probably pretty good. Yeah. Now that Mike McDonald is a head coach, and that would be a conversation anyway between Mike McDonald and Steve Fagnola, who consistently has good plans for the Cincinnati Bengals offense who has seen this team a lot. These teams very familiar with each other. Patrick Mahomes had his worst game in quite a while.

Starting point is 00:04:10 I would be willing to wager and we'll talk about what Lou Anarimo cooked up that went so well for this Bengals defense later in the show. We're going to stay on Joe Burrow here at the top. I thought that there was a lot to like with Burrow in this game. There's some decisions you question. But like I said, to me, he looked much more confident. confident and in control. He looked like he was willing to extend plays a little bit more by staying in the pocket, but it wasn't 100% of where you would want it to be. There's still a few times

Starting point is 00:04:40 where it feels like he drops his eyes a little bit early and becomes a runner and loses that throwing posture, just like a split second early, at least that's how it felt to me live. The throw to Trent Nurewin, while it very well could be argued that that should be a touchdown pass to Trent Nervin, that could also be a touchdown run for Joe Burrow or at the very least the first down. You brought that play up a little bit earlier, the second down where there didn't appear to be anybody in the vicinity on broadcast. It didn't appear to be anybody in the vicinity on tape. You at least are gaining positive yards there to make that a third and short. If you don't score, could be a first down even, could be a touchdown there potentially, depending on how the

Starting point is 00:05:22 play goes. But there were still some issues that you would like to see improve. I thought, we'll make sure we hit on the positives here too. The fumble and ball security issue to me, I mentioned on yesterday's show, this is now a couple of official fumbles for Joe Burrow and a couple of near fumbles for Joe Burrow. And that's something that had been a problem for him early on in his career,

Starting point is 00:05:51 where the ball security when he got hit just wasn't quite there. And that led to the biggest swing in this game from an obvious scoreboard, eye test perspective, and from an EPA perspective, that play where he goes fumble six for the chiefs is a monumental play in the football game. That's got to be cleaned up. And like you said,

Starting point is 00:06:12 maybe you don't get to those plays if Mike Keseki doesn't drop a pass, if Andre Yosevash doesn't drop a pass, and then Joe Burrow doesn't see the slot blitz from the Jamar Chase side of the field, those drops directly lead to Chief stops. But you will, like your quarterback to be able to make a play for you in second and ten or third and ten

Starting point is 00:06:32 on plays after those drops yeah and uh ball security i mean i think some of it's also no one to go down don't let the guy clean you up because the guy coming in to clean you up is trying to knock the ball out and uh if there's if anything we know as you know as people that have covered the bengals the bengals love doing that right so i feel like it should be a point of emphasis the other way too of your legs are wrapped up you're getting pulled to the ground just go down you're probably not going to break two tackles back here and then make that linebacker that's coming in hot make him miss too and run for the first down on third down eventually it's hard and borough had to do this just for throwing the ball too um have to know when there's basically no chance and just save yourself and

Starting point is 00:07:23 let's get the ball let's keep the ball you know play it safe type of situation uh but overall, I thought, quite really well. And, you know, he's taking some big hits, too. So the ball security is also, he probably shouldn't take that many hits, at least that big of hits during a game. At least I don't think he would again, at least not as a runner. So hopefully not. That happens every week. I feel like we're going to have another conversation about like, protect yourself. Yeah. Perhaps. Perhaps. I would highlight a few positives as well, Joe Burroughs performance when he was not pressured in this game really good. And the offensive line did a good job of making Burrow comfortable in those pockets,

Starting point is 00:08:06 I think pretty consistently in this game. The play action splits for Burrow this week pretty positive. Obviously had the deep shot to Jermaine Burton. We'll talk about that when we get to some of the big changes in offensive scheme or evolutionary steps we saw this week. But PFF hasn't charted at six of nine on play action passes for 100 yards. It's 11.1 per attempt. Obviously, has 50 of those on one play to Jermaine Burton,

Starting point is 00:08:32 but that is a very positive split for Burrow. And that is something that we talked about in the past, where how well can he adapt to a heavier play-action game plan? 22% of his dropbacks in play action, and it was effective for the Bengals in this game. Wasn't so good when he was blitzed, but we saw him push the ball down the field more confidently. Wasn't necessarily super effective downfield.

Starting point is 00:08:55 one for two on passes targeted more than 20 yards downfield, two for eight on passes targeted in the 10 to 19 yard range, but did have two of his drops, according to PFF, charted in that part of the field, but like to see the confidence for Burrow to be able to push the ball a little bit further downfield. And when you compare that to what Patrick Mahomes is doing in this game,

Starting point is 00:09:15 because we get that direct comparison in this game, it's a bit night and day, and that's something that speaks to Luanna Rumo and this defense's performance, and we'll get to toward the end. of the show. But coming up next, we will dive into some of the major offensive scheme changes that we saw from this team this week. And it's still the Bengals offense, but they did some things differently. And I think that that is worth some praise and worth

Starting point is 00:09:40 thinking into. And Mike, I'll let you talk about some of the things you saw differently in that perspective coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by LinkedIn Jobs. LinkedIn Jobs knows that when you're hiring for your small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. And that's why you have to check out LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn jobs didn't help the Bengals find the tight ends that made them so effective passing the ball on Sunday. But they do have the tools to help you find the right professionals for your team

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Starting point is 00:11:44 So you can take the guesswork out of buying tickets with GameTime. You can download the GameTime app, create an account, and use code a locked-on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, you can download the app. app, create an account, and redeem code locked on NFL, L-O-C-E-D-O-N-N-F-L-L-C-E-O-N-FL-L-C-E-O-N-FL-L-C-L-L-C-E-O-N-F-L-T-L-L-E-L-T-E-L-E-L-T-E-L-E-L-T-E-L-E-L-E-L-T-E-L-E-L-T-E-E-L-E-L-E-U-T-E-E-E-L-E-W-E-E-E-E-W-E-E-E-E-W-E-E-E-E- And this game, it was like they majored in it. It's like 12, 13, whatever.

Starting point is 00:12:31 That's going to be a major part of this offense. So, yeah, I think the personnel usage, but also some of the stuff they ran off of that, where some of it was some boot stuff. I saw a couple of boot actions. He hits Eric Allen a late, and he hits Drew sample on one as well. So a little bit of boot action in there. So some easy buttons put in there from the 12 and 13 personnel looks. but I think that's the first thing that's really going to stand out

Starting point is 00:12:58 and then some of the run concepts that they got to, especially with Chase Brown, also stood out as like, oh, that's completely new. What were the differences in the usage of Chase Brown and Zach Moss? This was a week where we heard coaches say that that was supposed to be more of a 50-50 split. It looks like Zach Moss is still the pass-protecting back. I just want to take a quick look at the splits here

Starting point is 00:13:23 since PFF charts these 4S Zach Moss with 13 pass pro reps, Chase Brown was zero. So clearly they trust Zach Moss in that role more than Chase Brown. But they're also getting different kinds of runs. And I know there were only four attempts for Chase Brown versus 12 for Zach Moss. But this is something that we observed last year between Joe Mixin and Chase Brown, where they're getting different kinds of runs. What did you observe there? They give Zach Moss the grimy stuff for the most part.

Starting point is 00:13:51 They give him inside zone, give him some wide zones. stuff, gave him a duo, just stuff where sometimes when you call that play up, the max gain you're thinking of is like six yards, you probably have to drag a body to get there. Then they want Zach Moss taking those shots, not Chase Brown, because Chase Brown's kind of the sports car, Zach Moss is the everyday utility truck of sorts. But that's what I see is that they seem to like Zach Moss running some of that stuff where he doesn't have anybody leading him. He doesn't have a defined hole that is supposed to hit on this play.

Starting point is 00:14:26 Think of inside zone, tight zone. You're reading quickly leverage to try to find where your run is or wide zone is the same way. And duo is reading a linebacker, and that's a running back run to make that linebacker wrong on that. Instead, Chase Brown, every run he had in this game, he had a tight end leading him where he needed to go, whether that was insert zone, ISO, or kind of this bend, windback type play. And each time the tight end made a heck of a block, another part of the usage is that they're using the tight end to lead the running back through the hole right now as an Hback, as a full back, whatever you want to call them. Chase Brown is getting those. And I think it's just that they still don't feel comfortable with Chase Brown doing the grimy running back run type of more difficult mental processing part of this.

Starting point is 00:15:15 They kind of want him to be shoot out of a cannon and just follow this block. and once he makes that block go. And that's what he did. He was awesome. He was really good at his role. Maybe could earn an increase in his role, maybe take a look at it. But that's, I think, the main difference. Chase Brown's kind of getting those fun runs designed up to fit everybody in there.

Starting point is 00:15:36 You're going to hit this hole specifically. You don't need to think about leverage or whatever is happening unless something goes terribly wrong. You have your defined read. Just go be a playmaker. Yeah, the run-pass split in this game also heavily. in the direction of passing the ball. The Bengals, I think they're two weeks. I don't think I know.

Starting point is 00:15:55 Have the highest pass rate over expected. They remain one of the teams in the NFL that is passing the ball a ton. Even the Chiefs, who I think ranked 8th in pass rate over expected were negative. They were actually passing less than expected. Part of that, I think, is a game plan of how they wanted to attack the Cincinnati Bengals. Andy Reid clearly intent on running the ball this week and week two, and we have some small sample size issues of play there. The Bengals, meanwhile, remain in. a team that wants to pass the ball a ton.

Starting point is 00:16:23 And the encouraging thing about this week to me from that perspective is, one, I mentioned the play action split earlier. I think that is a step in the right direction, even if that is a small sample size. Again, it was nice to see them find some efficacy. You talked about some of the boot stuff they were doing as well as the deep ball for Jermaine Burton. So it's nice to find some effectiveness from the play action game, from the under center game. And another big step as far as that goes in terms of passing game,

Starting point is 00:16:55 if you're going to be a heavy passing game team using the 12 personnel a lot more, that's a big deal. Getting under center a lot more than week one. To me, that is a big deal in terms of willingness to do different things. And where week one, I think it was three under center, maybe four under center and three pistol reps. And week two, I think it was two pistol reps and more like 17 or so under center. And maybe, what does that leave?

Starting point is 00:17:20 Like 40 shotgun snaps. So still a heavy shotgun team, but the willingness to go under center. And this crazy split that next-gen stats had. And this is motion and shifts, I'm pretty sure, meaning motion at the snap and pre-snap shifts where somebody just goes across and resets. But according to next-gen stats, the Bengals used motion on 43 of 61 plays,

Starting point is 00:17:43 which is 70%, the highest motion rate they've ever used under Zach Taylor. and that's one thing. They're using more motion great. I'm very curious to see how much of this is motion at the snap versus shifts because they've always used shifts and the motion at the snap they've used less of. But the crazy part of this split is they average 6.2 yards per play on those plays with motion, 2.9 yards per play without motion. That is a massive, massive difference and hopefully gives them something that they can learn from and use going to. forward with some of these other elements that we talked about. Yeah, it was a lot of shifts to me.

Starting point is 00:18:24 Could be wrong, but when I watched it back over, I thought it was a lot of shifts, but the shifts are tells. It's mainly shifting Jamar Chase and seeing, okay, so what is your response as a defense? Do you follow him with McDuffie or does McDuffie back off and then it's zone, the man zone indicator, just something to give the quarterback a little something there, maybe see what the matchups are. And then there was some motion at the snap, too. I think there was plenty of that.

Starting point is 00:18:49 I'm not trying to discredit it. Thinking of the Jermaine Burton Deepball came on that motion that they've shown repeatedly in preseason. And then in week one of that run play, where the titan goes and kicks out the end, they ran that with Gassiki in the motion and then ran a play action off of it. It's great. You're sequencing. And you're showing things on film that you're going to use as bait later. I think it's good to have the shifts.

Starting point is 00:19:13 I think it helped Joe Burrow. I think it might be worth going back under a microscope and seeing like, okay, but was it bad in terms of why did things go wrong for the stuff that didn't have any type of shift whatsoever? I tweeted when I tweeted the stat, I said we probably need way more context here to understand what exactly is happening on the plays with him without motion. What exactly is being defined as motion here? That is something that we get from the film study. That is something that we could take a second look at later in the way.

Starting point is 00:19:43 week, but maybe those plays where they're static and they're not shifting are just like your third intense. And those are really hard against the Spagnolo defense that is dialing some stuff up. One of the big lessons for me in this game is the Bengals don't want to be behind the chains against Spags. It's something that they've been able to overcome in the past. We'll see if Joe Burrow gets back to that point this year. Meanwhile, the defense kept Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs to one of eight on third downs. And a game that Mahomes was not very effective, looked very pedestrian. We'll talk about what Luana Rumo's defense did to slow Patrick Holmes down coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by Fandall.

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Starting point is 00:21:06 where the Bengals are seven-a-half point favorites on Monday night football and a potential get-right game against the Washington commanders and Jaden Daniels, a Heisman trophy winner coming in playing quarterback for the Washington Commanders in the Ring of Honor night, which has been a good night for the Cincinnati Bengals in their recent history since they've started doing the Ring of Honor thing.

Starting point is 00:21:25 You can check it all out at fandle.com and get that one week or that three-week free trial of NFL Sunday ticket. Again, that's fandle.com. Download America's number one sportsbook. Mike, we finished the show with a very impressive effort from this defense, I thought. The things that we thought would go wrong did go wrong. The Chief's interior offensive line were their best players on offense, and the Bengals' interior defensive line struggled,

Starting point is 00:21:54 but really encouraged from another dominant performance from Trey Hendrickson, his ability to single-handedly almost win the game on defense and really play a game record role for Patrick Mahomes and the Chief's attempts to run a passing offense in this game. And a number of players stood out for positives, But something you pointed out to me before we got started is where Patrick Mahomes passes were when you look at how he just wasn't able to push the ball downfield. And Mahomes was not good in this game. Put the ball in danger numerous times, including a pick that didn't count and got that DPI called the end of the game on a duck that could have gone to a better spot on the football field.

Starting point is 00:22:37 What did the Bengals do that made Patrick Mahom so uncomfortable? everything constantly changes and then what's always funny in me is going back and seeing the reps where they line up and cover one and they've changed out of that look so many times you get the tampa two quarters whatever and then they just play cover one straight up and then they clamp them too because that's the camp taylor britt interception was they just lined up in cover one press cover one and just clamped the receivers i think some of it is that they've matched up well with these receivers the one played a the one deep ball notwithstanding that you know that happened But for the most part, it felt like when they got manned up, matched up, whatever, they did a really good job against these receivers, something that I don't think Baltimore really did when they had that opportunity, both in the short area and the deep area of the field.

Starting point is 00:23:22 I think the constantly changing picture, it just freezes it. I don't think that Mahomes is like, oh, my goodness, what is happening? I think it's more like, it frees them for a second where he's like, I thought I had this answer. And I always have to confirm post-snap with a Luana Rumo defense. Like, they're in this. Okay, they're in this. and by the time you say those two phrases in your head, Trey Hendrickson is either in a chokehold or coming in to hit you from behind,

Starting point is 00:23:47 one of the two. So I think some of it's, yeah, Mahomes is struggling a little bit against his loiter and room defense. I think some of it is just when you have a dominant pass rusher affecting the game like that, it is really difficult to pass the ball. I think there's some things that maybe Andy Reid could have done to help him when it comes to giving real help off that side, maybe not just a running back running close to the edge on Hendrickson or something like that.

Starting point is 00:24:11 He needs a little bit more help. Treat him like he's, you know, Miles Garrett, T.J. Michael Parsons type, Max Crosby type because that's what he is as a pass rusher. That's the impact he had in this game, for sure. Yeah. And look, I don't think he always gets treated that way even when he's blowing up. I can think of that Rams game last year too, where they had a backup tackle against him. They kept leaving him on Ireland.

Starting point is 00:24:29 It's kind of what this was. He's benched two left tackles in games, but they still haven't given enough to those left tackles instead. But yeah, all the credit to Trey Hendrickson, but also want to give shout out to Lou for just allowing them to have the time to get there too. Because I think that's something that didn't happen in the Patriots game. Maybe it was less creativity post-snap. I think that was less creativity post-nap, but that's also because the Patriots were just going to run the ball. And if they had to punt, they had to punt. They just wanted to score 17, 20, and win that game however they could.

Starting point is 00:25:00 The Chiefs instead know that this is a little bit more of a high-scoring affair, at least. and they're not just going to run the ball in third and seven or something like that. So these, you know, when you have the opportunity to rush the passer, you have the opportunity to change the picture post, snap, play whatever coverage you want, flood the coverage, think of the resource management aspect of it. Now we can really push all our resources to coverage rather than trying to stop the runner, rush the passer. It's nice because they lined up in a 316 at one point on third and six,

Starting point is 00:25:31 and it's not like the chiefs are going to run the ball there. Patriots might have, you know, like you can't go out there and do that. I guess the Patriots they might just come out in 22 and try to run ISO and then just run it again or something. So I thought the game allowed him to get creative. He got creative. He does a really good job of that. And then his players performed, Cam Taylor Britt performed other than the one play. But like, hey, you make that pick. You can give up a touchdown, I think. That's how I would think, at least. DJ Turner,

Starting point is 00:26:00 Dax Hill, all these guys, they played really well in their role up until maybe the last play of the game. But that's eight

Starting point is 00:26:06 seconds into a play at the same time. I thought he cooked. I thought he cooked and I thought he ran some interesting stuff. He did more of a four-down

Starting point is 00:26:14 base in this game, four-three. They did that against speedy quarterbacks before, like a Lamar Jackson, but they didn't really do that against Mahomes

Starting point is 00:26:23 when they went base. They would go three, four, five, two, whatever odd front. This time they're going even front. because partially because of the bodies they have,

Starting point is 00:26:30 so many defensive tackles are out, but partially, Akim Davis Gather, he might have been the second best defensive player in the field. The only reason he wasn't the best was because, you know, one of the ends had two sacks and three penalties that he was able to cause. So he was really good in this game.

Starting point is 00:26:45 I thought putting a role to succeed, it feels like they always have a beat on what the chiefs like to run to. I feel like that's part of it, where it just feels like they know the patterns that are coming at them route distribution-wise. It's forcing Mahomes into some checkdowns. I thought there may have been a couple of misses from Mahomes as well, but at the same time, was he sped up because left tackle was getting abused?

Starting point is 00:27:07 Maybe. It looked like it. And that doesn't happen to Patrick Mahomes very often. His time to throw when he was blitzed was under two seconds, 1.58 second time to throw when he was not blitz. When he was clean, the ball was coming out in 2.13 seconds, which even for Patrick Mahomes is very fast. When he was pressured, he did extend some plays.

Starting point is 00:27:25 But on those plays, he was pressure, which was 25%. of his dropbacks according to PFS charting. He was one for four with that completion going for just one yard and a turnover worthy throw happening on those plays. The Bengals only blitzed him five times and he was three or four on those blitz snaps for only nine yards. Did also have the play action touchdown pass to Juanio Morris against the blitz. But as we discussed before the show, Mike, the Bengals were really selling out on the run. run on that play. 51 of Patrick Mahomes, 151 passing yards came in the screen game, according to PFF's charting. That was nine of his 32 attempts, or sorry, nine of his 32

Starting point is 00:28:09 dropbacks, eight of his 25 attempts. And on non-screen plays, Mahomes was just 10 for 17 for 5.9 yards per attempt, have those two picks. You take that every day of the week in terms of bottling up Patrick Mahomes and this Kansas City passing offense, which looked like it had something in week one against Baltimore. And not only that, the crazy thing here that you pointed out to me before we got started is of Patrick Wilhelm's 25 attempts, 11 of them come behind the line of scrimmage. Another seven of them come into zero to nine yards beyond the line of scrimmage range. So we're at 18 in the behind the line of scrimmage to nine yards area of the field

Starting point is 00:28:52 and just five passes pushed more than 10 yards downfield. And on those passes, he threw two picks. So the Bengals did a great job of forcing the ball to come out quickly, forcing the ball to come out underneath. And a big difference from week one to week two was tackling wasn't perfect, but it wasn't the glaring disaster that it wasn't week one. The issues they had this week when they gave up yards were typically that the interior of the defensive line couldn't hold up against the best interior offensive line of the NFL.

Starting point is 00:29:22 But tackling was significantly better, I thought, this week, Mike. Oh, yeah. And they played against a team that's hard to tackle, too. Rashi Rice, hard to tackle. I say Appichiko hard to tackle. I can think of even Carson Steele, hard to tackle. So they had some guys in there. The Chiefs ran that end around again that they ran against the Ravens.

Starting point is 00:29:42 Dax Hill made a cool play. Not even just Dax Hill, but B.J. Hill strung that thing out to the sideline. I want to give him some credit here because he took it all the way out to the numbers. as the defensive end. If you think of the Ravens one, he's worthy cuts up field so quick and is pushing down the field right away and the blockers are in front of him.

Starting point is 00:30:01 When you get strong out all the way to the sideline, give him time for Daxil to come up there and make a play. So they both deserve some credit on that. So, yeah, I thought the defense was much more well coached. It just seemed like the entire team woke up this game. And it kind of stinks that that didn't happen week one. They kind of slept walked through that first game. But now this mostly looked like the Bengals

Starting point is 00:30:17 that we were expecting to see throughout the season. Yeah, it gives me. some encouragement going forward. The cool play from Dax Hill, by the way, on that end around, that reverse, whatever it was, was that he chucked his blocker into Xavier Worthy and slowed him down and gave someone else time to get there and clean it up.

Starting point is 00:30:33 But I thought that was, I don't know who was blocking him on that play, but it was a nice grown man's strength play for Dax Hill out there. And once again, we didn't really see Dax tested too much in coverage. There's one play where the announcers talked about it. He probably got too much depth in zone. PFF hasn't charted.

Starting point is 00:30:52 did two targets, three targets, two catches, 15 yards. You're taking that every time. Camp Taylor Britt, I mentioned on the show yesterday, outside of that touchdown where he gets caught peeking into the backfield, only targeted one other time for a six-yard pass, and then has that awesome pick. So pretty good job by the Bengals to keep the ball underneath, to tackle in the passing game,

Starting point is 00:31:13 to speed up Patrick Rahomes, to bait him or get him uncomfortable enough to put the ball in danger, throwing the ball, just some really, one uncharacteristic pick, which is also a really good play for Akeem Davis Gaither and a couple of really nice plays, one of which didn't count. DJ Turner had a great interception, a couple of plays before Camp Taylor Brits interception. Those were both really good plays by DBs on this team. So, interesting to see how DJ Turner's usage will evolve going forward as well.

Starting point is 00:31:42 He got a lot more run in this game as a slot defender, a lot more rotations we're seeing from Mike Hilton as this young season goes on. And that included some Dejan Anthony. We'll see how that package resolves itself going forward after the experience they had with it this week. But Mike, appreciate it. You can find his work, of course, at Bengals underscore Sands on Twitter where he will tweet a lot of great clips, including a lot of the plays we talked about here today and his articles that you can find on the SI Bengals site, Cincinnati Bengals Talk.com. You can also find this podcast.

Starting point is 00:32:18 It's always game day in Cincinnati. Mike, appreciate it. Until next time, that is going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. We'll continue to have you covered here throughout the week as we get ready for Monday night football. Appreciate you listening. And until next time, Ho-Day. And have a good one.

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