Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Bengals-Steelers ALL-22 Takeaways: BEYOND Dexter Lawrence, Defense Needs ANSWERS

Episode Date: September 28, 2026

The Cincinnati Bengals’ defense fell back to Earth in a frustrating loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers—and old issues reared their head. Jake Liscow and Joe Goodberry analyze Dexter Lawrence’s massive impact, Cashius Howell’s promise, and whether Al Golden’s scheme is holding the team back. Missed tackles and man cover issues highlight ongoing concerns.On offense, Joe Burrow delivers one of his sharpest performances alongside a standout showing by Amarius Mims, but critical errors in the clutch prove costly. Can the Bengals iron out operational issues and reclaim their edge before another AFC test?Photo Credit: Frank Bowen IV/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn ImagesEverydayer 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!HomeChefFor a limited time, Home Chef is offering my listeners FIFTY PERCENT OFF and free shipping for your first box PLUS free dessert for life! Go to http://HomeChef.com/LOCKEDONNFL. GustoTry Gusto today at http://gusto.com/LOCKEDONNFL, and get three months free when you run your first payroll. Gameday Men's HealthBook your complimentary test and consult at https://join.gamedaymenshealth.com/reasons_to_choose_gameday-1201?utm_source=lockedon&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=NFL&utm_network=lockedon&utm_adgroup=corp&ghl_tag=national,corp 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.AppleYou can earn up to 3% unlimited Daily Cash back on every purchase you make with Apple Card using Apple Pay. Apply in the Wallet app on your iPhone today. Subject to credit approval. Apple Card issued by Goldman Sachs Bank, USA. Salt Lake City Branch. Terms and more at apple-card-dot-com.https://learn.applecard.apple/unlimited-daily-cash?cid=apy-318-2000008800000-400000000000039&itscg=2030032&itsct=srvs-crd-P3004756-C3004897&mttnagencyid=c1a&mttnsiteid=133087&mttnpid=LockedOn%20%28Audio%29&mttnsubad=srvs-crd-P3004756-C3004897&mttnsubplmnt=&mttncc=USIndeedListeners 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.

Sunday's loss against the Pittsburgh Steelers felt way too familiar for Cincinnati Bengals fans that have watched this movie before. But after watching the tape, are there signs that that is how this season's going to go or reasons for optimism? 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 Fliscoe. We're here today to break down the all 22 takeaways after rewatching the Bengals

frustrating loss of the Pittsburgh Steelers on Sunday as they fell to two and one on the season and really a golden opportunity passed them by. We're going to start with the defense and some of the issues we saw there, the Stark on-off splits for Dexter Lawrence really standing out. Pittsburgh really making good on their opportunities when Dexter Lawrence left the field. And we're going to finish on the offense. It honestly showed a lot of signs that they are going in the right direction. They have figured some things out and they performed really well against one of the best

defenses so far in the NFL and the Pittsburgh Steelers until that last play. And there will be plenty of time this week to talk about the offense and their ability to come back or win when they have opportunities for game winning drives. We will discuss that. But today is a day to dig into the film. Today's episode is brought to you by Cali for a limited time when you use the code locked on and download the CalChi app. You'll get $25 when you trade $25 on Cal She. Trade what's next.

And Joe, let's get started today with the defense. And you and I have both had a chance to rewatch the defense this week. Dexter Lawrence played 81% of the snaps for the Bengals defense this week. But when he was off the field, Pittsburgh made the Bengals pay. It felt during the game that he was on the field a lot, right? I was thinking, man, we haven't seen Chris Jenkins too much. T.J. Slayton had a couple big negative plays, and that's when I noticed him. But I remember looking up the snap counts midway through like the third quarter.

And I'm thinking, man, Lawrence has taken the heaviest workload he has all year. And yes, he is the best player on their defense. He is the player. He's been the star of the offseason in the summer and then the first two weeks, even the national media rekindling their love for Dexter Lawrence. And I thought he was good again in this game. And in fact, I thought the attention that the Steelers were giving him was the first time we've actually seen an offense fully game plan to take him out of the game. And they couldn't.

But it can't just be Dexter Lawrence, right? It can't just be Lawrence only. We're supposed to have this big defensive tackle room. It's supposed to be depth. It's supposed to be waves of guys. We've already started to miss B.J. Hill a little bit. T.J. Slayton had his worst performance of the season. Jonathan Allen has been up and down kind of rocky at times.

run defense, but I think he's been a good pass rusher. And then Chris Jenkins is just a guy largely. I know he got close to a couple of plays in the first couple weeks, but this week didn't notice him really at all. It's really this front line is coming down to what can Dexter Lawrence do for you? And he can do a lot for you. The on-off splits are crazy, like I said, statistically. When he's on the field, he makes things better for the linebackers. He makes things better for his fellow defensive lineman, makes things better for every level of this Bengals defense. He dictates protections. He does all the things we said he would do. But when he was off the field against a Pittsburgh Steelers, which is only for 11 plays, the Pittsburgh Steelers had a 63.5%

success rate. They had 0.41 EPA per play, and they had 27% of their plays go for explosive plays. On those 11 plays where Dexter Lawrence was off the field, 45%, five, of those plays were Pittsburgh Steeler first downs. Nearly half of the plays when Dexter Lawrence wasn't on the field. Pittsburgh picked up a first down. Pittsburgh average 8.4 yards per play when Dexter was off the field. And to put that into context, when Dexter was on the field, they were a yard worse, a yard and a half worse yards per play. 7.1 yards per play, still too many, but much worse when Dexter was on the field. Their success rate went from 64% to 45%. They're explosive. play rate went from 27% to 15%.

Now, that explosive number is still too high, I think. 15% still too high, but unacceptable when Dexter was off the field. The EPA per play goes from 0.41 EPA per play to 0.14 EPA per play. They're picking up first downs only 34% of the time instead of nearly half the time. That's a crazy split for one nose tackle on and off the field. And I felt like there were moments where Rogers would go no huddle or speed it up a little bit when you noticed either Lawrence wasn't out there or they're in their base defense going heavy and he wanted to spread it out with the same personality, caught Cassius Howl on one play where he had

to drop into coverage, right? And that's hard to have, and it's probably why Lawrence ended up on the field as much as he did. It's hard to have that drastic swing against a veteran quarterback that has seen everything and will quickly get his team up to the line if you want to take your star out. For three snaps, five snaps, he's going to turn that into maybe six or seven and extend it as long as he can by keeping that offense humming and going. Yeah, it's not ideal, but I think largely with the defense, even though the split is so heavy with Lawrence on and off the field, which is to be expected, we posted even the previous week, but it's a Texan. What was it, 0.9 yards per carry when he was on the field that game versus they had a couple scrambles

with the shroud play. I still think the defense as a whole had so many issues and the reoccurring issues. One of the things, week one, we were saying, hey, I can immediately feel the backup lineman being rotated in. That's not good. Now we're talking about this again, right? But I'm also really starting to get focused, however you want. You can use more colorful language as a listener, starting to get focused on Jordan Battle, Jalen Davis, Miles Murphy, I don't think it's looked very well.

I really hasn't had an impact play. The linebackers and the miss tackles. So it's hard for me to even pinpoint. a positive when I can't stop looking at these guys because offenses are targeting them at an extremely high rate. Yeah, and you see that when the Bengals go to man, I think quite a bit. Jalen Davis getting picked on when the Bengals are in man, even Dax Hill getting picked on when the Bengals are in man, really the only player in the secondary in the back seven who's very trustworthy. And man has been DJ Turner and even he's not invincible. Like he's going to get

beat from time to time. And when you look at when the Bengals went to man, which they're doing at one of the highest rates in the NFL. It was good in week two. The Houston, Texas receivers without Nico Collins, probably the worst receiver group in the NFL. Steelers have some guys. They're not great, but they're better than what they saw in week two. And when the Bengals went to man coverage and cover one this week in particular,

which they're doing, like I said, at one of the highest rates in the NFL, I think second highest in the NFL, it's not going well for him. They're giving up a lot of big plays. and the only plays I think against the Steelers that weren't completed when the Bengals went to man. Outside of maybe two, a majority of the balls that weren't completed and weren't successful plays for the Steelers were Aaron Rogers just barely misses a throw or there's a little bit of pressure for the Bengals that force Aaron Rogers to miss a throw. So some of it is pressure getting home. You can call that a win for the defense. But some of that is Aaron Rogers missing guys that were open or drops occurring for the Steelers to.

So I think that between week one and week three, you got to look at your tendencies and coverage if you're Al Golden and really evaluate whether you want to be living in cover one as much as you as much as you are. Because this goes back to the criticism of Bengalsans when they knew that Al Goldman was a higher in Notre Dame doesn't give help on Jeremiah from Ohio State on that last play. It was like, man, you're really going to let him just play man in that spot? and not that this is exactly what's happening in the NFL, but he's still living and dying and cover one

more than any other defensive coordinator in the NFL. Well, except for what. That's because that's what he does, right? I think he, that's what he wants to play, and he wants the guys to play man and be sticky. But you're right, you just only really have DJ. Do you have the horses on the back half, including the linebackers and the safeties?

Do you have the athletes? Do you have the guys that can play man coverage? Even the one play for Dax, was it Roman Wilson who caught the pass over the middle on an inbreaker? Really good throw by Rogers. But Dax was struggling to turn that corner and close that gap. I don't know. Lobo Wilson isn't good.

He's not good. And he's getting eight yards of separation on Jalen Davis, right? Who's not great in man coverage? We know even last year they didn't put him in man a ton when he played really well in the second half of the year. My Jordan battle in man coverage, he's not a man cover guy. Even Brian Cook, we like him. He's not a man cover guy. What are you really asking these guys to do?

Barrett Carter is as stiff as ever at linebacker. Like these aren't man cover guys. These aren't some supreme athletes. Dax, D.J. Shore, DJ, maybe another level. Dax is a former safety box type player. I still always kind of when he's coming off. I mean, he had an ACL in his history.

He's not coming off of it, but it's in his history. He doesn't look like the most fluid guy. Always there are times where he looks a little linear and long because he is. I thought this game, Dax looks stiffer than I remember him looking. Last point here. Before we can continue the conversation, we'll stay on this defense for a little bit longer here. I just noticed this. When Dexter Lawrence was off the field for those 11 plays, the Bengals blitzed 0% of the time.

And Aaron Rogers has had some pretty significant issues against the blitz this year. I think this is another issue with this defense overall. And we're going to talk about all golden is like, what are we doing with the blitz percentage? I get that you want to get pressure with four. I was encouraged with the blitz designs in week two, came away from week three feeling more like I felt in We'll continue the conversation on the defense next. We're brought to you today by ORA Cybersecurity. Most people don't realize how much of their personal information is being bought and sold every day.

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get a win, I'll feel better, but don't leave it up to that. Book your complimentary test and consult at gameday men's health.com to get started today. Jake, more on the defense here because I'm not done with it yet because the defense was the issue. Largely special teams, I think we had enough of mistakes on special teams to last us for the entire season. I don't expect them to continue. I do trust Darren Simmons because I think he has a track record to get this right. I expect the angles may even make some moves there to help that out. But on defense, is there hope that this can get better?

If they're going to be a low blitzing team, the blitzes better be really good. They better be really timely. They have to be effective. If they're going to be a team that rotates heavily on the D-line, and it wasn't a heavy rotation this week, but I need those backups to also win and not have these moments where they look bad. I thought T.J. Slayton was really good to start this year. Terrible in this game.

And if these linebackers are going to miss tackles all year, because we're continuing from last year now, and they're both now in the top, what, 10 of missed tackles in the league amongst linebackers according to PFF, we need them to make some plays. We need to outweigh those with some splash plays. If Jordan Battle is going to be slow and stiff, he did collect an interception that was tipped in the air. I don't want to completely discredit that. But what's that worth? I'm going to need a few past breakups back there.

I'm going to need some stickier man coverage. I'm going to need some options and answers. And maybe that's in the form of Dax playing more slot and Ticario on the outside. But again, he's been a penalty machine so far throughout this rookie campaign that that doesn't excite me either. What are you looking at right now on this defense? Maybe there's hope for it or are you where I'm at where why do these same issues are rearing their heads?

I think there are going to be some of the same issues. I also think that maybe the idea that they could be a top 10 defense was just never an idea that should have been floated. the Texans offense was terrible again this week. And Louana Ramos defense has a lot of the same issues in Indianapolis that Al Golden's defense has in Cincinnati. They're playing a lot of man. They're getting beaten, man.

But against the Texans, we get away with that. The Texas offense is really in a bad way right now. And so I think there's just some correction of opinion that needs to happen. Aaron Rogers is also really good. And so some of this just needs to be credit to Aaron Rogers. He didn't necessarily throw the ball at a level of accuracy that prime Aaron Rogers does. terms of processing, in terms of manipulating the pocket, in terms of getting rid of the ball on time, I thought Aaron Rogers was actually really good in this game. And it could have been

worse for the Bengals if he was Aaron Rogers accurate of prime Aaron Rogers because of the number of plays that we talked about that he left out there. One of them, a scramble drill, the D.K. McCaff uncovers late, DJ Turner gets his eyes in the backfield, gets caught. And Aaron Rogers just misses it rolling to the right. That could have been an explosive play that puts the Steelers down in the red zone. And Roger just misses a throw. There's a third down play that he throws to Pat Friermouth on a play action double move. And he's open. The double move works. It's a pump and go. And Rogers just puts it out a little bit too far for Pat Friermuth to run under it. So there are a couple of plays like that that Rogers left out there. But besides that, I thought he did play well.

I also want to correct something really quick. The source that I was looking at that had the 0% blitz percentage for the Bengals when Lawrence was off the field. I just don't think that's accurate. it. So don't run with that one. If you're hearing that one, it has a 0% blitz percentage overall, which obviously isn't true. PFF had them charted at a 24% blitz rate this week, which is one of the eyes. They've done. And it was effective, sort of. Aaron Rogers was only four of eight on those plays, only completed 50% of his passes. But he did throw one of his touchdowns against a blitz and was at 8.1 yards per tap. Now, that is a little bit lower than his overall. all yards per attempt on the game, which was 8.6.

But the blitz rate was a little bit higher for the Bengals this week. I thought the blitzes looked reasonably good. There were a couple times Rogers just beat it. One of them was a replacement pressure, I guess, the Roman Wilson touchdown. Again, like talking about coaching here, you get a bunch, bunch trips on the left side, right? And typically the way you see that defended, if you want to stay. in man there is you're going to press the point, you're going to have levels for your corners so you're not getting caught up in the wash when you're running crosses out of the

bunch and trying to tangle up your man defenders. The Bengals instead have their corners pressed up on the two receivers off the line of scrimmage and the safety, who's responsible for the point man, about eight yards back and they're locked. So there's no like, all right, if we get a switch release here, we're going to trade them. They're locked. And so that plays doomed from the start. The crosser is going to be wide open. If Miles Murphy doesn't and drop into coverage and get a good toss on the receiver running the drag. And then Jaylon Davis has no chance to catch up to Roman Wilson on that little slot fade. So like things like this, where I'm at with Al Golden right now, we need to correct some of these things.

We need to find those times to get to the blitzes, probably need to reduce the amount of man coverage that you're running, especially with the injuries now in safety. There's a play where Darneau Washington in the fourth quarter, Barrett Carter misses the tackle of the line of scrimmage. He ends up going for 30 yards. And man, poor, poor Kyle Dugger, he can't move.

He's hurt. He's limping, hobbling over the sideline, ends up making the tackle. And then Brian Cook comes back in the game a couple plays later and he's playing on an injury too. And so now you got these injuries for your safety death. Jordan Battle playing some of the worst starting safety in the NFL right now. And so there are some issues with personnel.

There's some issues with coaching. But I think I started this rant with you asked me if there's reason for hope. And I think that's still the front. Like Cassius Howe is still playing well. Boye Mafet is still playing well. Dexter Lawrence is still playing well. They need the depth to be a little bit better, but Cash is how really encouraging there,

if they can increase his snap load. And if Dexter can just make a couple more plays, they can make a couple more plays when Dexter's on the field. That's how they won in week one. They made these plays that they really didn't make. A couple of interceptions that the Bengals didn't come up with against Aaron Rogers here in week three. Yeah, I would like to talk about Howell real quick.

I think he should get more snaps. And maybe that comes at the cost of Miles Murphy getting his snaps reduced a little bit. I just think Howell is threatening and beating his linemen at a much higher rate. And that's valuable because I don't think guys are winning clearly one-on-one. You know, Maffa is causing a lot of chaos. He's not cleanly winning one-on-one. I think you need that guy on the edge if you want to convert these into sex. And I think that guy is going to be Maffa because of how cleanly he wins.

Now, I will say this, though, while we're on it, there was one play in particular, and it's going to go to Aaron Rogers. I'll try to do this really quickly and lead into our offensive portion. Rogers got him on such a nice play fake. It was beautiful on tape. I don't think of Rogers as a stealer, so I'm okay with, like, saying he looked really good doing this. He gave him the old classic Aaron Rogers' hand out, extending. Look at that ball. Look at the running back.

And he's got the ball hidden behind him. Howell's like, oh, he doesn't have the ball. I'm going to go play the run. And he actually, Howell actually had a process. And you could see the wheels turning where he's like, it's a play fake. No, it has to be a run. Rogers doesn't have it and dives inside for the run. Rogers gets a naked boot basically at that point.

And they complete a pass. I think it was like nine yards. Caldugger makes a tackle on Fryermouth. But I just thought, hmm, that's what a play fake is supposed to look like. And now here we are in offense, maybe with a little bit of that on task here to talk about. I think we talked about that post game, the play fake difference between Aaron Rogers and Joe Burrow in the offense. Stark. Yeah, there were a couple of rookie moments for Howell, especially when he dropped into coverage in this game.

But overall, such a disruptive player as a pass rush. I led the Bengals in pressures tied with Dexter Lawrence in this game. And so excited for Cassius' his future. But yeah, let's talk about this offense. There are a lot of positive signs on this side of the ball that we'll talk about to finish the show coming up next. I'm Jake, let's go from the lockdown Bengals podcast here to tell you today about Fabletics because they're launching a new apparel collection with the NFL's number one receiver. You know that's Una. You know that's Jamar Chase. and whether it's performance gear or everyday appellatex has you covered from workouts to travel days to game days. And you're going to save a ton of money when you sign up as a new VIP. That makes it a great time to check out their entire collection.

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as a new VIP. A new football season brings some big questions. Who makes the playoffs? Who wins their division, who takes home the title. Kalshi, America's number one prediction market platform lets you trade those predictions in a live market. Like, will the Bengals beat the Jags next week? Big question for us, but right now, Cincinnati is trading at 54%, meaning a $100 trade would pay out $176 if you believe they'll be victorious, and why wouldn't you? On Kalshi, you're trading against peers on a live market, meaning there's no house,

and as the probability changes, you can buy in and out of your position. position. Trade the pick, the game, and more on Cali. Download Cali U's locked on to get 25 when you trade $25. K-A-L-S-H-I, Kelchi, trade what's next? 18-plus restrictions and eligibility requirements apply. Event contract trading involves risk and may not be suitable for all investors. Kelshi products are not available in all jurisdictions. Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calci.com slash regulatory. Joe, let's talk about this offense. I thought there were a lot of encouraging signs here.

Joe Burrow, one of his best performances as the Cincinnati Bengals, one of the offenses best performances in the Joe Burrow era by EPA per play. Typically, when Joe Burrow plays like this, the Bengals win games. And I know that's a familiar refrain. You've heard us talk about that in 2024. And you saw the defense last year when they couldn't close games where the offense had done enough. And this is another one of those games. And the time it was partially on the defense,

but also the special teams unit directly gave up 10 points. And that's not entirely on the defense. You take away those points. And this game could go very differently if the Bengals are playing with a lead. And maybe the defense only gets up 20. And you're still feeling reasonable about it. And they made just enough plays in the second half. Instead, special teams, I think, coloring our perception of the defense

of the side of the ball a little bit here. But by ESPN's QBR, Joe Burroughs, best performance ever, which was a bit of a surprise to to hear about in that black box scoring system. But I thought there were a lot of things that went well for the Bengals on offense against the Steelers. They protected Joe Burrow until that last couple of plays, those last couple of drives really well for the entire game in Burrow was really good when he had that time again until those last couple of drives of the game, Joe. What were your big thoughts as you were watching the offense? Yeah, I was watching the offensive line again.

I've been enamored with them through three weeks now, largely because of Marius Mims, again, pitching a shutout, looking good. Now they give them a lot of help. And I thought the entire game plan was based on slowing down and stopping that pass rush from taking over for the Steelers. It is a formal past rush. They had depth. They have depth.

They have waves. They have plenty of guys that can throw at you. And they knew they needed to protect Orlando Brown Jr. And I thought they did a very good job of doing that, only leaving him isolated a handful of times. And it was a coin flip. when that happened. So that, you know, Orlando probably gets out of this game without too many pressures given up, but he also didn't have that many opportunities. So acceptable, but you could see it affected the offense at times. So I was frustrated with not pushing the ball down the field

throughout the game. I felt like they were just kind of taken what the defense was giving them. And then I watched the film, and it's clear to see why the Steelers were straight up playing an umbrella coverage and saying, we will come up, we will tackle, we'll be physical, and we'll set the tone and stop you guys short at first down and make you convert on third. And the Bengals did for most of the game until the couple of times they got down close to field goal to Red Zone area and then had to settle four of those field goals. So the offense was good for what the Steelers gave them. My frustration also now lies after the game.

We get some post game stuff. We get the film. And Joe says, oh, we were trying to take a shot on that final play. Like they wanted to go for it on that final play. and they had double posts with a new personnel that they typically haven't had Eric all running down the field. He's the inside guy T. Higgins behind him. And they were getting from the Steelers like middle field open, middle field close,

middle field close, and the Bengals most of the time were seeing it correctly. And that's how you get Jamar on that one where they convert on third down. And that puts him in field goal range is they went middle field closed. They jumped on Giseki and Higgins and Burgo's quick bang out to Jamar. And then this time, it looked like. You may have a chance to get it to T deep here. It's going to be a deep shot. The safety can only pick one of Eric All or T. Higgins here,

and I think he's going to take the underneath guy because how quickly Burroughs been getting the ball out. And Dalton Reisner loses. And I thought Reisner had a clean day throughout the day until that moment. And so it just frustrated me that now's the time we want to take the shot. Now is when you want to manufacture it and force a deep ball when you're in position to kick a field goal. I guess that's maybe that's hindsight. because you're in position. So what?

You have an incomplete pass. Maybe you take a sack. You get another seven yards. You can still kick the field goal. So it's a lose-lose situation until you lose in a huge way and compound that mistake into a fumble recovered by the Steelers. Yeah. It is a compounded mistake because when you call that play,

you're thinking either I'm scoring a touchdown here and giving the ball back to Pittsburgh with limited timeouts with needing a touchdown to win the game. Field goal does nothing for you if you're Pittsburgh, right? So you're thinking can get a big play and potentially win the game here. And I think it's open. If it's actually blocked up, the idea of the double post is that that deep safety is going to take the first post. And T. Higgins is going to be running away from leverage behind the safety and there's nobody else there. And I think the Bengals do get that.

They get T. Higgins potentially running toward the pylon on a post that doesn't have any help running away from the leverage of the Steelers corner. But Dalton Riser, I mean, man, you're clean all game. One of the Bengals's best run blockers in this game. One of the Bengals' best pass protectors in this game outside of Amarius Mims. And it's just a one play that you get got. And it's a great move from Derek Harmon. He wins clean. He wins quick. By the time Joe Burrow hits his back foot, the pressure's already there. Like it's one of those where it was like a quick loss. Before he even finishes his dropback, I think, for Joe Burrow, Dalton Riser's already lost that rep. As good as our knee tackles have been to start the year, we haven't had a clean

win like that. Not, not that quick. I mean, Dexter's had some on like bull rushers that have forced a quarterback to move off his spot, but. But being clean, you can actually affect the quarterback and tackle him. Even Jonathan Allen, right, he's going through guys when he does his. Yeah, they're not resulting in sacks because the offensive lineman is able to keep a hand on you and try to control you a little bit or two hands in some cases.

And for Joe, you know, he thinks he's evaded the sack. And that's why he goes to try to throw it. He tries to check it down. He has standard Hudson to gain a few yards and just compounds a mistake, right? Because he loses a football. But when you call that play, you're anticipating the worst thing that happens there is you have to check it down, hurry to the line of scrimmage and spike it. Maybe you get a throw away. You're not anticipating.

You're holding up on the interior, the entire game for the most part in past protection. I think Cam Hayward beat Dylan Fairchild once or twice. Cam Hayward wasn't in the game on that play. It's a good time to take that shot. And Derek Harmon just makes a play. So that is frustrating on a day that the Bengals otherwise were generally staying on schedule. I thought first downs left something to be desired. We talked about this on the post game show yesterday.

They're getting into these third and shorts all the time. And it's not really where you want to live. You'd rather avoid those third downs. And part of that was a first down issue. But I still think they're doing cool things in the running game. They got to runs out of shotgun. that were generally pretty successful this week outside of the one-third and two. Some of the decision-making on those punts we talked about yesterday still feels bad today,

punting from midfield on two occasions in this game to disastrous results. Special teams just, not that the execution was bad on the punts, but like the decisions and the execution on kickoff returns and punt returns, and the decisions to punt, I think cost of Bengals pretty significantly. And then the timeout to start that final drive, right? You have a commercial break. You have the kick return. You have plenty of time to make sure the right play call matches the personnel.

And I don't know if you guys watched it closely on the broadcast, but you can see Burroughs getting the play. It's not a late call from Zach Taylor. He's got the play. He communicates it to the offense. They clap. They come out of the huddle and they go, wait a second. That's not the personnel on the field.

And immediately Drew Sample runs off. And Dante Myers runs on. because it's supposed to be 11 personnel. And Zach's like, well, we got to call timeout because whoever sent in that personnel, however it gets communicated, that's not Zach, Zach will say, give me this, and then he starts calling the play. So whoever is on the sideline to control that stuff did not see who went in and came off or had some confusion.

You can't have that year eight with Zach Taylor as that coach. That should be ironed out. This is the same offensive staff. We talked about it all offseason. Same offensive staff. These should not be issues. same issue too yeah that's what borough's talking about post game these operational issues they got to go if you are new around here you can check out jo and i we've rewatched the game you can check that out

at lockdown bengals at supercast.com for a little bit of exclusive rewatch content joe and i rewatching and reacting the day of the game you'll also get access to the goodberry discord and the ability to text us directly in the subtext where we'll send text updates you can text us questions stuff like that, all that at lockdown bengals.com. But that's going to do it for this episode of the Locktime Bengals podcast. Tomorrow we're probably talking about Joe Burrow and the clutch gene. Until then, thanks for listening. Hootay and have a good one.