Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - UNSTOPPABLE: Cincinnati Bengals Defense DOMINATES as Dexter Lawrence Shuts Down Houston

Starting point is 00:00:00 The Cincinnati Bengals took it to an undermanned Houston Texans offense and sexy dexy really got on his horse in this one. 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. The Cincinnati Bengals are 2 and 0. He's Joe Goodberry. I'm Jake Lusko. we're here today to talk about a fast start and a fast start that looks a little bit different

Starting point is 00:00:40 than you might have imagined it would have to look if you watch this team the last few years. The defense making a ton of plays to help the Bengals win these football games. We're going to start with Dexter Lawrence and his massive performance, how Joe Burrow, Jamar, Chase, and T. Higgins combined to do enough for the Bengals on offense and Evan McPherson probably has the Bengals trotting out another tweet that says that's why you draft a kicker. then a bunch of you will go tag me in it on social media. We're brought to you today by a Fandul. If you bet $300, you'll get $350 in bonus bets guarantee

Starting point is 00:01:14 when you bet $5 every day for seven days, join in all the action at fandul.com. And if you've never been to a locked on Bengals live podcast before the way this works is we're going to do the full podcast live. We'll run the end screen. We're going to stick around after that for a little bit to hang out for about 10 minutes or so to talk with you guys. who are here with us in the chat.

Starting point is 00:01:37 But Joe, we're going to get started with Dexter Lawrence in the massive game that Dexter Lawrence had. Sumer Sports had him at 11 impact plays. You could see him in the run game where the Houston Texans did absolutely nothing, the entire game. And obviously you can see him affecting CJ Stroud as he dropped back to pass as well. Yeah, two and no feels very good at the end. And it always feel good coming, you know, through the first quarter and a half or so.

Starting point is 00:02:01 I'm like, man, the scheme just, you know, the plane maybe isn't working today. it's not hitting and then the stars took over and i think that's my takeaway from this game it's not just dexter lawrence we're gonna i mean i will hope the whole nfl hope locked on NFL is playing this dexter lawrence was dominant he was goofy it was like you could not block him and when they needed a play he made a play on multiple occasions with pressures run stops uh tackles for a loss on fourth and inches right these these are the reasons why you give away that 10th pick but yes jimmar and t making critical plays, key plays. The Jamar catch is one of the best catches in a six year highlight reel so far.

Starting point is 00:02:42 Just that one's going to be in there in the final five, I think, when we get to the end of his career. Crazy adjustment tracking, locating, body control, Kevin Harlan, killing it on the call. T. Higgins making great catches one-on-one against Derek Stingley and some nice dig routes and over crossers and things across the middle. When Burrow needed to step up and buy time, I thought Burrow was good, especially with the pressure in front of them. and, you know, the run game didn't seem like it was truly working. They got some big plays out of it. But when they were set back with penalties so much, Burrow had to dig them out of it, find extra time when there wasn't a lot of extra time because we had the nightmare game

Starting point is 00:03:17 for Orlando Brown Jr. But I digress a little bit off that because the stars made their plays good shout on Evan McPherson as well because he's another one. And if he's playing like Money Mac again, I feel great when the offense fails in the outside of the red zone at the 35 of them. like, that McPherson will get it. They could have had 26 points in this game if Zach Taylor was really ballsy and had attempted to very long field goals.

Starting point is 00:03:41 But you see what happens when your kicker comes up short and the Texans has special teams gaffs today. The Bengals had an average starting field position at some point in this game of the 35 yard line. And that's with multiple drives starting inside their own 20 because largely they were dominant on special teams for a large portion of this game as well. The penalties will drive you crazy. But this was a three phase victory for the Benkens.

Starting point is 00:04:03 in the end. For a while, it looked like the Houston offense was out playing the Bengals offense. But the Bengals offense found those big plays, like you said, Joe, and they got enough from their stars in this game. But really, when you hold a team to six points, you got to start on the defensive side of the ball. And we'll talk about Joe Burroughs game. We'll talk about T. Higgins, Jermar Chase game. I think the run game continues to look really good compared to expectations. This Texans front, very hard to play against. And I know they're missing a linebacker and they're a little bit less deep on the defensive interior than they've been in years past, but I thought the run game did look really good against it.

Starting point is 00:04:39 It was a huge day if that penalty didn't happen on Dylan Fairchild, right? Which we're going to have to talk about penalties, I think, at some point. But I think you have to start with the defense when you start to dig in deep because of how good Dexter Lawrence was in this game. DJ Turner had two or three pass breakups, depending on how they're charted in this one as well. It gave up one deep crosser where you got a receiver running away from. leverage. I don't even know if that's on him, quite frankly. We'll watch on the tape to see if

Starting point is 00:05:07 Jordan Battle should be helping there a little bit more than he ended up providing help there. But the pressure plan for the Bengals defense was there again today. Thought it would be. Thought there were opportunities. And the defensive interior in particular really stepped up. He had Cassius Howell making plays. He had Samark Stewart getting in for like five staff and maybe not even five, converting one of those into a sack. But it all starts with Dexter Lawrence, right? Because this is why you trade that pick for sexy Dexy. Yeah, because for most of the game, I actually didn't like a lot of what the edge rushers were doing, right? I was frustrated. They kept kind of trying to knife in, losing containment out a couple, didn't really have a great

Starting point is 00:05:45 pass rush plan. I thought they were slow. And then my eyes would divert inside and I'd see Lawrence with a swim move getting in. And I'm like, they'll be all right. Like they're, oh, and then there go CJ Stroud pressure, just chucking the ball into the dirt or throwing it away, completely inaccurate on the day. Jake, I don't know if you've got the numbers in front of you right now when he was pressured. Yeah, but you want them? Yeah. Yeah. You ready? So PFF had it charted at 31% of a pressure rate for for the Bengals against CJ Stroud who had 61 dropbacks to tell you how good the Bengals run D was in this game. You're dropping CJ Stroud back without Nico Collins 61 times. Something's not going right for you if you're the Houston, Texans. So the Bengals get to him on 19 of those plays according to

Starting point is 00:06:24 PFF initial charting. He's six. He's sorry, four of 16 and what the Bengals end up with for. facts on the day. So I don't know if these numbers are even complete yet because this just says three. Yeah, we might be behind. Pretty good. They hit for the Bengals in the past rush and C.J. Stroud just absolutely melting down every time there's pressure. And they had to double. Again, this has been our, I think our takeaway the entire time they traded for Dexter Lawrence up until now is that when they double him, it opens other guys up for opportunity. When they don't, he will beat you. And like the offense has to choose how many times are they want to go single on Dexter Lawrence. Well, today it was like 10 times. And today he beat them 10 times. I can't wait to

Starting point is 00:07:04 cut up a Dexter Lawrence film review because it was that dominant. Just I can't like it's going to be a viral thing because the Giants took some victory laps last year for Giants fans. I should say, of like, oh yeah, that's why you don't trade. Thanks for the pick Bengals fans. But you guys didn't watch the tape. He was good last week. Well, now this one is undeniable. The highlights are there. The flash plays are there. It's going to go everywhere. And also David Montgomery and Woody Marks 14 carries for 18 yards. Starting off talking past rush, man, it starts with stopping the run. And the Bengals did that today.

Starting point is 00:07:35 I'm sure the Texans came in this game like, okay, we don't have Nico Collins. In fact, they don't have their top three receivers, but they've been playing like that for a while now, you know, going back to the summer. But I think we're going to go heavy. We're going to go extra tight ends. We're going to run it down this Bengals front. And they could not today. They couldn't move them.

Starting point is 00:07:51 The only time they really did get plays is on a couple of missed tackles. But in terms of just straight up running from the running back, there was no. nothing there in the Bengals front. Stop that, got them the good third downs. And I would like to say L. Golden had some nice timely calls. He doesn't call blitzes that often. This is something we know. But when he does, I thought he pulled the string a few times today and nailed it perfectly and got the defense off the field. And that's really all we're waiting to see out of this defense. The PFF numbers just got updated on pressures, by the way. So 32.3% pressures out. That's 20 pressures. There's a there's a fourth stack. And in addition to the four sacks, CJ Stroud completing just

Starting point is 00:08:27 25% of his passes when he was pressure for 2.3 yards per attempt. So very good pressure plan for the Bengals who only blitzed 13% of the time in this game. Like you said, timely blitzes this week. Joe, Straub was three of eight for four point one yards per attempt when he was blitz. I thought Demetrius Knight had a good game as a blitzer specifically. And we'll see what the best of the tape looks like for him. But that is a strength for Demetrius night's game. I think that you can hang your hat on a little bit there and going back to the run game for Houston minus 0.47 EPA per play when they tried to run the ball today, a success rate of just 16%. Oh, that's great.

Starting point is 00:09:04 The Bengals weren't a whole lot better just to set 27% rush rate for the Bengals. I had a couple penalties when they ran the ball to minus 0.26 EPA per play for the Bengals when they ran the ball according to Sumer Sport. So not great, but I was actually really encouraged by the run game overall 86 yards on 22 attempts, 65 yards after contact. And that's what the one being erased. And penalties were obviously a big deal for the Bengals in this game. If we're going to be critical, which I don't know how critical we're going to be today.

Starting point is 00:09:30 Orlando Brown going to catch a little bit of heat. Barr Carter might catch a little bit of heat today. The penalties are something that we will discuss at some point here this week. But look, when we watch that Houston, Texas, Buffalo Bill's tape a couple of days ago, and if you're not following all of the socials and everything, Joe and I watch that tape on Wednesday this week, I thought, like, from a personnel perspective, the Bengals would have a much better shot against. the Houston, Texas in the running game just because Dexter Lawrence and Dionne Walker

Starting point is 00:10:00 so diametrically opposed in terms of the skill set that they bring to bear the way they impact the running game. Coming up next, Joe, let's talk about the plays made on the offensive side of the ball, which wasn't perfect in this game. But like I said, I think there are some things that you can be encouraged by with this tough defensive

Starting point is 00:10:16 matchup. That's coming up next. Football's finally back, and that means Sundays are a whole lot more exciting right now. When the Bengals are 2 and 0, Sundays are a whole lot more exciting. but every week brings new matchouts, breakout players, and big performances, plenty of storylines to follow. Like, how many games are the Bengals going to win in a row to open the season?

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Starting point is 00:12:05 Jake, I would like to say, if on the offensive side is I, yeah, I can read your eyes there. We know we're mind melding here on what's going on live show. Well, you like the live post game shows, but the Bengals offense had to make plays. We kind of talked a lot about the defense. The defense deserves that after giving up six points, right? They give up a lot of yards. There's going to be some, no, no, no, six points is great, right? We'll take that any time.

Starting point is 00:12:27 They fumbled a field goal. They missed a long field goal. but whatever. The offense had to match at certain points. And it wasn't always pretty. The first half or the first quarter, I'm thinking, all right, they're going to have to lean on Chase Brown because I thought he was running well, right? I could feel that that success rate, but there were the runs that I thought they designed a couple nice counterpunches to what the Texans were trying to do up front. But I thought the Texans did a good job of another defense that doesn't blitz a lot, bringing Petrie and bring and Reed Blanketship and other guys and just speeding

Starting point is 00:12:57 burrow up a little bit because I don't think they were really expecting it. Funny how this game turns out, though, after last week, so this is opposite ends of the spectrum for Bengals offense. Last week is we really can't get the ball to Jamar. T came through it a couple times. What was it only three catches? And everyone else found them made plays, right? And then this week, it wasn't so much everyone around them. It was the stars. It was Jamar. It was T. It was Joe. We got a couple dump offs really to Eric Hall. Dante Myers dropped a, shovel pass, I guess that is. What do they call that? Were you catching it? It's a pass. But whatever it is.

Starting point is 00:13:32 The Jet Suite. That could have been a big play too. I don't know if you saw that. And I was like, man, I can't believe he dropped it. But it wasn't the Mike Aseki game. It wasn't the Chase Brown game. Those guys, you know, did what they do in their roles, but they didn't go outside of it. It wasn't no big Samajai P Ryan played this week for a conversion, right? Hey, now. There's one. He had a pass pickup. There was one. There was one. There was one. There was the one. That's right. That was Joe to me, though. That was a great play by Joe. He had some weird pocket, even some of the sacks. I thought he got to his last hitch, stepped up, stepped, and then got hit. And I'm like, yeah, replay Brown's getting smoked. But Burrow,

Starting point is 00:14:07 what's going on? I can't wait to watch film on that. And then second half, good pocket presence, Burrow came out and they made a couple clutch plays to keep this offense on time. Yeah, it wasn't great as a success rate. It wasn't great when you go look at the yards per attempt, just 6.7 yards per time for Joe Burrow. The net yards for attempt will be even worse because you have the 25 yards loss in sacks. And I guess we're counting one of those zero yard scrambles as a sack. A passer rating just 105. A CJ Stroud pass from rating just 74. And there's your passer rating, Joe, winning you a football game. But T. Higgins with 10 targets today, Jamar Chase with nine targets today. Chase Brown, the only other Bengal with more than three. He had five targets.

Starting point is 00:14:45 Eric all had three targets. Everyone else just had one. Dante Myers won on the little touchpass. You just talked about. Samaj had the one on the third down. Adre Yosovash had one. Colby Young had one. That's all I see in the box score. So we're, I speculated that this might be a Gaseki game in that second level against cover three. It was more like backside digs when Burroughs able to sit in the pocket when they were able to block. That was there. They just weren't able to block for more than two seconds for very much in this game. And it was especially an issue on the left side.

Starting point is 00:15:12 Orlando Brown, like you said, a bit of a nightmare game for him. And look, these are going to happen when you're dealing with Willie Anderson and DeNeil Hunter. Those two are some of the best in the NFL at what they do. Can't forget that, right? Yeah, but Amarius men on the other side was, like a wall again in pass protection and I can't wait to watch the film on of marius spins to see if that lines up with my game day observations because game day I thought yeah that's a that's a pro bowl all pro level pass protector doing it at a high level against

Starting point is 00:15:39 two of the best in the NFL when he got those opportunities and there were some issues outside of that in the offensive line today I thought the Bengals actually had a reasonable plan in protection they were trying to get rid of the ball quick a lot of the maybe not a lot a couple of the sacks were burrow trying to extend plays or just sitting in the pocket for too long. And so there weren't necessarily the skate points. It was weird, right? Like, I definitely think he was supposed to get a chip on that. And, and Brown's like waiting for it. And then, oh, no, no chip. I got to get out there fast.

Starting point is 00:16:07 Yeah. Like that was the only plan that I was like, why would you even have Myers do that? And it wasn't executed well either. Like, who knows if the plan is good or bad when it's executed as poorly as it was. And it's not like Brown was good in this game. But like, plenty of guys had fine games in past production. And it's really highlighted by your Marius. So like got to shine the light on Amarius again. We'll do you. that again. I'm sure when we watch the film, but like that dude is a stud. He's coming on big time. And that's when he's dealing with like a little bit of something minor in this game, got rolled up on on one of those sacks a little bit, had to leave the game when he lost a shoe at one point.

Starting point is 00:16:39 Came back in. It seemed to be okay. So I didn't know if he changed him or not. Did you see that? So I didn't maybe he's a superstition. Can't just put one shoe on both that come on enough. Yeah. Well, Amarius manages to finish the game, luckily. And didn't seem too hobbled the rest of the way. Dalton Riser, I think I beat a couple times. Dylan Fairtime might have gotten beat a couple times. This is going to happen against the Texans front. Parasan won. It looked like Will Anderson was blitzin and then sample knocked him off of them. And I was like, what are you guys doing? Yeah. So that's going to happen sometimes, I think, against really good fronts. I think it'll be interesting to watch on tape

Starting point is 00:17:12 to see how bad or good the protection feels. The pressure to sacrate was really high, which always makes it feel worse than it is. Joe Burrow went to the ground quite frequently when he did get pressured. When he did have time or was able to escape, though, I thought Burrow, was pretty good in those moments. Getting to the backside dig to T. Higgins a couple of times for big, big plays. The downfield throw to Jemar Chase is just an incredible play from Jemar Chase. Like T. Higgins and Jemar Chase making bananas catches on the sidelines in this game, helping Joe Burrow go three for three on targets on targets, 20 plus yards down the field,

Starting point is 00:17:44 all of them on the right side. So all of those dunking on Derek Stingley for the deep balls for 73 yards and two touchdowns where the one wasn't Stingley then that's the one wasn't. It's got to be the cross-year. I wanted to talk about that play, though, because Jamar, first thing I'm thinking is, man, you've got to bust your butt to get all the way across. And you see Joe kind of like direct traffic. We've seen him do this so many times going off script, giving a point or a thumb or where

Starting point is 00:18:08 he wants people to go. So you see him point what he wants. And Jamar kind of steps in front of the defender there, makes a second catch, touch on catch of the day. And that's off-script Earl, right, leaking out to the right, feeling comfortable that he can because you've got mims over there, I think, that like, yeah, I can move up and step up because there was a couple of others that I thought he shouldn't, but I feel like he feels so much more space on the right side there right now. Reisner is one of the best past protecting

Starting point is 00:18:32 right guards. Marius Smith is turning into an elite tackle. So I feel like every time he feels he can get that way. And I thought the Bengals did make an adjustment in the second half, giving a little bit more help to Orlando Brown Jr., which is what you're going to have to do. We've talked about Orlando so much that he's an up and down player. He was good last week. He was terrible this week. On those terrible days, let's not wait a full half to figure that out. Let's start giving them help right away. It was Daniel Hunter and Will Anderson. Like, what did we expect for this game?

Starting point is 00:19:00 It was we thought it could go this way. And you kind of get more of the same next week with the Pittsburgh Steelers. Their edge rushers are clearly the strength of that defense. And, you know, they have some other guys. And we'll see what's going on with Porter Jr. And all that stuff. I think the Steelers got blown out today. I think the Ravens lost today.

Starting point is 00:19:16 The Browns are winning in a delayed game currently in Tampa. So that's kind of taking some of the shine off of the Bengals week one, went against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers a little bit. But a 2 and 0, the Ravens drop onto the Saints. Things are pretty good right now, I think, for the Cincinnati. First place, that means. That means, no matter what happens. The AFC North, that's right.

Starting point is 00:19:34 And it means, like, you're feeling pretty good. Like, these are two, we talked about how difficult the start was for the schedule. And we'll get back to this game in a second. This is the last thought here. Talked about how difficult the start of the schedule was. It softens up a little bit later on. And maybe the Saints aren't quite as soft as, of a game as we thought, you know, going toe to toe with the Ravens, winning that one.

Starting point is 00:19:53 But getting 2-0 against the Bucks and Texans is a really good place to start. We'll have some more on this game. Evan McPherson, big game as well as we wrap up this show coming up next. Matt Terry here from the Lockdown Lions podcast. You know, life insurance is one of those things you don't really think about until you have a reason to. For me, it really hit home when my father passed away over 20 years ago. You started thinking less about yourself and more about the people who, depend on you, making sure they're taking care of no matter what. That's why I like ethos.

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Starting point is 00:21:57 A lot of discussion around the health of Joe Burrow and this one. And he took some hits. There's maybe one he got up a little bit slow from. Yeah. Maybe two. But he looks more or less to me himself, especially for week two. Joe, do you think this is, we'll have to probably go back and look. We will.

Starting point is 00:22:12 This is going to be one of the better week two games when we look back for Joe Burroughs career so far. I'm trying to think was 2021 the Bears game and five turnovers or was that the Steelers game? I might be out of order in my brain there. But yeah, I think I'll find out for you. Yeah, well, I'm talking. Otherwise, I was thinking coming off of this, I'm like, okay, statistical performance, not crazy numbers for Burrow, right? 200 yards, two touchdowns.

Starting point is 00:22:39 Yeah, the snatchie won't tell you Burrow is awesome today, but the film will tell you, I think that he was pretty darn good. And they must have done some good things to get him to hold the ball because it wasn't always lightning quick burrow and just letting his receivers do work. It was Burrow needing to create by extra time and then make a play other than I think, you know, people are detractors are always going to say, well, look at Jamar, look at team making crazy plays against a very good corner, if not the best corner in the league. Like we don't have that guy. Well, tough luck. You know, you still need Burrow to get them there, make the read, make the throw. And he did.

Starting point is 00:23:11 And he gives them the opportunity on two back shoulders. Then the receivers can go make the play. Like those are both good throws. Yeah, I agree. the week two game in 2021 was against Chicago. Right. So that's, and I was thinking it might have been the Steelers game because that was a good game. So yeah, this is probably it.

Starting point is 00:23:27 We'll see in the comments here if you guys got a suggestion. Otherwise, I do think this is it. Maybe Kansas City week two, 2024. I think he was pretty good in that game. Yeah, that fumble that really killed them though. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:23:38 And the Bengals took care of the ball today in this one too. There were no official turnovers, right? Am I remembering that correctly? But there were a couple of quasi, quasi turnovers for the Houston Texans. They turn it over on downs. They miss a field goal. And the two touchdowns in this game,

Starting point is 00:23:54 complimentary football right here. The two touchdowns in this game for the Bengals come after the quasi turnovers. The turnover on downs, the Bengals go score a long touchdown drive after Jamar makes that crazy catch. One of the best catches you'll ever see with their singling coverage, right?

Starting point is 00:24:09 So is that the Dexter Lawrence tackle for loss on that led to that one? You're saying? On the fourth down where Dexter stuff's it. I mean, Dexter, Lawrence right there, getting you, saving you at least three points. And the Bengals go down and score a touchdown on the heels of that one. The Bengals also score a touchdown on the heels of the missed field goal where we talked about this being a game with two good kickers in it.

Starting point is 00:24:33 The Bengals thoroughly won the kicking battle in this one. I thought special teams battle. I thought special teams was big for the Bengals in this game. Ryan Rico had one pretty bad punt. And he's typically good. Like I can take one bad punt because he's. he's typically pretty good. He was generally really good in this game, like controlling the, the punts to pin

Starting point is 00:24:51 the Houston, Texas in Diff when they're clearly playing a field position game. But yeah, the other one was after that mixed miss field goal, which is why you kind of understand why Zach maybe didn't want to kick a field goal, wanted to punt at the end of the game there. It gives you a 52-yard field and the Bengals were able to drive down and score that the nitpicks certainly are in penalties. There's going to be some tackling stuff that we're talking about on the defense. I thought the defense tackled better in this game overall.

Starting point is 00:25:16 what we're seeing, I think, the texture of this team right now. I still have confidence that the offense is going to figure things out. But this defense is going to be like that defensive front can cover up for some of the issues you have at the second level and some of the issues I have today at the third level, too. I am, I'm confident the offense is going to be fine. Like first two weeks, Burrow, first two weeks offense. This is maybe the best they've ever looked for two straight games.

Starting point is 00:25:39 Two and oh, you're playing with house money a little bit. And Burroughs timing in week one really good. and his pocket presence week too, very good. And second half, like, these are flashes of Burrow being December Burrow already. And, like, there was moments in this game, I thought of this, too, when you needed the offense to drive and make some separation. Separate this game just a little bit. And Burrow delivered on those drives. And I'm like, those are MVP.

Starting point is 00:26:02 This is how you get this. The Texan's defense is held in high regard. I know Josh Allen's rocket shipping to the moon already. But the narrative will be there. The Bengals are starting to know the defense looks good. I feel good about the defense. The one thing I was really concerned. concerned watching this game again and bring up edges was that I was like who's going to win on the

Starting point is 00:26:18 edge like I see the interior collapsing but no one's really there to finish it you need the finishers why do edge guys get 15 sacks and d tackles get 10 at best it's because the edge guys finish these plays and they weren't there to do it for them until cash is howl started winning a couple different ways and I started to see the light a little bit and I'm a big fan of cash it so it's not I don't mean that way I just started to go like okay if cash is howl already now through two weeks should have two sacks if not a half in each right like those are impact plays and he's had other plays that have been impact moments pressures i'm starting to think he could be that guy for them boy amafi's the chaos creator how will might be that finisher he may be the high pass rush win rate

Starting point is 00:26:59 finisher i assume it's pretty high it was high week one 13 points up we'll take that for your debut i assume he's in that range again um that's when i start to say yeah okay i can see how you can get the pressure how you can overcome one thing i will point out to start the game because i you know everything good happened afterwards. For the most part, that day, Meyer should have had a touchdown on that return, man. That should have been,

Starting point is 00:27:19 while we're on special teams here, that was a good play. He put himself in position. He put the offensive position. He also had a good punt return. Like he put, I think it was called back for a penalty. No,

Starting point is 00:27:31 that's one where they actually got a call for once. That's right. They hit him. Yes. Yeah. Felt like every single penalty on a Bengals good play was going against them. But yeah. And this is not a penalized team because I,

Starting point is 00:27:43 I like to always say that. The Bengals are one of the least penalized teams in the league under Zach Taylor. So when people say, yeah, typical Zach, I'm like, you're a lunatic. Don't know. They are one of the least penalized team. Yeah, this will probably end up being their most heavily penalized game of the season, 12 penalties for 78 yards. Houston ends up with nine penalties for 83 yards.

Starting point is 00:27:59 They have one for 10 at halftime. So these refs like to throw some flags. And that's part of what this game was. Looking at pass rush win rates here, you're going to be surprised at who leads the way for the Bengals in initial charting. this is going to change. So take all these with the greatest help, but Cedric Johnson with a 22% win rate as a pass rush for in this game,

Starting point is 00:28:19 36% in true pass sets. Wow. Dexter Lawrence, second 19% win rate overall, 22%, 23% closer to on true pass sets. So Dexter Lawrence, awesome affecting the passer in this one. And then Boy, Mafia cash is out 12. 9.7% respectively.

Starting point is 00:28:35 Jonathan Allen, pretty good in true pass sets. 13.6% for him. I thought Alan started this game really, really well. He was getting off the ball. and off the snap extremely quickly. Yeah, and you can see the difference when they rotate them out. The one other thing that we could complain about a little bit if we wanted to is a hockey

Starting point is 00:28:51 just on the defensive line, but then they closed the game. It did. It was the backups that closed it. Yeah, they had the entire second string and then you got Shamar Stewart getting a sack. I thought Cedric Johnson had a sack. He did. He did. He did.

Starting point is 00:29:03 And so the Bengals end up with, what, four sacks in this game? One of them, again, officially credited to Chris Jenkins when it's really created. It was it again? You're kidding me. I think it happened again. I think it did. We're getting robbed here of a Cassius Allen and a defensive rookie of the year narrative. I'm just double checking. So, Cedric Johnson officially in the box score credited with two sacks. Jonathan Allen won Schmarst Stewart one. So it didn't go to Chris Jenkins. I don't know where subject Johnson's second one was. It must have been the one that I'm thinking about for Cassius. He did come around and have a hand, but he ran around the arc and just put a hand on the quarterback. I thought if I'm remembering the play. Yeah. I thought DJ Turner had a nice game today too. I don't know if we've talked about him yet. He gave up the one catch. I think, oh, yeah, we did.

Starting point is 00:29:47 We talked about the one catch he gave up, but a number of pass breakups outside of that. And again, the one catch he gave up. The big catch he gave up anyway, going to be curious to go watch a tape on that one. Up and down day for Dax. They really let these corners on both sides play real physical in this one. And Dax ends up with four pass breakups in the official box score here.

Starting point is 00:30:06 He also, I thought, got beat a few times. And I thought got away with some DPI. So we'll have to keep an eye on that one week to week because long term, I think the confidence is still there for me with Dax. But bottom line, Dexter Lawrence takes over the game and the Bengals capitalized on their opportunities. The Stars win it for the Bengals. If you're here with us in the live chat, we'll stick around for a few minutes to hang out and talk to you. There's 1,500 of you here apparently watching us live right now. So we'll hang out with you guys for a few minutes.

Starting point is 00:30:34 Bengals squad, she'll be coming after that. If you want more, Joe and I might be back even later today for a little reason. watch action to check out some of the very fun plays in this game. So keep an eye on our socials for our plans there if we choose to reconvene a little bit later this evening. But a fun game for the Bengals who get to 2 and O. Until next time, that's going to do it for this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Thanks for listening. Hootie. Have a good one. That's a strong who day.

Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - UNSTOPPABLE: Cincinnati Bengals Defense DOMINATES as Dexter Lawrence Shuts Down Houston

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