Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - Bengals Week 4 film review finds GLARING issues on both sides of the ball | Where are the answers coming from?

Starting point is 00:00:00 After laying another egg, this one in front of a national audience. What's going on with the Cincinnati Bengals on tape? Is it as bad as it looks? We break it down. 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, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day.

Starting point is 00:00:31 I'm Jake Liskow joined today by Mike Santagana, our weekly film and, analyst guest where when he's not watching coaching clinics or performing his other life duties, he is with us here on Lockdown Bengals, in this case, breaking down the second straight week of film that looks just terrible. And I think it is just as bad as it looked on TV. In most ways, we'll break down what our takeaways are from the tape. Welcome back to the everyday or shout out to you if you make Lockdown Bengals your first list and your one stop shop for all things. Cincinnati Bengals in a short week at least for this one, where we move right on to week five in our next episode. But today we have to take a look back at what was and why this

Starting point is 00:01:17 team continues to look like one of the worst, if not the worst teams in the NFL. Today's episode brought to you by Fandall, where if you win your first $5 bet, you'll get $300 in a bonus bets to use across the app. And Mike, we're going to start today with Jake Browning and whether and how much is attributable to the change at quarterback for this team and get to what adjustments to coaching staff is trying and why essentially nothing seems to be working as we get into how the tape looked as it compared to how it felt watching live on Monday night.

Starting point is 00:01:53 But let's start with Browning because Tony Pike, as he does the day after film, breaks down a number of plays that he feels like the Bengals are leaving opportunities out there on the field. Most of that coming on to Jake Browning's decision making, Jake Browning said after the game, he didn't really regret any of the throws he made. But when you watched Browning's tape, was it a lot of uncatchable balls and conservative decision making? Was it as it felt when we watched it live? What were your thoughts? I think it's just a big mess, really. I wish there was one answer. But yeah, there's uncatchable balls down the sideline when he gets those one-on-one opportunities. But it also feels

Starting point is 00:02:35 feels like some of it's the conservative. I don't want to try to force this. But instead of being able to find another receiver, I'm thinking of a play down the right side line. He's got about 20-yard Outbreaker. He doesn't want to try to fit it over Pat Sertan. I get that. But you should quickly, if you're killing that immediately, you should quickly be moving to the back side where he has Jamar Chase White open on 12-yard Inbreaker. And we praised two weeks ago what he read on drive, he threw it to Gisicki, and that was a really good read because he hit the 12-yard-in instead of the shallow route. I don't know if he's really reading that play, because last week he threw a pick trying to force the 12-yard in, and then this week's gets one of the most

Starting point is 00:03:20 clear reeds you can get of throwing the 12-yard in, and he throws the shallow route. And for five yards, when he had 12-plus, Gisiki had nobody near him. So he could have been going for 20, maybe. He just had the safeties beyond that who had to go make the tackle. So it's just a big mess, really. And then he tries, they run a bootleg, get Jamar Chase wide open over across the middle of the field. Nobody on him. There's some type of coverage bust. And he tries a trick shot to Mitch Tinsley, rolling to the opposite side of his throwing arm.

Starting point is 00:03:54 So rolling left, throwing the ball across his body, down the field, and short arms it. And it's just you had Jamar Chase, you had time to set your feet. there's a lot of issues here where you could have fixed this. It just feels like a disaster right now with him. And I get some of this as play calling too. I don't know if he's always being put in the best spot, but also he's not executing anything well except a couple of times he was able to get T. Higgins an opportunity to dunk on Riley Moss.

Starting point is 00:04:25 That's about the entire good part of the offense from yesterday. He had one play where he got to the backside dig where he hit Andre Yosevash. after actually appearing to progress, the game's over by then. So I guess it's immaterial. But for the most part of the game, when the game was not quite over yet, when the Bengals had some opportunities early to try to stay with the Broncos, after the Broncos first three and out, they scored touchdowns on three of the next four drives and were very close to doing it on four out of the next four drives going into the half,

Starting point is 00:05:00 was it if you were trying to guess why it looked like it did for Jake Browning a lot of people suggesting things like he's he's predetermining pre-snap where he's going with the ball which it felt like when we were watching if he had single high he's trying to throw it outside to the Riley Moss matchup essentially and take his one-on-one with whatever receivers on Riley Moss and it worked a couple times they got a pass at a Ferris call they got the one Dee Higgins reminding Riley Moss about how it went last year. But then it didn't work after that, and a lot of those balls aren't even catchable. Was it a lot of predetermining?

Starting point is 00:05:40 Was it? I mean, I know you're saying it's a lot, but if you had to try to pinpoint why, could we summarize it as like predetermining reads on some plays, the conservatism after the interceptions and Dan Pitcher's comments about crossing the threshold from aggressive to Veclis, and a quarterback who maybe just isn't, adept at reading things out and finding the answers and progressing based on the information he has from the defense. Yeah, he's never really felt like a guy that reads one to two to three to check down. He's more like one maybe to two. Oh, crap. I got to run. I got to I don't know

Starting point is 00:06:18 where to go with this ball. So yeah, I think those all play a part into it. And I think the conservatism really hampers the offense too, because he rolls out, extends the play, but doesn't push the ball down, like he just throws the ball away on third down. And when you're the underdog, you kind of got to make plays in those situations. You have to give your guys an opportunity to make a play. And that's not happening. I think the entirety of the offense also looks a bit broken where the run game is still, it was better. But it went from worst I've seen to just bad again. And then the offensive line and getting the play call in on time. And I don't know, maybe Browning is doing a lot of checks at the line that are getting into better spots.

Starting point is 00:07:04 It doesn't feel like it, but they're still winding that clock all the way down and giving these pass rushers an opportunity to tee off. So I think those play a part into it as well. Just like the play calls are late. They're getting a lot of procedural penalties right now. In the past, they've been a team that doesn't do that. So now you're getting behind the sticks. He had a couple of first and 20s in this situation in this game. And that's a tough way to play.

Starting point is 00:07:32 If you can't throw a wide receiver screen and pick up seven yards or something, you're going to have to drop back on first and 20 with the guys pinning their ears back coming to kill you. And second and 18, second and 20, you're getting the same thing. Third and 20, you're probably just going to hand that thing off. But it's a tough way to live with the penalties, the way he's playing conservative. Like I said, the only thing that looked like an NFL offense was just the go balls, just attempting to try to dunk on guys down the field. Yeah, you mentioned, there was a Y crossplay that Yosz when they're down 25. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:08:06 I guess. I guess. I guess. But like one play, one play where it looks like he's progressing and making the right throw, I don't know about that. That just, it feels like he's really holding back the offense and the offense is holding him back as well. so it just leads to these performances where they're scoring three points because neither side is actually pushing to score points. They're both they're both playing very bad. They're being, it's tough.

Starting point is 00:08:33 It's real tough. There's a reason it looks this bad. It looks abysmal because everything's bad. It doesn't look remotely professional quality. We'll get into the scheme a little bit here, I think, in a minute because part of it is like how much. much can a quarterback do, but when you have the anti-synergy or whatever the phrasing should be of a quarterback that seems to be holding back the offense and an offense that doesn't seem to be helping its quarterback, you end up with results like this. But I think that the scheme element

Starting point is 00:09:04 here does bear conversation and is worth talking about what the Bengals are trying to do, how the adjustments are trying to be implemented. So to figure out really like what's the trajectory here. Where might answers come from? Because it's really hard to come up with an answer to that question. Now, we'll go to that topic coming up next. We're brought to you today by Mazda on Lockdown Bengals, Mazda Crafts Cars, for those who do more than simply move. And it feels like the Bengals are just going through the motions right now. So I think they should join me and pick up a Mazda. As I've mentioned on this show before, I love my Mazda 3. Been driving it for a few years now. And what attracted me to the Mazda in the first place was the tenderness to detail and the feel of driving the vehicle, the feel of being connected to the road when I drive.

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Starting point is 00:10:27 impossible becomes irrelevant. Mazda, move and be moved. Mike, as we talk about the trajectory of this scheme a little bit here, one thing that stood out to me when I was looking at just like where Jake Browning's passes went last night was, it's a lot of outside the number of stuff. And I know the defense dictates a lot of this, but we've talked about a number of plays

Starting point is 00:10:53 that felt like he had opportunities in the middle of the field to take bigger gains in some cases than he collected. And Troy Aikman pointed this out on the broadcast last night as well, so everybody who watched it saw some of these plays. But was it the defense pushing the ball outside

Starting point is 00:11:13 where it was six out of, Jake Browning's passes aim 10 or more passes downfield were outside the numbers. Only one pass aimed 10 or more yards downfield between the numbers. Was it something the Bengals were doing schematically where they were really targeting that part of the field? And what are the Bengals doing differently this week to try to help the offense? I mean, I feel like it was Browning on some of it, too. I don't think the Broncos specifically were playing coverages that made it feel like they wanted to try to funnel that ball to the middle of the field. It seemed more like they wanted to kind of give help after the first drive or two, give some help to Jamar Chase and T. Higgins

Starting point is 00:11:54 in that assignment. So the Bengals did try some stuff that did work towards the outside of the field. Like I mentioned, that outbreak, that's on like a flood concept, three-level flood. So you've got the deep outbreaker, the medium outbreaker, and then a shallow route. that he can also hit. The Certan matches the medium and the shallows covered, which means like in your progression, you want to throw the deep out. Issue being that's Pat Certan.

Starting point is 00:12:24 So that's where some of my scheme complies come where why are you running it that side? Why are you running it to that side? If you see Pat Certan there, I feel like you need to have something else because Browning just doesn't feel comfortable and understandably making a throw that's high-lowing the last defensive player of the year.

Starting point is 00:12:41 So then that ends up. up being a scramble for nothing. He had an in-breaker too on that play. That's the issue. It was on the backside. He's got the in-breaker. So some of this is browning. He's just not feeling comfortable enough to throw that in-breaker. And you mentioned that throw to Yosievash. I believe that was on a white cross-type play. And they ran that a few times and he didn't throw either the cross or the dig at all until that play. So it's, does he read it well or did he just finally see it? It feels like there's opportunities also, I remember them running levels and drives, just middle of the field, high, low concepts,

Starting point is 00:13:14 where linebacker come down, throw it behind him. Linebacker stays back, throw it underneath. And there were a couple times he didn't even read that out. He just decided, I'm just going to throw it outside the numbers because I have a one-on-one route on the outside. I'll just try that instead because I don't, is it he doesn't feel comfortable reading it out? Is it because whenever you get those opportunities, you have to take them?

Starting point is 00:13:35 I don't know. But it didn't feel like this was like a schematically both sides where the, Broncos were funneling it there and the Bengals were trying to attack the outsides. It feels like that's where you're going to get one-on-one opportunities because you're so far away from the safety help. But it felt like it was a lot of Browning too, just not feeling comfortable throwing the ball over the middle of the field. Outside of Browning, the offensive line was scrutinized, let's say. Last night, there's the one play that goes, I think, more viral than others, where Nick Benito and Jonathan Cooper both time the Snoburn. like almost a full second, obviously, that's hyperbole, better than the tackles who don't look

Starting point is 00:14:17 like they're ready for the ball to be snap. Denver rushes three. They get one-on-ones for both of their ends, who both time to snap beautifully and run right around to Marius Mims and Orlando Brown. But beyond just that play, when you looked at the way the offensive line played in this game, both in the run game and the past game, what were your thoughts there as far as the disaster we've really seen from that unit through the last two weeks now? Yeah, it's more of the same it's been for the year where it's a lot of disappointing performances, Amaris Mims.

Starting point is 00:14:49 I think key among them just that was maybe his worst game as a pro where it just felt like he could not hang with what the Broncos were doing. And that includes a play that I think also people have looked at where he gets two to his side and Rivers is occupied. He tries to step down and take the close path guy and ends up taking neither because he set out and. and then he wasn't able to redirect in time, so then two guys go free. I get how that happens. You're in a bad spot, but you have to play better, too. You have to... I don't think playing next to Rivers helped him particularly.

Starting point is 00:15:27 I don't think it hurt him that much, but I don't think they had good communication either. He didn't have good communication with Reisner either, though. So there's something there. They're just not building continuity. It's Rivers first start, so I get that. also feels like the snap count was Denver had a good beat on it. I haven't confirmed this by going to next gen stats, but I would think you look at that,

Starting point is 00:15:50 you go like, those are some pretty good get-offs for those edge rushers, huh? And that actually all starts with, I think, getting the false start call when you try to run a silent count too. But that all, that's not the only issue. The issue is also the place. They're coming in late.

Starting point is 00:16:05 Browning's making all these adjustments on the road. and it takes a while to make those adjustments because they can't hear each other. And then by the time you're snapping the ball, you have six seconds. So can you actually run this on two? That's the play that they tried. And those guys got a full like half second jump on the tackles and ended up crushing Browning. So they tried to go on two. Nobody jumped on one.

Starting point is 00:16:32 Well, that ball is going to have to be snapped on two. There's no three when you have six seconds when you start doing that stuff. And I don't remember them doing any of a cheetah count or quick counts or just trying to mess with that at all. Where you see sometimes guys on the silent count the center drops his head and snaps the ball at the same time versus drop head pick it up and then snap. Or drop head pick up way to beat snap. I don't think they messed with that too much. It felt like they were kind of telegraphing a little bit of like it is drophead pickup snap. And those ends for Denver both excel in timing the snap in the first.

Starting point is 00:17:07 first place when you give him a little bit of help it's going to look like it. Look, what did you think of Jaylen Rivers in his first start this season? Overall fine up and down. The run blocking is so hard to figure out because I think he tries, but this whole team's a disaster run blocking from the offensive line to the tight ends to whenever they try a fullback, the wide receivers. It just doesn't feel like it's emphasized. So he didn't come in and become a great run blocker. So but Reisner was a terrible. the run blocker. It was probably a boost in that area, to be honest, just by being normal bad. Chase Brown wasn't contacted in the backfield nearly as much this week.

Starting point is 00:17:49 It's true. They don't run as many crazy fronts and twists and stunts and stuff. They're in a couple, but it's not like the Flores that just really boggles the mind of the offensive line. So at least they're able to get in the way more often than not. There weren't a lot of nose tackle unblocked coming through the A gap plays, which they had against Flores. and the Vikings. So I thought he was solid or fine overall. Like it wasn't a great performance.

Starting point is 00:18:15 Like if this if this was just playing for a guy who was playing decent, I wouldn't think about like, yeah, I don't know about giving him the job. But because RISTER has been kind of the weak link of the group,

Starting point is 00:18:28 I'm fine. Roland Rivers out there again and getting him more continuity. Maybe by working more and getting better communication with Mims and Karras, he plays better. I didn't see any.

Starting point is 00:18:37 major screw-ups. In pass protection, he had a couple of plays. I don't think the sack is all on him. Probably concedes a little bit too much ground to John Franklin-Myers, but he's still in position until Browning holds the ball, holds the ball, and then eventually he loses. But that ball's got to be out, too. He also kind of walks into the sack a little bit.

Starting point is 00:18:57 He does come up and keep getting closer and closer to it. He gave up ground, yes, but you're also kind of given that ground to him as well. let's make that a little easier on you. So I thought he was okay. I didn't think it was a disaster. I didn't think he looked particularly bad, but I also didn't go the other way where I thought there were a bunch of plays

Starting point is 00:19:19 where he's got a secret good game in this game. It felt like he kind of flowed with like how Ted Karras was doing or neither one's playing particularly well, but you also probably wouldn't point to them as being the weak link on this team in this game. He did manage to avoid penalties. he and Orlando Brown, the only Bengals offensive linemen not to be penalized in this game. Ted Karas had to, including one that was probably bogus.

Starting point is 00:19:43 Dylan Fairchild had to. Amarious Vins had to. Jake Browning, of course, attributable for the delay of game. Pre-snap penalties in this game, as we mentioned, just brutal. And that's one of the signs we're watching, I think, because this team has generally been disciplined in the past. And for what it's worth, and the reason we do this show is because we get the direct film, conversation and the film takeaways. PFF did not like Jaila Mavvers game in pass protection, gave him a 17 in pass pro out of 100. So just a note, let's talk about this defense as well

Starting point is 00:20:18 where there's just a lot of aggression all over the place. Are there adjustments happening on the defensive side of the ball? Or players finally being put in position to succeed? Unfortunately, I don't think those answers are yes. We'll finish on the defense here coming up next. Lockdown Bengals is brought to you today by Fandul. Fandul has has an awesome offer for you if you're looking to get in on some sports betting this NFL season. Maybe the Bengals are disappointing, but you want to stay in games with the NFL season and you like sports betting. Well, that's where Fandu comes in.

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Starting point is 00:22:39 This is a coaching staff that in the past, we've seen them find answers. We've seen them find adjustments. But instead this year, it feels slow, I think generously. And I think there are a lot of players where earlier in an episode of Lockdown Bengals this year, I talked about all the coin flips for the Bengals this year. Miles Murphy coin flips from our Stewart coin flip, the corner. all of them essentially coin flips, Jordan Battle coin flip, a lot of the offensive line coin flips. It feels like all of those coin flips, except maybe Dax Hill, DJ Turner's probably playing okay.

Starting point is 00:23:15 Like they're coming up tails, or if they've come up heads, it's kind of a weakheads where it's kind of maybe, yeah, they're fine, but they're not elevating things. So we have this issue where it seems like players are taking a step back, but also the, The scheme on defense, to me, doesn't look like is putting players in position to succeed where we're seeing replacement pressures run a ton, which leads to Trey Hendrickson having five dropbacks into coverage in a game,

Starting point is 00:23:46 despite being your only viable pass rusher. Really, that's what he's been this year. And the replacement pressure's out working and all these really slow stunts that we've been critical of throughout this season. Did you see any steps in the right direction from this defense schematically this week? Do we think that there's any

Starting point is 00:24:03 progress in putting players in a better position? Don't like that silence. I can't think of too many where, yeah, these guys got put in a position to succeed and they just didn't do it. It feels like they kind of got asked to do similar things. The corners are being asked to cover a long time because there's no pass rush.

Starting point is 00:24:28 After four weeks, it feels like Al Golden doesn't have a good feel for how to dictate offensive line movement, let's look at that play we talked about, where the two edge rushes get the great jump. Even if they don't get the great jump, the Broncos waste four blockers for the Bengals on one guy because they lined up in that double mug, knew the Bengals would respond, and this is an issue of only responding with one answer, where they would slide one way, have a running back, pick up the other linebacker, and have them sort it out on the other side.

Starting point is 00:25:00 So they know that, so they drop almost everybody inside. Now, with three guys dropping inside, there were three guys that were looking at those to pick up as a block. It's like, that's my guy. He dropped out. Where do I go? And they're doing that with not just with guys lined up mugged in the A gap, but they're also dropping guys with their hand in the dirt, too. So that's, and you end up rushing three, and the Bengals end up keeping six into block and they get the sack because they still got one-on-ones on the outside. You don't see that as much from the Bengals defense where they're going to dictate something.

Starting point is 00:25:33 so Trey Hendrickson gets a one-on-one with their weak rusher. And I think the replacement pressures are another example of this, where the point of getting these creepers, simulated pressures, replacement pressures, is to force the offensive line to slide one way and then be able to attack the running back their weakest pass protector when they slide, you want them to slide away from you. You bring a guy opposite and you pick him against the running back, and you're hoping that you win that matchup.

Starting point is 00:26:03 They get that matchup sometimes, and they've won it a couple of times. But it feels like a lot of the time they're running this replacement pressure, and the offensive line still slid into it. And now it's a disaster because you've got offensive linemen blocking defensive backs trying to rush the passer or maybe a linebacker. That's not going to go well. That guy was supposed to get against a running back. So that he or if you're really good, free, completely free back there.

Starting point is 00:26:29 So I'm feeling like he doesn't have the repatripping. replacement pressure stuff. He keeps trying to run it. He didn't run a ton of those at Notre Dame either, though. So it feels like he's trying to adjust for the NFL and run these things. It looks like it to me. It looks like he doesn't have that much experience doing this type of stuff. When you watch a lot of teams run these replacement pressures, they're getting guys against the running backs. You see it against the Bengals. So I think that part is really tough to watch because that's part of the reason that they're struggling so much with rushing the passer. is that one, they don't have the horses outside of Hendrickson, but two, they're not getting free runners when they do bring guys non-traditional rushers. Yeah. And they are also seemingly getting got at a higher rate than you would hope them to get got. Like I think of the wide receiver screen that Denver calls into the slot blitz last night that Troy Aikman made a point of pointing out how Bonex bailed on the playoff. action fake to get the ball out quicker because you recognize that the slot corner was coming.

Starting point is 00:27:37 They did try to blitz a little bit more in this game, but for the most part, the plan was still four-man pressures with dropping guys into coverage where, like I said, you know, you end up with Trey Henderson dropping into coverage five times in a game, which just seems crazy to me. I don't know. He had as many coverage reps in this game as Barrett Carter, who by the time Barrett Carter was in the game and playing a lot, the game was out of hands, was a lot of run defense. snaps for Barrett Carter, but dropping Trey Henderson into coverage 10% of the time doesn't feel like a plan that I want to live with when he's your only guy with a pass rush win

Starting point is 00:28:15 rate above like 10% in this game because Samar Stewart would be the other one and he's not playing. Joseph O'Sai not winning as a pass rusher, Chris Jenkins not winning as a pass rusher. BJ Hill's fine. He's still BJ Hill, but missed his one opportunity for a sack in this game. J. Slayton is getting some wins, but as a nose tackle, those wins are coming a little bit slow, not necessarily impacting the passer as much as you would like. Miles Murphy, still not winning as a pass rusher, even in his increased playing time this week. So I don't know where the pass rush is coming from, and it could be as simple as that.

Starting point is 00:28:49 So much of your defense in the NFL is predicated on your pass rush, and if you just don't get home. And Denver has one of the better past protecting offensive lines in the league, fine. but if you don't get home and you can't pressure a quarterback, it's going to look really bad most of the time. And it looks like that for the Bengals right now. And most comically, I think, is a little linebacker end stunt. They try to run for Trey Hendrickson, where Logan Wilson has a free path of the quarterback

Starting point is 00:29:18 or maybe the running back gets there to get a shoulder on them. And instead, you know, it looks like they actually do fool the Denver offensive line on this one play. Logan, colors inside lines, does what he's asked to do on the plane, goes, tries to pick the tackle for Trey Hedrickson to work the loop, and ends up with no pressure. He still ends up getting to the quarterback faster than Trey because he's that unblocked on the play,

Starting point is 00:29:42 and that's kind of emblematic of this defense right now, where even when they do get a call that should work, that they're just not playing fast, I think, as a whole on this defense outside of a few players, maybe. Yeah, the stunts were feeling weird because that's part of the reason you're not getting past rush win rates as well. Like, it's a little lower than it probably should be. Not that those guys would be crushing it if these stunts weren't called. But like your job for a lot of these guys is go free up somebody else.

Starting point is 00:30:13 But like on that play, when Garrett Bulls keeps setting out to Hendrickson, I think you finally got the linebacker on the running back. This is what the replacement pressures are supposed to be doing. Like, you've got the play. I think maybe the idea here was, oh, he's going to stay tight. I don't know. Is Trey selling it too much? Does Trey even know this is happening? Because the way he's chasing after him,

Starting point is 00:30:37 and Trey keeps pushing to the outside to win, usually that's like a one-two step to set up the offensive tackle so he doesn't see it coming. Then he gets blasted by the linebacker. Then he got two-on-one to the quarterback. Instead, it felt like Frennerner said kept pushing to the outside, and then Bulls just kept following him. And you're at that point, like at some point, turn.

Starting point is 00:30:55 turn and just go get the quarterback because the running back's on the opposite side of this he's trying to do a cross a cross scan pickup here and then they run another stunt where they let osai spy spy in the middle of the field it's like why why even run the stunt i mean and situation too right like there's 30 seconds left in the half 30 seconds left in the half third and 10 and the idea maybe is that bad like a very bad quarterback would see murphy win to the outside on this stunt and free up osai and start to push around his outside and go, oh, I've got room up the middle and they just go run into the sack. But these are NFL quarterbacks. This is the best of the best college guys. So I don't know if he picked that one up in college where he just had Osai stop there and spy or was that Osai just thinking like he looks like he's going to run. So I'm not going to do this. But they freed it up.

Starting point is 00:31:46 It's the fastest stunt that I think they've run. And he doesn't he doesn't loop. He doesn't loop for the pressure. It's there. But it seemed like he was coached to stop and spy. instead and at that point I'm thinking why are you running level 301 stunts when you can't execute the level 101 stunts like can we get really good can they get really good at running like a normal TE or an ET and flush the quarterback that way

Starting point is 00:32:13 and free up guys that way because it's just not working and when the stunts aren't working and the blitzes aren't working one you're gonna slant a lot on blitzes too And when you do that, a lot of these guys are wasted. A lot of these guys are wasted in their pass rush. I understand they're not big pass rushers anyway, but you're taking what are, no, middling or worse pass rushers. And now they don't even have a chance to win. So you put all your eggs in the tray basket.

Starting point is 00:32:42 And tray is sometimes also being asked to slant and stunt, like we just talked about with the Logan Wilson play, which hurts his pass rush ability if they're not working. So something has to give here. You can't play defense giving up this much time to the quarterback. In that play that I talked about with Osai spying, Nick's just sat there. He sat there and after three, four seconds,

Starting point is 00:33:03 threw the ball and got a 30-yard gain. So that's becoming really frustrating of they can't figure this out at all. I don't think Al's doing a good job dictating the offensive line protections or knowing what the offensive line likes to protect with. But also, I think the stunts, at some point, they have to be able to run something that gets some pressure that isn't just relying on tray one-on-ones. And so far through four games, they haven't had anything do that.

Starting point is 00:33:28 They need to find those answers. We didn't even talk about the run game where J.K. Dobbins went for over six yards per carry in this game. The run defense looking much like it did last year. Honestly, the defense, the results, the scheme is different, but the results are largely the same between this year and last year. Maybe it's just the same root cause. They can't get after the passer, and I don't think they're being put in great positions again this year. And look, a lot of people are talking about Lou Anna Rumo, you know, talking about him being scapegoat him maybe or saying that, you know,

Starting point is 00:34:00 but we were told that it was Lou and they needed to replace him. I do think that Lou's a good coach when he has veterans who can do the things that he's trying to do. I still don't think the Bengals have that this year, but the way that it's going right now on defense, really the entire team. So much needs a change in such significant ways. And this really continues to be hard to see where those changes come from until you actually see them take a step in the right direction and doing that with Jake Browning and doing that when you're getting out-possessed

Starting point is 00:34:29 by 15 minutes. You're running 40 plays to the opposing teams 80. I mean, that's a tough place to be playing a defense too when you're getting out-possessed like that, especially in the Mile High City in Denver. But that's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. You can find Mike's writing at bengels talk.com where he writes with our, the esteemed co-host of Lockdown Bengals, James Rapine.

Starting point is 00:34:53 And of course, make sure you're following Mike on Twitter at Bengals underscore Sands, where you might catch a coach's clinic of the week if you're interested in diving into the film. Until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. And have a good one.

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