Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - EVALUATION MODE: Myles Murphy, Dax Hill Stand Out Despite RECURRENT Issues for the Bengals against Steelers

Episode Date: November 18, 2025

With playoff hopes dashed, our Bengals films review shifts to assessing future building blocks as Myles Murphy and Dax Hill hand standout games against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Jake Liscow and film analyst Mike Santaga spotlight Murphy’s promising showing amidst ongoing issues on defense. On the offensive side of the ball, the Bengals failed to adapt as double teams gave Ja'Marr Chase, Tee Higgins, and Joe Flacco issues, but Amarius Mims and Dylan Fairchild continue to show promise and development as future building blocks.Join the Locked On Bengals Insider Community! https://joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengalsFind and follow Locked On Bengals on your favorite podcast platforms:Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/locked-on-bengals-daily-podcast-on-the-cincinnati-bengals/id1159723162Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7AObc0lh0WmQl5fJVgtajsGoogle Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy5tZWdhcGhvbmUuZm0vbG9ja2Vkb25iZW5nYWxz?sa=X&ved=0CAYQrrcFahcKEwio_sXtj8nuAhUAAAAAHQAAAAAQAgStitcher: https://www.stitcher.com/show/locked-on-bengalsSupport Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!PelotonLet yourself run, lift, flex, and push forward. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread+ today at https://www.onepeloton.com.PrizePicksDownload the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNFLGametimeDownload the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.FanDuelRight now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app.FANDUEL 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.

The season is effectively over for the Cincinnati Bengals, and that just means our film watching transitions to evaluation mode, both for players and coaches, and Miles Murphy had a standout game against the Steelers. Let's 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 Locked-on Bengals podcast.

Part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, now the number one sports. podcast network. I'm Jake. Let's go join today by Mike Santagana, our resident film expert for this week's film breakdown episode, as even though the Bengals are 3 and 7, they're still film to watch and things to evaluate. And largely this year, Mike, when we've had these episodes, we've talked about the things that aren't working on the defensive side of the ball, what is at times working on the offensive side of the ball. But at 3 and 7, and with it increasingly looking like there could be offseason changes coming to the coaching staff, I'm quite frankly, less interested in some of the schematic stuff at this point, more interested in how some of these

players who are going to be under contract for this team going forward are playing. And that is kind of going to be my approach for the foreseeable future here is how do some of these individual players play. But I do think there are some concerns on the offensive side of the ball schematically that I wanted to get to as well as to why the offense struggled so much against the Steelers. So that will certainly be a point of conversation in this one as well. well. Welcome back to all the everydayers out there and all of you who make Lockdown Bengals your first listen today. It's back into the film, Mike, and let's start with why we're not going to spend a whole lot of time on like the overarching issues of the defense. And it's because it's boring. It's because it's the same stuff. It's the same issues. It's the same slow processing at linebacker and at safety at times. It's the same lack of physicality, mis-tackles, especially at linebacker and at safety.

but there were some players that played well, and that's more interesting to me when you look forward. Schematically, though, there were some wrinkles this week that we can pay some lip service to. They're going more five defensive linemen, more five defensive linemen in past rushing situations, and they want to send more than four pass rushers, less blitzing with off ball players.

Do anything else stand out to you from a big picture perspective on the defense here before we dive into some of the bright spots? They tried running some more exotic drops, to get to their cover three and cover two on third and long, and it actually hurt them. That was some of those plays that were just checked down. And it was a simple adage of when you want to beat a simple defense, get complex.

You want to beat a complex defense, get simple. And that's what the Steelers did. They were just playing very simple, and the Bengals were trying to be more complex than usual. Yeah, the Mason Rudolph offensive, throw the check down, and then have those guys go for 15 yards after catch. Not great for the Bengals defense. I think I saw a stat that like a vast majority of the Steelers passing yards in this game

were yards after catch. I don't remember the exact numbers now, but it was something like nearly 200 yards out of their roughly 250 passing yards or something like that. I'm trying to pull up the box score now to try to give more appropriate approximate number. So the Steelers had 232 yards passing, and I think nearly 200 of them were after the catch. Yeah. Yeah, it feels like an old Bruce Lee movie because the Bengals just don't gang tackle.

It's like one after the other. The offensive player is just the star of the movie. Think of that darnel play. It's just like roundhouse kick. That was, I think, a lot of what it was like. And some of the chief offenders were once again chief offenders. And again, this is why we don't need to spend too much time talking about it. Because it's kind of the same stuff.

It's like, okay, Barrett Cargers missing tackles. Geno Stone's missing tackles. Oh, they tried Oren Berks. a little bit different this week. Another linebacker, this missing tackles. Those guys, the chief offenders. Josh Newton got in there when Cam Taylor Britt went out with what looks like a pretty bad foot injury, missing tackles.

So a lot of the same. But a difference this week was that when Aaron Rogers was in the game at least, and this change when Mason Rudolph went into the game because the Steelers went to that checkdown game, play action, run heavy game plan, and really kind of shelled up on offense. And the game's kind of out of reach pretty quickly after Mason. and Rudolph enters the game, not immediately, but pretty quickly. And before that, the Bengals actually had a pass rush in this game.

Aaron Rogers under constant duress, wasn't playing very well, was holding onto the ball, and either wasn't seeing it well or didn't trust his arm, his accuracy didn't look great. It looks like he turned down some opportunities where prime Aaron Rogers is flicking the wrist and that ball is flying 50 yards over your head downfield. But part of this is also Miles Murphy had a standout game. And I think some other guys contributed in the past rush as well. This isn't to erase what BJ Hill contributed or the occasional contributions from Joseph Osai

were some of these other guys. But really standing out both live watching, it stood out as we were watching live and in review was Miles Murphy's game as he piled up 58 snaps out of 65 defensive snaps in this game on the defensive side of the ball. So by far leading the defensive line, next closest, B.J. Hills, 46,

and contributing by filling up the stat sheet as a pass rusher and in the run game. Yeah, and not only playing 58 snaps, but it's always impressive when you can be a high motor player for all 58 snaps like that. Like, that's something Max Crosby plays every snap for the Raiders, and he's always high motor, always chasing down the ball carrier at full speed.

I felt like Murphy was a high motor guy in this game, even though he's playing somebody snaps, which was good to see that, I mean, the hustle. And it matters because you get into plays like that one, I think Aaron Rogers might have got hurt on where he threw the ball back to the end zone. A lot of that's just continuing and being relentless at rushing the passer. And it's like you didn't get there on your first opportunity, your second opportunity, you're chasing and chasing, and you can finally get there.

So I think that was impressive. But yeah, overall, like even not just something that in some people's minds, anybody could be a high motor guy. I don't know if that's true. But he was also doing stuff that not everybody. he can do. I thought his bull rush, his speed to power in this game was really nice. He was condensing the pocket well. And I started with the first play

of the game against Broderick Jones. Then he spent most the time against Fautano. I was able to do it against him as well. Got a couple of counters off of it. I thought the roughing the passer was, it was a call. It was something. To me, that was a quarterback hit and a pressure. Look, if I've learned anything, is that

you don't put your face mask on Aaron Roger's butt, okay? You just don't do it. General. Offense or defense. Don't That's really a good philosophy. Yeah. But yeah, he did a good job. He was beating his opponent.

And it's not all pros. I get that. But beating what I think are adequate starters at both sides. And especially because he went to Fad Tano so much, that's a guy who young offensive tackle. A lot of Steelers, people seem to think he's doing pretty good this year. So getting the best of him was pretty nice to see. And the run game is important, too. When you're playing against a team like the Pittsburgh Steelers,

They're going to line up two tight ends a lot of this time. And you're going to have to do a good job defending the run. And those two tight ends, one of them is an offensive tackle. I mean, Darnow, Washington's got to be close to 300 pounds. And that is not an easy assignment, as we saw, for anybody to take on in the run game, in the past game, tackling, whatever. Like that, that's a mammoth. So I thought I was really impressed with him. I thought the getoff has always been there.

But being more physical this week was a big part, too. I thought he was a more physical. player in this game. And that's something that we've been asking for for miles for a while now. And take me back to those counters you're talking about because I appreciate and am glad to hear that the physicality element of his game was there, especially in a game against the Steelers, where the Steelers are playing through the echo of the whistle, things got chippy. Jamar Chase is going to get suspended most likely, or maybe has been suspended by the time people are listening to this. We're recording before that news. But it has had to have

happened either way. But when the Steelers were playing the way they were, Jalen Ramsey, Joey Porter, Jr., like all these guys really with some questionably late hits that did not rise apparently to the level of penalty. It's nice to have that physicality on the other side, but I'm curious, Mike, to get your take about the counter move specifically because one of the things with Miles Murphy has been over the years, like, is there a pass rush plan? Are you stringing things together? Can you execute technically with your hands and string some moves together. So let's come back to that topic on Miles Murphy before we get to the other defensive standout in Dax Hill.

And we've been asking for a breakout game like this for Dax Hill as well. We'll do those topics next before we get to the offense a little bit later in the show. And there are some individuals to check in on on the offense, especially on the offensive line. But it's another example of them needing answers to double double. And that's really what the Steelers did. They spent a lot of attention on especially Jamar Chase, but in addition to that, did a good job with T on the other side on those plays.

And that's where we'll go to finish the show. But next, more on Miles Murphy and Dax Hills game on the defensive side of the ball as we continue the film breakdown. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is brought to you by Fandul. The NBA is back. And if you're looking for an escape from the 3 and 7 Cincinnati Bengals season, and I wouldn't blame you for it, stick with us here on Lockdown Bengals. But if you're looking to get in on the action with Fandul, there's no better place to do it than the official sports betting partner of the NBA, where maybe you're watching a game and you see, as James liked to talk about yesterday, Steph Curry putting it on the San Antonio Spurs. Well, if you miss the start of that game, you want to ride the hot hand when you realize Steph's having one of those games.

Fandle has live bets on everything who from who will score next to fourth quarter comeback. So you can combine those live bets into a same game parlay for a shot. at a bigger payout. It keeps every game exciting, especially when your team is making that late push. Right now, Fandall is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So go to Fandle.com to sign up and play your game with Fandle, the official sports vetting partner of the NBA. Mike, talk to me about those countermeuse for Miles Murphy. What did we see him put together working off of the speed to power, working off of the bull rush? And is that something that you think is an appreciable development that we have seen?

that we can maybe see more of in the future for miles. Yes. So both of the ones I'm thinking of came against Fawu Tanu that were successful. One is he's selling speed to power early. And as he goes to turn into Fowatano as if he's going to turn that speed and transition into power, he kind of stutters. And when Fowah Terno reaches out his outside hand, he swipes it, gets around the outside. That's actually one you got the roughing the pass around,

but one clean around the outside against him. And that's set up because throughout the game, He's going right into him and trying to bowl through Faotano throughout this game. So he understands my bread and butter has to be this bull rush, which I think he's understood the whole time. But now he's finally being able to hit something off of it when the offensive tackle is now selling to stop that bull. Like I'm tired of getting pushed back towards my quarterback and trying to make first contact. Second one, he hits a little hump move. And he's kind of selling an inside.

We've seen him try this a couple of times, but I don't know if he's really been that. I think he had one success last year with it. but again, Faotano kind of selling with him inside as he kind of looks like he's coming down, hits him with the hump, turns him around and is free to go get to the quarterback. I thought most of the game, the pressures came from that bull rush, just being able to convert that speed into power and crush the quarterback because he does have a good get-off, crush into that offensive tackle and condense the room to the quarterback. But seeing that swipe, I thought, was nice.

He's been trying that at times. It feels like his timing is off sometimes. But here it worked because he got it right after the offensive tackle. pushed his outside hand to try to punch into him. When you lose your outside hand, the corner's open because they have no way of now transitioning that the best in office of the time to do if they lose their outside hand

is to take their inside hand and try to drive them the rest of the way and he couldn't get a hand on Murphy because he got through there so clean. Well, it would be nice to see that continue for Miles because that's the other thing, right? It's the physicality, the three things with Miles where you have all these athletic tools,

you have this burst, you have this size. So it's, can you put together a pass-wash plan? can you figure out how to land your hands? Because a lot of times he's throwing moves and he's just not landing them. He's missing with his hands pretty consistently or too often. And it's nice to see that pile up for him. He's also played in his last three games like 160 snaps. And in each of the last two years, that would be 50% of his snaps for a season.

He had 300 snaps in 2023, 350 snaps in 2024. In the last three games alone, he's at 160. 60 some. So a big workload for Miles Murphy. It would be nice to see if it can continue next week where the Bengals will be facing the tackle duo of Will Campbell, who's been having an excellent rookie season, as you would expect, for a tackle drafted fourth overall for the New England Patriots and Morgan Moses, the ageless wonder on the other side, a little bit more getable, but has been good, has continued to be good. For all the years we've talked about, the Bengals potentially signing him as a journeyman stand-in tackle,

continues to play at a pretty reasonable level, but he can be beat. And so we'll see how Miles does against the season vet and the upstart rookie next week. The other standout for the Bengals on defense where, again, we've talked about the things that are bad. I know a lot of you out there want us to pile on some of these guys. It's the same stuff.

We've talked about it. Go listen to the previous film episodes. We've talked about all these guys that aren't winning, that aren't doing enough before. we're not going to talk about Jordan Battle a ton today, but he had a better tackling game. So I'm going to give Jordan Battle a little bit of a shout out here before we spend some time talking about Dax Hill.

And we've been asking for the ball production from Dax Hill. He had the one interception this year. Seemed like he had a pass breakup to me in this game. He's now not charted with the past breakup according to PFF. I thought he had a pass break up in this game. It was credited for four defensive stops. It was targeted four times, gave up two catches. What did you see when you were watching Dax on film?

I thought the coverage was good for him. I thought he did have, there was a play here and there that wasn't perfect for him. And maybe Mason Rudolph wasn't trying to push the ball down the field, take advantage of it. So you don't get to see if he could have recovered. But what stood out to me was that his run defense was consistently good. I thought he made, he made tackles when he had to because he has been up there with Barrett Carter, Demetrius Knight, Jordan Battle, Gina Stone, whatever. In missed tackles, he's been up there.

with them when you look at some of the statistically, some of the charting for miss tackles. I didn't think he missed too many tackles. I thought he was physical. I thought he's always flashed some high-end run stopping in his career, especially this season. But it was consistent for him this week where he needed it too because they did try to attack the perimeter quite a bit. And some of those plays that I think, you know, the general public might get on the defensive end for getting cracked by the wide receiver. that play is typically not made by the defensive end on those crack tosses. That's typically made by the nickel by the outside corner, somebody like that.

And this time it was Dax Hill making the play and making those stops. That's why you didn't really see crack toss or one of those plays go for a huge game. They tried to run it. Who wouldn't against the Spengel's team? But Dax Hill was able to make the play, beat the block, make a tackle against the running back. So I was impressed with his physicality and run defense. And I thought his coverage was pretty good. I think the play you're thinking of, set against Metcalf over the middle of the field.

He made the throw really hard even if he didn't technically with his hand on it. Maybe the ball hit the ground first or something. So making Rogers and throw the most difficult throw possible to complete the ball is also a good sign for him. So putting together, I thought he was consistently playing well in this game. And the consistency was key because the last couple of weeks before this week, he was kind of inconsistently flashing. Yeah, and given that they picked up his fifth year option, you would like to see that consistency be consistent, sorry, for the rest of the year. That would be the trajectory you would hope to see for Dax Hill because he does have that ability to be, you know, the athletic ability anyway, to be that Leon Hall kind of player where he can trigger downhill and be a great player in support in the run game and do those kinds of things and also cover on the other side. side of it is yeah still a bit of an inconsistency thing and and the way that the bengals have

handled his development obviously doesn't lend itself to consistent development because he's been playing all these different positions and now is once again playing a different position this year than last year as he's playing in the slot um the other thing that i was going to ask about dachs was there's one play that stood out to me for the wrong reasons which is the that was a or whatever his name is, Ozlowski. O'Slowski? O'Shefsky? Okay.

I don't know. Steeler players' names. That's fine. I don't care to learn them. It was the motion play looks like there's a miscommunication with D.J. Turner. DJ Turner is trying to say, let's switch. And Dax didn't necessarily get that memo right away. You get an insider inside release from this other guy who Dax is supposed to cover.

Well, it was the outbreaker that beat Dax, right? because there's an inside release and then Dax is reacting to it, but he's way outside. So he's trying to get inside to get over. And then it's an outbreaker when Dax is trying to get back inside to cover the motion guy who gets that inside release. There's nothing really Dax can do at that point. But just a miscommunication at the snap, right? That's what it looked like to me. And I wanted to get your take on it.

Yeah, that's what I saw. It seemed like it was more miscommunication than him getting beat with like physical, technical talent. And obviously you want to clean up the miscommunications because those have been. their own special little nightmare in a special little nightmare of a season for these Bengals. But this week, that nightmare continued on offense, Mike. And this is a game against a Steelers team that really remade its defense after the first time these teams played, moving Jalen Ramsey to safety, going out and getting Kyle Dugger, playing a lot more zone. Mike Tomlin took a lot of heat for not doubling these Bengals receivers enough the first time around.

Certainly change that up the second time around. I think we started to see the cracks with Joe Flacco really materializing into bad play in this one. Part of that I think is he did, I think, aggravate the shoulder on the roughing the passer call early in the game that T.J. Watt drove him into the ground on. But also, like, schematically, some stuff isn't really working for the Bengals. And I know we're not going to talk too much about scheme in this one, but this does go to Jamar Chase and T. Higgins and Andre Yosevash. Chase Brad had a nice game. We're going to talk about some of these offensive live. and I think individually as well, Dylan Fairchild, Jalen Rivers,

Amarius Mims, Orlando Brown, all in the spotlight for different reasons. We'll get to the offense here to finish up the show next. Today's show was brought to you by friends over there at Peloton. Look, folks, it's time to break through the busiest time of the year with a brand new Peloton cross-training, Tread Plus, that's powered by Peloton IQ. It's Peloton's most elevated technology and equipment yet that gives you real-time guidance and it gives you endless ways to move,

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It counts your reps so that you can do it smarter, safer, and more efficient. Let yourself run, lift, flex, push, and go. Explore the new Peloton, cross-training, tread plus at one peloton.com. Mike, let's get to this offense and start with what didn't work, which seems pretty obvious. The Bengals were unable to get the ball to T. Higgins and Jamar Chase consistent. in this game. A lot of that because the Steelers were doing extraordinary things, going to extraordinary lengths to get extra attention to Jamar Chase and doing kind of normal brackets,

doubles with T. Higgins, but every time there were double doubles and you get an extra jam or two guys dedicated to jamming Jamar Chase throwing off the timing there. Even on plays, Joey Porter got a jam on Jamar that threw off the timing on that deep ball, the one time they got a one-on-one vertical opportunity for Jemar Chase. It goes down as an overthrow for Joe Flacco, but I think the timing's thrown off on that one from the jam as well. And the Bengals just didn't have enough answers. And we talked about that going into the game on the preview show here last week, where

it was you're going to need the running game to continue to be effective against the Steelers. You're going to need someone else, whether it's Chase Brown, Noah fan, Andre Yosevash, the combination of those guys to step up when the Steelers are dedicating all those resources to taking away T. Higgins and Jemar Chase. The Bengals got some of that, but obviously not nearly enough as Joe Flacco had. His worst game as a Bengal had a couple of turnover worthy plays. One of them went for a pick six, both of them involving Kyle Dugger. What was from your viewing of the film really missing for the Bengals in terms of having those answers,

in terms of giving opportunities for Joe Flacko to get rid of the ball quickly? Because I think that the flaw that you see is when guys can't uncover right away, Joe Flacko is going to struggle with the pass rush. And we saw some of that this week. Yeah, it felt like the Steelers wanted to be physical in this game and you kind of get to Jamar Chase. And sometimes T. Higgins is at the line of scrimmage with jams and trying to disrupt timing like you said. And they've got a guy and Joey Porter Jr. And these other guys that are physical and they can do that.

Jalen Ramsey now at safety, having him key in on Jamar Chase on these inbreakers and stuff. So you're now limiting Jamar Chases, you know, where he can go and be in a one-on-one situation. the corner only has to worry about underneath and outside basically, and then the safety is going to worry about over the middle and deep. So by taking half of the possible routes away from him, that makes the corner's job a little bit easier. That is where you're spending a lot of resources on the defense towards these wide receivers, right? I mean, you only have 11 defenders.

So how can you then take advantage if they're going to take four of their 11 defenders and put them on two of your players. You should have advantages everywhere else. Got to be able to run the ball. They were fine, I guess, at times running the ball, but it felt like they also weren't picking the right opportunities to run the ball all the time. You mean second and ten isn't the time to try to run the ball?

Repeatedly second and ten. Yeah. Missing a pass on first and ten, running the ball, second ten. It was like throwing, you know, change-ups on every play. And then getting in the third and long And third long is when they can really empty the clip With some of these ideas of trying to get all of the attention

On the two wide receivers because as it makes sense Mike Tomlin's game plan for this game was do not let those two beat us Anybody else can and that's what happened Andre Yosevaos early in the game was able to get open a couple of times converted a couple of third and longs on what's like the first drive of the game kept moving and then couldn't do it later in the game where maybe the nickel is getting a better feel for how he's playing, or maybe it's just Yoshivash is obviously an inconsistent player.

It didn't feel like the Bengals wanted to take advantage of it either because they spent a lot of their resources trying to stop the pass rush. They would have the tight end, get hands on T.J. Watt or Nick Herbig first, and then go into a route. The running back is coming out of the backfield, getting a piece of one of those edge defenders, and then going into a route. that's good to slow down the pass rush, but now those guys aren't going to go deep. They're not going to stretch the field.

So you have Jamar Jason T. Higgins taking four defenders, but you only have three receivers that are really going to push more than five yards down the field. So you're not threatening, you're not really challenging them in that scenario. Whereas I think it's possible you could have hopefully trusted your very expensive left tackle or your first round pick right tackle to hold up just a little. bit, maybe you still slide to them, but have a fourth receiver onto the field to try to take advantage of them using so much of their resources against Jamar Jason T. Higgins. Can Noah Famp push down the field? Can you get a Chase Brown pushing down the field because he's fast to the

flat and he's running a wheel route or something? The best reception Chase Brown had was when they kind of faked a chip and he just gets upfield immediately. So I think that was something that they could have changed up. I also think it's one of the situations where the Bengals like being a spread team and they like having their alphas on the outside, but that does kind of make it easier for the defense to know how they want to tackle these doubles. There's no real communication for that. They did motion Jamar Chase from time to time, but it's not like they're getting into a tight bunch or a stack and trying to hide Jamar Chase behind somebody and have him run a route that way and make the Steelers communicate and not be able to get hands on them and not disrupt

the timing. So this felt a little bit to me like a failure of the coaching staff and trying to adjust to the Steelers adjustment from the last game. Yeah, and I think we saw, like, the Chase Brown big run, the 35-yard run, comes from a condensed split where you get the advantages of the condensed splits on that play. Joe Flacko also wasn't great in this game, I think put them all in danger more than normal, some of that to do with pressure. All three of his turnover-worthy plays, according to PFF. When pressured, only one of those was caught, that turned into a pick six.

Kyle Dugger had a chance of what could have been another pick-six. in a very similar looking play, undercutting a throw over the middle. And I think that we're seeing the limitations of Joe Flacco, right? One, he's hurt. Two, when you can't, what he's been good at is Jamar Chase and T. Higgins, those guys, like I know if I trust those guys to win and beat whatever zone or man coverage or getting, like beat that leverage. I know where the ball should go.

but when it's true double doubles, and there's a lot of that in this game, or there's that timing disrupted because of effective jams, some of that's on the receivers too, but that's going to throw Joe Flacco off quite a bit. I think there were a couple of plays where it looks like Noah Fant was open and deep, and the ball didn't go there either because of pressure or because Flacco didn't see it, which, again, could be because of pressure, but you start to see some of those limitations in the offense show up.

And like, it's really disheartening when you've got the guys you've got, for the Bengals wide receiver and like Brandon Eccles and James Pierre. Have you heard of those guys before this game? Put together career games against Jamar Chase D. Higgins and this offense. And Brandon Eccles, a sixth round pick for the Jets in 2021 joins the Steelers this year. The first time these teams played, he was pretty good in that game too. James Pierre missed the last time these teams played. So maybe that's it.

He's been a breakout player for the Steelers this year. If you trust PFF grading anyway has made the most. of his opportunities when he's had them. The last couple of games when he's been playing for them, has been really good, really disruptive. And so it shouldn't necessarily be that way. I would say when you have Jamar Chase and T. Higgins. Let's finish up with some of these offensive line.

And Mike will go a little bit rapid fire here on the Bengals offensive line. Jaylor Rivers, more of the same, quite frankly. And he's had like a couple of okay games. But that's the best I think you could say for him in this. one, it was another one of the not. So OK games, he's got one of the worst performances in the NFL for rookies in past walking especially. And I think there are worlds where if the linebackers weren't such a problem, we'd be

talking about Jaylon Rivers, the way we're talking about Barrett Carter at this point. But Orlando Brown got beat routinely in this game. He's on the books for next year at a very large number. And I wanted to talk about Amarius Mims, Dylan Fairchild a little bit as well. Give me your thoughts on those other three linemen here. and then we'll wrap up. Yeah, Orlando Brown just feels like he already wasn't, he was already a terrible mover,

and it feels like he's lost a little bit of that from maybe last year's broken leg. Just there's a play against Patrick Queen, where he's getting beat clean. And I just think that's something that's like, okay. It's like what Charles Barkley said. I knew to hang it up when guys who shouldn't beat me were beating me. And I'm not about saying Roland Brown needs to hang it up,

but I think you're like, okay, this is starting to get to the point of maybe he's, not going to be a $1.2 million tackle? Well, certainly not that. Amarius Mims up and down. I feel like he had a mental error that caused Flacco to get hit early in the game. And then he did an okay job on T.J. Watt lost a couple of times, but it's also T.J. Watt. And I know T.J. Watt's also not T.J. Watt from two years ago, at least so far this year. But he's still a really good player, even if he's not at that Supreme elite Miles Garrett tier. So I gave him some grace on those losses, didn't think he was terrible.

Thought he still, I think the past three games, he's looked better as a run blocker. And I think that's what I'm really looking for because he looked like a baby deer his rookie year and early this year as a run blocker. And he's starting to kind of look like he knows where his assignments are and make those plays. I think the last one, Dylan Fairchild, had a back and forth, Cam Hayward. I thought they both won reps. It was about even maybe you want to give it to Hayward, maybe you want to give it to Fairchild.

I think that's a good sign because it looks like he belongs. There's reps that are highlight reps where he's given up his chest and getting a hands to the face from Hayward and he's still anchoring in and holding its own. I just know from seeing the past left guards for this team. You know, Cordell Volus, they're not holding their own in that scenario. You're more so looking for like, oh, he got a hands to the face. That's why he lost. Now, the Versus is taking a hands to the face and still winning.

So I thought he looked like he belongs. He does a great job of recovering from compromised positions. Hope he doesn't get into as many later in his career, but right now he's kind of surviving based off of that recovery ability. And I think he looks like a starting NFL guard. Yeah, they're both pretty young too, which I appreciate the trajectory they're taking. Hopefully you continue to see it from Dylan Fairchild to finish the year. Hopefully you can continue to see the steady play from Amarious Mims because really since week four, Mario Spins has been a pretty steady, solid player and a 23-year-year-old.

old that gives you that sign of consistent growth and it gives you that hope that yeah he can't continue to take steps continue to get more consistent the more he sees the more he gets comfortable with playing in the NFL playing at this speed and we'll see if it's the same system next year uh but playing in a system and how those things click and hopefully that is also a sign that uh Scott Peters is resonating with some of these young guys. We'll see whether or not Scott Peters is part of the future. But if he can instill some good lessons from a technique perspective, give these guys some tools that they can use in the long term,

especially these young guys, 23, 22 and a half years old for Mario Swimson, Dylan Fairchild, that can pay dividends for the Bengals down the road. Mike, appreciate it. As always, you can find Mike on Twitter at Bengals underscore Sands. Find us writing over at bengalstalk.com. We're still with you this week here as the Bengals are getting ready to take on the Juggernaut Patriots, winners of eight straight, I think, games, sitting pretty atop the AFC East coming to Cincinnati for the Bengals next home game.

Until then, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Ho-Day. Have a good one.