Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - BIG PLAYS = 1-0 START: Bengals Defense CREATES Chaos, Forces Baker Mayfield Turnovers in Win

Starting point is 00:00:00 A fast start for an opportunistic defense, got the Bengals, the cushion they needed to start the season 1-0 and survive the Buccaneers at home. 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 Liscoe and the Cincinnati Bengals are 1-0. we're here to break down the biggest stories and our biggest takeaways from the Bengals week one victory over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

Starting point is 00:00:40 It got a little bit more dramatic in the second half than it had to in an episode brought to by Kalshi where for a limited time, you can download Kalshi and use code locked on. You'll get $25 when you trade $25. Kalshi lets you trade what's next. And Joe, this was a game that the Bengals largely controlled because Baker Mayfield's ball security was absolutely dreadful and the Bengals were opportunistic in taking the ball away. the bucks put the ball on the ground four times. The Bengals took it away all four times.

Starting point is 00:01:07 It was put on the ground. And ultimately, that's what leads to them winning the game. And we'll discuss some of those plays individually and the contributions we saw from the Bengals' newcomers in this game, some lingering questions that we're going to have coming out of this game. It got way more interesting than it needed to be in the second half show. Like I said a little bit earlier, but it was great to see the defense making plays in this one.

Starting point is 00:01:30 It wasn't perfect. This isn't going to be the steel. curtain or the bears of the peak defenses in NFL history, but it's going to be an opportunistic defensive today is any indication. Yeah, this was a complimentary team victory, right? This is the offense at moments having some splutters, but overall doing what they had to do. The defense made plays, multiple plays, right? Four turnovers today, four sacks. Evan McPherson hitting 50-yard kicks, 50 plus up to 58 in clutch moments. I mean, this game got tighter than it probably should have been for the Bengals

Starting point is 00:02:12 controlling it most of the day. But you needed the offense to make a play at the end. You needed the defense to make a play at the end. And you needed the special teams in the fourth quarter to do its job. And it's nice to have a complete team victory week one. I like the summer calling it a team effort, Joe. They did get plays from everyone in different moments. And it's a game that in many ways felt like games that last year they would have

Starting point is 00:02:33 simply lost, right? these are the 33 plus point games and they showed the graphic during the broadcast where the Bengals were like six and seven in their last 13 games or whatever it is when they scored 33 plus points and the rest of the NFL has a 95% winning percentage or again, whatever it is, maybe it's closer to 90%, but the Bengals have a losing record. And today they end up making the plays and whether it's getting a stop with a sack from Jonathan Allen late in the game to force a bucks to kick a field goal or the four takeaways earlier in the game, there was a point in the fourth quarter when I said, look, the Bengals are either going to need to have another drive here on offense. They're going to need to go score another touchdown or they're going to need a takeaway. A couple of plays later, they come up with their fourth fumble recovery of the game. Like I said, Baker's ball security today dreadful. But you saw newcomer Boye Mafay making one of, I think, a couple of splash plays for him in this game, but just a hustle play, right?

Starting point is 00:03:28 Where Tristan works hasn't pretty well beat. Baker Mayfield stepping up trying to find somewhere to launch the ball downfield, trying to make a big play holds ball too long. Boy, Maffei gets it out. And so that was another nice thing to see today was the pass rush eventually getting home, not necessarily a bunch of quick wins, not necessarily a bunch of relentless, you know, quick pressure, play after play after play, but they really capitalize on those opportunities. And Baker, to the Bengals credit, never looked entirely comfortable playing quarterback today.

Starting point is 00:03:59 Yeah, I think that's fair. I also, big thing I noticed is that newcomers, making these plays, right? And it's not just Jonathan Allen with that sack, which is nice. We can talk about the defensive tackles being off sides a million times, like at another time. It's so weird, but the Black Center must have been doing something. It's the only thing I can come up with. Like there's one play in this game where they're showing a replay pre-snap and you can see the center holding the ball straight up and then he puts it down. And I'm wondering if like the DTs

Starting point is 00:04:26 didn't see where he was putting the ball down after having it straight up. But I can't imagine that's something they never seen before. It's something that you need to clean up. You can't have four offside penalties from your veteran defensive tackles. That's crazy, crazy making. I'm sure for everyone watching. So I guess we did talk about it. But I was going to say, Alan has a sack. I thought he flashed a couple other times.

Starting point is 00:04:45 Boy, in my faith, had a few flashes. I thought he had a great run defense play on a play that someone was off sides. So, you know, he gets that hustle sack, knocks the ball out. Brian Cook with a force fumble with a fumble recovery, two different plays. Dexter Lawrence flashed a bunch. He looked super physical. He had a couple pressures. Like, that's all I'm really looking.

Starting point is 00:05:03 for him. Yeah, did he get the splash play? No, it's not there yet. And people, because I'm only saying it that way, because people during the game will ask, is Dexter Lawrence even playing? And then like, immediately he gets a pressure on the next play. And I'm like, okay, well, there he is. And that tends to be how it goes. But that's all the newcomers on defense make a play. And you even see Cassius Howell making a play. You see Dante Myers making a play on offense. Colby Young was out there a little bit more than expected getting rotated in. He was active, number one, which is great, but getting him mixed in and rotated in. maybe Eric All, maybe a little bit less than I thought.

Starting point is 00:05:35 If we're saying, you know, guys, we expected to make big plays versus didn't. Eric Al was out there, maybe a little less for me. But the newcomers coming in, a little bit of a proof of concept, right? This is what we've been talking about all offseason. And it's not just like I think the organization to us as fans, but also us, we've been saying when we go on other shows and talk to other creators and writers and podcasters that this defense has been winning and they've been making plays. And it's been a pain in the butt for the Bengals offense.

Starting point is 00:06:02 and everyone's kind of like, oh, yeah, we'll see if the defense is actually good. Well, we don't know if it's good, but can it make plays? Can it be disruptive? Can it create chaos? I think it can. If they get last year's defense in this game, they lose. Oh, they're not collecting four fumble recoveries. They might still give up the success rate they gave up today.

Starting point is 00:06:21 I'm sure when you go look at the success rate stats after the game and I'll try to refresh my success rate page here that is currently timed out and give you those stats in a couple minutes, but it'll probably look pretty positive for Tampa because they were largely outside of a couple of drives moving the ball reasonably well. Like even when the Bengals would get them behind the chains, Trist and Mers had two false starts in this game. I think both times Tampa overcame them. They converted from being behind the chains a number of times in this game. But the Bengals then on several third downs created turnover. So I don't think, no, I'm sure the Bucks did not punt in this game. Turn the ball over four times. Right. They converted a fourth down. They have the office.

Starting point is 00:06:58 side penalty on that fourth down. So it didn't actually count as a fourth down conversion, I think, because it's technically before the fourth down play. But yeah, no punts for Tampa in this game. Tampa moved the ball reasonably well. There was a long stretch of time, though, in this game where I thought, this is a perfect game script for the Bengals because they're taking care of the ball and they're forcing Tampa to take forever to move downfield.

Starting point is 00:07:21 And then things got a little dicey there in the second half. And maybe that's what we can talk about next show because there's a point. in the third quarter where I was like, look, the Bengals just got 11 minutes off the clock, and the score is essentially the same. It's still a 13 point lead or whatever it was at that point in time. They can keep doing this for the rest of the game, take care of the ball, take four minutes off the clock,

Starting point is 00:07:42 make Tampa take four minutes off the clock, trade three points here, six points there. There's just not enough time in the game for Tampa to have a real shot at it. Fortunately, that's not the way it played out, a very uncharacteristic mistake for Joe Burrow that we can talk about in a game that wasn't his best, but he did make some plays. And if this is what you get from week one for Joe Burrow,

Starting point is 00:08:03 they scored 33 points. And what, 26 of those came on offense, one defensive touchdown. So you'll take that in week one, but things to work on, I think, as well. And that's not a bad place to be when you're 1 and 0. We'll continue the conversation there coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by Better Help

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Starting point is 00:10:09 Jake, the whole game, I think, first drive, first two drives, let's say. The whole game could be boiled down to, and I just thought of this just now, as you were talking about the long drives. And the first drive happened for the bucks. They go right down the field, right, 12 plays, and the defense stands. At that point, you know, everyone's got takes after the first drive. They're tweeting them off, right, firing them off. Like, I guess the defense is not any better than it was last year.

Starting point is 00:10:35 I guess the same old defense. I guess we're missing tackles. I even said that. There was mistackles at that point. Well, something we'll talk about in today's episode. But then the Bengals come out and they struggle on their first drive. And we go, okay, what kind of game are we looking at? Is it going to be the week one type of game?

Starting point is 00:10:51 and everything flipped on that force fumble where they get pressure on Mayfield. Multiple people get pressure on them. I want to say it was first, Maffa and then Miles Murphy coming around the backside, Barack Carter stepping up and hitting Baker as well. Murphy knocks the ball out. It scooped up. I actually thought what Dexter Lawrence did there, kind of sliding and making sure the offensive lineman couldn't recover this ball.

Starting point is 00:11:15 Maybe heady. I don't know. I'd love it for a reporter asks him this in the locker room. But Demetris Knight picks it up, Scoop, score. We're watching this on TV. And for many people that watched and weren't at that game, it's Paycor sounded crazy like a bomb went off at that moment.

Starting point is 00:11:31 Like, oh, the defense is going to make plays in 2026, huh? That's what's going to happen, Demetris Knight, who got so much, a lot of pain last year for Demetra's play, right? For him to make a play in that moment, scoop and score, it just sets the tone for the rest of the day where they recover four fumbles. We were talking about this off air. We're looking at quarterback fumbles right recently. This was this week, wasn't it?

Starting point is 00:11:53 Yeah. And you said, and so I tweeted it at you, you said, we don't talk about quarterback fumbling enough. And I'm like, you know what? We really don't. It gets so bypassed and overlooked by everyone talking football. This game decided that. Yeah, I mean, Baker put the ball in ground three times.

Starting point is 00:12:07 Bucky Irving had the one. Shout out Brian Cook, making a play, making a play as a newcomer for this team. But it wasn't just the newcomers, like you said. I mean, you also have plays from the linebackers. We're going to spend time this week talking about the linebackers. we're going to spend some time probably later in this episode talking about the linebackers as well. But you got the force fumble, you got a fumble recovery, you have a handful of plays from these guys. And when you can make some plays to go with the negatives, you take the good with the bad, right?

Starting point is 00:12:35 And when you get the good, that's what you didn't have last year. And it gives you that upside. But the tackling does need to be better. I mentioned the success rate stats earlier today, or early in the episode as well, Joe. Bucks finish at a 52% success rate overall. in the game, which is much, much better than you would like it to be overall. By comparison, the Bengals is just a 48% success rate overall, which was quite a flip from the first half.

Starting point is 00:13:00 And the first half, their early down runs were crushing it. Their early down run success rate was great. The early down past success rate was great. This probably has something to do with just end of game, bucks loading up the box, Bengals running into the box, not gaining yards at the end of the game. And some of the plays, it didn't matter, weighing this out. There was a little bit of a lull there, right? And I'm trying to pinpoint it.

Starting point is 00:13:22 I'll have to rewatch the games, really, but it was somewhere in the second half there where it felt like a couple of drives in a row where the Bengals just weren't firing on offense. Well, they didn't score touchdown in the second half. And on offense, right? It was all Evan McPherson field goals. Yep.

Starting point is 00:13:35 Yeah. Three, three, three field goals for Evan McPherson in the second half, just nine points. And that field goal right before halftime. Yeah. So four straight drives at end in field goals. One of those ends at the two yard line. One of the bends after Joe Burrow takes a,

Starting point is 00:13:49 really bad sack and we'll have to see what was going on downfield on that one but it was you mentioned evan mcpherson earlier it was very important that evan mcpherson was good in this game hitting what was it five field goals did it end up four field goals and two of them from 50 plus one from 58 after joe takes a sack or maybe that wasn't after joe's sack but only one sack for joe on the game overall that evan mcpherson was able to make good along field goals is literally why the Bengals won this game. It's a margin of victory in this game to go along with all the takeaways. They're plus three in takeaways.

Starting point is 00:14:24 They win the game by six in the end in the score column. They obviously could have scored some more points there at the end if they were trying to. They were in the red zone to finish the game with the ball in offense, which is also great, by the way, winning the game on offense. How much have we talked about that, Joe? I talk about that all the time. And that's why the first time where they settled for that field goal in the fourth quarter, I'm like, you're going up by 13 here if you make a field goal.

Starting point is 00:14:46 Didn't it feel great. you need two yards and you could pretty much ice this thing. I think there's about six minutes left in the game at that point. You get those two yards and it's done. I want to win on offense. That's where I feel good about this team. And I remain that way. Probably it'd be a long time before I don't feel that way with a Joe Burrow-led Bengals team.

Starting point is 00:15:03 But yes, when it came to it, there was two things here. They needed to play on the defensive side. Mafay gave them that, although the Bucks did drive and score afterwards. You know, it really, I think, gave them some room there because the Bengals drove down and were able to get that field goal to make it 13. points. But when the Bengals got the ball back, they were able to milk the game away and end it. A very nice throw and catch by T. Higgins from Joe Burrow. I mean, beautiful. It reminded me of that Chiefs game from, what was that, 2022, where they third down call, was it fourth down? I think

Starting point is 00:15:33 that play may have been either way in this game. It was third down. He hits him. Great route. The bucks are playing everything in the box. You're actually getting a one-on-one. Very quiet day for T. He had a couple plays, this being one of them, very even more quiet day for to Marr Chase. The big guy today was the big guy. Mike Gaseki, he could have had two touchdowns. Earl missed what, two throws, maybe the one deep one, two T. Higgins in the first half off play action.

Starting point is 00:15:57 And then that potential touchdown where he got pressured from the left side on a blitz to Gaseki, where he sees it like kind of just tries to get it out as best as he can as he's falling backwards and throws it over Gosecchi's head. But, you know, it's nice to have those complementary pieces come through when your stars aren't, they're not able to be unleashed completely. It's not always going to be like that, right? It's not always going to be 150 yards for Jamar Chase. And when it's not, can Samadji Piron make a play? Can Dante Myers make a play? Can Mike Aseki make a play? And they did today. So that's how the often stayed on time and at least functional.

Starting point is 00:16:32 You talked a lot about the depth of this team. I called Samadjapira and the most underrated Bengal. Turns out in this game, he was close, but it was actually Mike Keseki, who is the most underrated Bengal coming into this game based on his performance today, leading the Bengals in, receptions tied with Chase Brown at five receiving yards and he scored the only receiving touchdown of the game also led the Bengals in targets which is probably the only time that's going to happen this season maybe one other time the bucks didn't cover them yeah they just didn't cover him it was three plays in a row or three out of four plays on what the drive to finish the second half or the first half I think when they end up settling for a field goal because there

Starting point is 00:17:12 there are a couple of like hitches and then they get the seam later on they get them on another scene where this is this is a benefit of having a mic kaseki out there when there are resources dedicated to t higgins and jemar chase you get the mic kaseki opportunities and he made the most of them today catching five of his seven targets and with some huge conversions for the bengals in this game and some of the biggest explosive plays for the bengals in this game the only other true explosive for the Bengals was that T. Higgins, 29-yard catch with some nice yards after catch on that one. But shout out to Samaj as well, converting some clutch plays as a receiver and as a runner in this game are underrated guys coming through in this one. And Dante Myers, man,

Starting point is 00:17:57 I just want to shout out Dante Myers because he looked like he did in the preseason, right? The end of round, he got in the catch he had, six foot in the ground, makes the guy miss. We talked about, is there another yak guy on this team? And there it is. Monta Myers can give you that. If it's just a player or two in a game, there's not a lot of opportunities in this offense, but it was nice to see him capitalize on those. And he made the most of those two opportunities after a very exciting preseason.

Starting point is 00:18:20 I've got another guy here too that's a little underrated. And I thought he had an exceptional, exceptional performance, excuse me, Drew sample. True sample. There was one nice catch where it's a kind of a scrambled drill. He fakes upfield comes back, turns, you know, he catches eight, seven yards, whatever it was. But is blocking.

Starting point is 00:18:36 And we'll, I'd love to spend the whole. a third segment talking about offense and defensive line on both sides of the ball for the Bengals. And maybe we will. But Sample, I thought, had a couple of very nice blocks. He had one in particular. And I touched on to Chase Brown where he blocks Ruben Bain so well that Bain after the play looks behind them like who is supposed to help me over here. Clearly the box overloaded one side, the Bengals hit the other. Sometimes it's rock paper, scissors.

Starting point is 00:19:00 And we get the advantage. And we did on that one. But Sample took care of Ruben Bain, who had an extremely quiet day, Jake. I just want to make sure that's known. The Bengals' offensive line turns out was not the worst unit for either team in this game. Shout out locked on bucks. The linebackers for the Bengals. They weren't even the worst offensive line in this game.

Starting point is 00:19:21 I would agree with that. Joe Burrow was not pressure very often in this game was sacked once. I don't think the Bengals got as much pressure as they might have felt like they got. We'll see what it looks like on rewatch. But for sacks, I think Baker took a lot of sacks. This pressure to sack rate going to be very high in this game. And Drew Sample also had a pancake on Chase Brown's longest run of the game, I think, which was probably the same play because there's a double team from a Marius Mims and Dalton

Starting point is 00:19:46 Riser and Drew Sample gets one-on-one with somebody over there. He buried the guy the first time Sample takes it, or maybe that was only an eight-yard gain for Chase Brown, but it was a chasm in the offensive line for him to run through. Similarly, like you said, noticed it as well on the touchdown run. Drew Sample even had one of the best plays as a receiver I think I've seen from him, his transition from receiver to runner on one of his three catches. The other ones, he looked like your sample, but on one of the three, he looked really nice transitioning to be a runner. We'll finish up the show next with some talk about trenches and tackling here as the Bengals are one in it.

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Starting point is 00:22:17 Prices, values, and available markets may differ from those mentioned. For more information, see calshy.com slash regulatory. So before we dive into the trenches here and the offensive line that was excellent for the Bengals in this game, just going to throw out there that the Bengals tackling well still be an issue if this game is any indication. This is probably something that we'll talk a little bit more about after we've had a chance to dive into the film. Looks like by my count and by PFF's count, we agree on this one based on what we saw live. Barrett Carter and Demetri side both hit three mistackles and might have missed one in one direction or the other for one of them.

Starting point is 00:22:53 One of those might finish at two mistackles. But tackling for the linebackers is still an area that we're going to be watching, something that we'll want to see improved. Certainly in week two. I mean, Barrett Carter bouncing off of and getting juked a little bit by Baker Mayfield for the touchdown. After earlier, he forced to fumble a little bit of a tale of two cities for Barrett Carter in that sense. You take the good, though. They made some plays in this game too. You love to see that and also making plays in this game, the offensive line. This is another thing. Like when we get back together, Joe, tomorrow, and we talk about our

Starting point is 00:23:25 rewatch thoughts after we've had a chance to dig into the film, I'm guessing it might start in the trenches there, unless it starts with like the under center. game, which I thought also was very interesting from the Bengals. I thought very creative in the running game today. Very excited to watch that on film. The offensive line, I thought was very, very good against the defensive front that we thought could potentially pose some problems. Yeah, I'm with you.

Starting point is 00:23:48 I was very impressed with the offensive line. I think going in a half time, I felt like I didn't look it up, but I felt like Earl was pressure maybe two times. It wasn't much. I was being generous with one and one pressure where he missed Keseki, right? And we talked about that play. otherwise like Orlando Brown Jr. We had a lot of worries.

Starting point is 00:24:07 I didn't notice him other than the one pressure. I didn't notice him in a negative way at all. I thought he had a couple of nice run blocks as well. I can't wait to see the holes in the run game. It seemed like a lot of bodies going in one direction and they never really countered off of it until that one last Chase Brown run. I felt like where he was able to bounce out good patience and bounce it out to the right side and stayed in bounds.

Starting point is 00:24:27 But I thought Mims taking care of Bain all game. They didn't move Bain around. Silly to me. often did you notice Vita Vair? Not too often. I mean, he's a guy you watch tape and you watch, then you see the nose tackle, right? That's how those guys tend to be. I don't know if we've in this one. I mean, there were a couple times I saw him. He's just out of position. Like, he's knocking by guys back every now. Take, take the Chase Brown touchdown run, for example here, not to cut you off too much, but like the bucks were slanting a lot in this game, like

Starting point is 00:24:52 hard committing in one direction. That's why it was a rock versus scissors moment for me. That's what I replied to you on Twitter, Joe. And I saw it is because the buck slanted their offensive line right. The Bengals ran right behind where they slant. slanted and that's just easy. You have a massive advantage in bodies and gaps there at that point. So I wonder what it'll look like for Bay on tape, knowing how the bucks were approaching, at least some of the plays in this game where they're hard slanting on some of these

Starting point is 00:25:15 snaps. I notice Mims and Reisner, their communication, they're in sync pretty well in these run blocking plays. I can't wait to watch the film on them too, because they're a joy to watch, to be honest. I think that's the,

Starting point is 00:25:28 where my focus tends to go when I'm watching the film with these guys. Fairchild got beat for the ones. sack kind of got lifted off his feet a little bit got a little high little vertical losing his leverage and it was a coverage sack but other than that yeah oh line if we got that if if i could say jake you can have that all 17 games would you take that right now joe borough is pressured like 13% of the time in pfs initial charting in this game there weren't a whole lot of i wonder here's here's something that'll be interesting to revisit i wonder what the true past set percentage was in this game with how much they were under center how much they actually went to

Starting point is 00:26:02 went to play action in this game. It felt like there weren't a whole lot of true pass set opportunities. Looking at PFF's initial charting, they have it at 17 out of 37, which I would guess is lower than anything they did last season or they're typically 50 to 60%. They're typically certainly a majority true pass sets. But in this game, only a few opportunities for the Bengals to be a true dropback passing team. And honestly, Joe Burrow played pretty well in some of those opportunities. It's really just a pick.

Starting point is 00:26:32 And you talk about it. We haven't talked about that yet. Let's cover that quickly. That's just a bad mistake Joe Burrow can never make. Todd Bull started blitzing much, much more in the second half. It was very effective in terms of getting Joe Burrow to doubt the picture, getting Joe Burrow to second guess a little bit. And Joe set out his locker after the game.

Starting point is 00:26:50 He'd be feeling great about this one. If you hadn't thrown the pick, I'm inclined to agree. They would have been in control of this game, really the whole way, if not for that interception, which made things interesting again. And I think the thing about that, this kind of, to stand out is like let's not see that become a pattern this season because we've seen it in the past that the bad fourth quarter interceptions that make games tighter than they have to be and Ravens games are coming to mind here. It's not something that I think should be a long term problem for Joe,

Starting point is 00:27:17 but that pick that he threw today is just like a high school pick, man. Just don't see the line you're staring it down. Don't see the linebackers shoot or jumping at the whole time. They have the flat wide open on the other side because I think that's where the blitz actually came on that play. It'll be one that we'll have to go look at again. on film, but the replay from the tight shot, Joe's staring it down and look like he ever sees Josiah Trotter breaking on it. Yeah, I wonder that's going to go in the bucket of worst plays Joe Burrow has made, I feel like, and it's not so much a bad throw. It is a bad decision, right? Because I, you know, to make a small distinction, doesn't really matter.

Starting point is 00:27:53 You make a throw, it gets picked off by a rookie linebacker. You feel pretty bad about it. But the interesting part to this play to me is he tries to get the team back to the the line fast, right, without a going back to a huddle. So they go no huddle. They get to the line. They're trying to get number 91. It looks like for the bucks as he's running off the field. Burrell sees up. He did get off the field. Okay. Now he starts calling a play to everybody. They don't huddle back up. He's calling it. And maybe he can hear Zach, right? You can hear the play call up until 15 seconds remaining on the play clock. I'd have to see when that happens. But you can hear him call to the receivers to the tight end, to the protection to the running back.

Starting point is 00:28:29 what he wants him to do or whatever Zach's telling them to do. I feel like in that situation that you'd probably just let Burrow call it. There were other replays where they would go to Zach, and I was shocked that he was done with the play call already, and that Burrow already had it because there was other plays where they had to call timeouts, and it seemed like Burrow was killing it at the last seconds, as the Bucks were showing Blitz,

Starting point is 00:28:49 and then finally with 10 seconds left, we're showing their true coverage, and the Burrell was like, okay, kill, kill, let's go to this. And it's like too late for that. So I thought we were in that situation, but then when I rewent and watched it, I'm like, no, I just think Burroughs, you know, whatever he called, again, might be a rock, paper, scissors situation.

Starting point is 00:29:05 He thought they were doing this. They didn't. You drop out of the two mug look, the sugar in the agap, right? And he dropped Trotter right to that position. I understood what he's looking at, what he thinks, you know, Gavin Yoshi sit down right there. It's just a really good play by the bucks defense. And Burrow, I'm sure, wants that back. Yeah, I mean, it's just a play where he never sees a linebacker.

Starting point is 00:29:25 And that's not something that we're used to from Joe. It's not usually a never saw the guy mistake from Joe Burrow. And look, if that's the slow start that we're going to have to deal with here from Joe Burrow in week one, we'll take it. The Bengals get out of there with a win. We're going to focus on the defensive line a little bit on the film review as well. See what Dexter Lawrence did. Didn't necessarily show up in the stat sheet directly, but there were more than a handful of players

Starting point is 00:29:50 where he was absolutely unblockable when he did get a couple of one-on-one opportunities. And he was certainly dictating where the double teams, were creating opportunities for others. I thought the stunts for the defensive line looked better in this game as well. And I'm excited to see how that looks on the film too. But the Bengals are one and no. They got contributions from their newcomers from Evan McPherson,

Starting point is 00:30:11 big plays all over the place. T. Higgins called game with a sensational catch from Joe Burrow on a third down. And look, we'll take one and no. This was a tough matchup. Like we've said a few times, closer than it had to be. But the Bengals largely controlling this one due to take away.

Starting point is 00:30:27 an opportunistic defense and not complaining about 1-0 here on lockdown Bengals. Until next time, that's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Thanks for listening. Who day? And have a good one.

Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - BIG PLAYS = 1-0 START: Bengals Defense CREATES Chaos, Forces Baker Mayfield Turnovers in Win

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