Locked On Bengals - Daily Podcast On The Cincinnati Bengals - What needs fixed in Cincinnati Bengals offense? A deep dive into scheme sustainability, coaching, and root causes

Episode Date: November 21, 2024

At 4-7, the Cincinnati Bengals need fixing. Jake Liscow is joined by Mike Santagata to break down the root causes of the Bengals' offensive struggles. The guys examine issues like the inconsistent offensive line, lack of schematic diversity, and a faltering run game. They also discuss the sustainability of relying heavily on Joe Burrow and star receivers. 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-bengalsFor your next listen, check out the Locked On Fantasy Football podcast. Get daily insight to the best Fantasy draft strategies so you can win your league this season. Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!Pre-Alcohol by ZbioticsGo to zbiotics.com/LOCKEDONNFLto learn more and get 15% off your first order when you use LOCKEDONNFL at checkout.BetterHelpThis episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Make your brain your friend, with BetterHelp. Visit BetterHelp.com/LOCKEDON today to get 10% off your first month.Bilt RewardsEarn points now by paying rent right now by when you go to joinbilt.com/lockedonnflHillsdale CollegeAll of Hillsdale’s courses are self-paced so that you can start whenever, and tune in wherever. Plus, you can go deeper with readings, quizzes, discussions - or just enjoy the lectures. Go right now to hillsdale.edu/lockedon to enroll. There’s no cost, and it’s easy to get started.PrizePicksDownload the app and use code lockedonnfl to win $50 instantly when you play $5. You don't even need to win to receive your $50 bonus, it's guaranteed! Prizepicks. Run Your Game.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.FanDuelYou can start the season with a big return on FanDuel. New customers can place a FIVE DOLLAR bet and you’ll get started with ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY DOLLARS in BONUS BETS - if you win your first FIVE DOLLAR BET ! Visit FANDUEL.COM to get started.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 Cincinnati Bengals have a top five offense in 2024, but how much of that is just Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase, and T. Higgins being really good at their jobs. 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. I'm your host, Jake Liskow. I'm joined today by Mike Santag. we're going to get into some X's and O's what's going on with the Bengals offense. Tomorrow it'll be the defense's turn here on the Lockdown Bengals podcast during the Buy week,

taking a look at what's going on, what's going wrong with this team at the Buy this year. This episode brought to you by GameTime or you can download the GameTime app. Use code Lockdown NFL. You'll save $20 on your first purchase of tickets. If you're an every day or welcome back to Lockdown Bengals, if you're one of those out there that make us your first list, We appreciate you making us part of your routine. If you're new, well, you can hit the subscribe button and stay out to date on all things Bengals throughout this season.

And into the off season is there is no off season, really, for Lockdown Bengals. And certainly not in the middle of the season, even on the byway. You can find more of Mike's work at Bengals Talk, SI, at It's Always Game Day in Cincinnati. And on Twitter, you can follow him at Bengals underscore Sands. And Mike today, we're going to take a nice long look at the Cincinnati Bengals offense. And I think where we can start is there's obviously a lot of scrutiny around the Bengals at 4 and 7. There's a lot of scrutiny around Zach Taylor, around play calling. I tweeted some stats yesterday about how much they are not using screens, for example.

And some of the replies to that tweet suggested that they were still doing it too much for the liking of fans. They actually called the least screens in the NFL according to PFF charting. So there's obviously a lot of criticism around this Bengals offense right now. which leads a league in passing yards per game, is near the bottom of the league in rushing yards per game, is a top six or so offense in points per game. They will be a top four offense if Evan McPherson were perfect this year, which is kind of staggering to think about the difference that,

sorry, they would be, yes, yeah, top four, the difference that missed field goals makes over the course of a season. But when you think about this team from what they're trying to do schematically, How much is that working? Because to me, one thing that we've talked about a lot on this podcast in the last few weeks is Joe Burroughs creating a lot. They're winning a lot outside of structure. Some of that is to do with protection. Some of that is to do with play calls.

So when you talk about what they're trying to do schematically this year, how does that look compared perhaps to previous years? What are the big goals of the Zach Taylor Joe Burrow offense this year? I think the macro view of this offense. is for it to run through Borough Jason Higgins. And really, it's can we isolate our superstar talents against their defense? Because look, they're better. That's essentially the idea of the offense to me. And for the most part, that works.

The only time that it doesn't work schematically was Mike McDonald and the Browns who just have players who match up well with those guys. So I think from that point it works. Now we can get into a little bit more about it. but just the macro view is let's look at our best players and let's try to build the offense to just work through them. It can look difficult because you're asking high-level players to do very high-level things consistently,

but it has produced results. I think another reason that it looks difficult is trench issues is the lack of an effective or threatening run game. I will challenge the assertion about it, mostly working with just a few examples this year because, yeah, they put up points against Kansas City. They got to 25. They put up points against Washington. That was a very bad defense. They put up points against bad defenses in Carolina and Baltimore and Vegas and against a good defense in the Chargers last week, who was missing. The defense was missing

Khalil Mack, which is probably the best player this year, but still a good defense, well-coached defense, and they managed 27 points there and should have had more with a couple of red zone trip sputtering out and some miss field goals there. But against the Eagles, which is a good pass rush, but not great. Not a great defense overall, only 17 points against the Giants, only 17 points. The Browns this year have been a mess in mass, in totality, even on that defensive side of the ball, just 21 points there and go back to the first game of the year against New England when Joe Burrow is really not playing very well in that game, just 16 points.

So it's not just the matchups, but. I guess is a question that we've asked before, which is, are there enough answers when those guys just aren't winning? Are there not easy buttons? No. I think that is the point that you can get to. Some of those games were also just the Giants game was just destructive pass rush. And just a couple of those were like that. But I think you're right.

There's not easy answers building this offense. And I think a good example of that is the half-baked idea of this pistol set that they were using. First two weeks, it's like, oh, this is really cool. Look at them. They motion this guy across to get to power, to get to counter, to get to all these different runs. Okay, but every single one of those runs goes towards the motion man. So not only was it half-baked in terms of, yeah, this will get us good angles, and we can get a guy on the run to really get movement on that kickout block.

That's okay. That's a good idea. But how do you never build anything off that? The only thing they built off that was a go ball to Jermaine Burton, which he caught against the Chiefs in week two. And then they're still putting it out there like week nine. And by that point, teams are just cheating it. Like the guy is trying to destroy the, he's just cheating across the back block.

Once you see that motion, the safety, he's coming down to fit the run. They don't have a play action off of it. They never put a boot in off of it. They never put a run to the opposite side in off of it, never even just RPOed it. And if I can come up with all these ideas, and NFL coach needs to be able to install, at least some of those ideas. is to have something that can counter off of this, whether that's a run the opposite way

when they cheat those back blocks and everything else, or you've got a safety coming up, you've got linebackers creeping in, have some type of play action built in there, or even just RPO it and that becomes a slide route, and you can just throw it to Eric All in space with nobody there because they're all crashing the run. I think that's when we get to, like,

they don't build easy buttons very well. They do a good job isolating their players, but when you get a good matchup, where those players aren't winning 75% of the time, what's your next move? And for them, that was, I think, what the other part of the offense was supposed to be, and it worked for a couple of weeks,

and then the film's out there and teams, it's not a hard tendency. It's something that, like, I think everybody in Cincinnati knew when 83 motioned across the formation, oh, they're running right where he's going. And I think that that fits hand in hand with some other ideas.

Like one, we have this easy button issue where they're asking Joe Burrow and these wide receivers and even Chase Brown in the running game to just execute at an exceedingly high level. And they're really good, so they often can, but it leads to inconsistency,

which we've seen with slow starts, which we've seen with inability to finish and clutch moments, which we've seen be, you alluded to this when talking about the Giants game, specifically and even the Philly game, very disrupted by,

these top-end pass rushes, even to an extent in that Chargers game, one of the reasons that Joe Burrow plays a way that he plays at the end of the game, one of the contributing factors to the offense's inability to complete those drives at the end of the game is that Joe Burrow is reacting to pressure in those instances, whether or not he should be reacting to pressure, whether or not it's real pressure. At some point, when you're getting hit 20 times a game, you start reacting a little bit more quickly. You see him get sped up a little bit.

The offense can still work when he's going well, even to spit up Joe Burrow is still pretty good. Not like week one, week sped up, not like week one's sped up Joe Burrow, but like week 11 sped up Joe Burrow can still move the offense. But some of it isn't even him being spit up is that he's getting to his back foot and having to bail the pocket, having to extend plays. Some of it is he has to shake a guy off of him, whether it's Derman James or Bosa or whoever, Chris Jones in the past. And we've seen that from this team. We've seen the inability for this team to get things going in the run game. Maybe if they could run the ball a little bit more consistently. They feel more confident building play action off it. Maybe

not. They use more play action this year, yes, but it's like 4% more than Joe Burroughs last full season. They're using screens at the lowest rate in the NFL. These are some things that could be considered easy buttons as well. And those aren't just big parts of the offense right now. So how much of that is the offensive line? I wonder, although play action could hypothetically help the offensive line in some ways, in many ways, really, slow down the pass rush, make them think about the run, but the offensive line, with the injuries they've sustained this year, especially with the play they've gotten from the interior, maybe what we need to talk about next, Mike. So let's talk about the impact of the offensive line in terms of how that changes what they're trying to

do within structure and how that may be holding this offense's schematic plans back. We'll do that coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by BetterHelp. This month is all about gratitude and along with whoever's important to you in your life that you're thankful for as we get into this holiday season, there are some other people that we don't think enough. And maybe the most important of those is ourselves. Sometimes it's hard to remind ourselves that we are trying our best to make sense of everything

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That's BetterHelp, H-H-E-L-P.com. slash locked up. We're also sponsored today by GameTime, where it is easier than ever to buy tickets to any event, not just sports. Maybe as concerts or shows, they have a new feature called Game Time picks that makes getting tickets to any of these events, these live events where you can feel the energy in person, even easier. They filter out all the fluff with Game Time picks to show you only the best deals on the best seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets.

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and use code locked on NFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Again, you'll create an account and use code Lockedon, NFL, L-O-C-K-E-D-O-N-N-FL-L-K-E-O-N-FL-L-C-E-O-N-FL-N-FL-K-E-O-N-FL-K-E-N-F-E-N-E-L-E-T-E-E-L-E-L-S-E-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-E-E-R-E-R-E-R-E-E-R-E-R-E-S-R-E-R-E-R-S-E-R-E-R-R----------- being one of the worst in the NFL comes down to offensive line issues. I don't think I put percentage, but a lot. I think a majority. Yeah, like, I don't know, 70%. Like, it's quite a bit, right?

You're watching, so your best player is hurt, and he's been hurt for the past few weeks, and that's just best all-around player. Your second best player is either a rookie right tackle who is a baby deer in the run game or a center who doesn't really do the things that are super valuable for centers. He does stuff that's important. He's very smart. He passes stunts. He sees blitzes.

He makes adjustments. He's a okay pass protector. But like the real difference making centers or the run blockers, is that's why Jason Kelsey is going to be a Hall of Famer. It wasn't his past protection that did it for him. It's these guys because your center doesn't really get tested that much of passengers. A lot of times he's just giving help.

Four-man rush. and he is double teaming. So when your run game, your best run blocker is actually the left guard. And he picks up a holding penalty every other week that takes away an explosive run. I don't, who do you point to on this offensive line right now that is a plus player that's playing right now? Because I think Orlando Brown's a plus player. Does anybody else like a true plus player on this offensive line? No.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's Orlando Brown who's having a great, one's having a great season before the end. drew came along there was and is i think so promise with the marius mims i still am excited for the future there he's been totally fine for a rookie tackle it's hard to be a rookie tackle he's a young player without much experience right and he's been fine there there there are issues to fix there but like then you get to the interior and while ted caris does a lot in terms of helping the teams

have protection in terms of leadership ability in terms of all the past protection things that you're talking about that he does at a totally fine level in fact if you look at pfm PFF pass blocking grades for centers, Ted Carras ranks third in the NFL and, you know, PFF, whatever that means to you. But then you look at overall grades and Ted Harris ranks 26 because as you're pointing out, the run blocking ability is important for a center. And where you're talking about, you know, your best run blocker might be Cordell-Vosin, while there's all those issues that go along with him in the run-blocking part of the game

in addition to the pass-blocking woes and the stunt issues that we seem to see consistently on that side. And then Alex Kappa just seems to be sapped from injuries that he's dealt with and some of that power that he had and the anchorability and some of the athleticism that was already limited in the first place with him looks to be an issue this year. So how often when you look at a play do you see, oh, yeah, well, if Joe Burrow could have hung in the pocket, obviously the play call worked, but he didn't get to stand in there and read it out. Is that like a pretty frequent occurrence when you're watching the passing offense?

Yeah. And I think a great example of this is that long touchdown to Jamar Chase. I thought Chase was open on the first window of that dig against the Ravens. But there's a guy right in front of Burrough. So he has to avoid him. And now it becomes, is it an out of structure play to hit the second window on the dig? I don't know. It sure looks like it because he's running.

It is. I'll answer that question. But it worked. The play worked and it worked to the same guy. And it worked to the same result. but it becomes an out-of-structure play because this offensive line couldn't handle the Baltimore pass rush. It's tough because I think that also fits in, like you mentioned, alluded to the missed touchdown to Jamar Chase.

That comes because Spurrow's hitting the back of his drop and letting that rip to the in-right. Like, I don't have time to hang on an alert when I know like this in-rout's going to be open, move the drive, let's keep rolling. It is what it is. I don't think it should be that way. I think there's ways to get her, you need to get a better offensive line. And this offensive line did perform better with Orlando Brown too.

So I think like the last two weeks sometimes look like get into our memory a little bit too much. Just maybe the last three weeks, whatever. I think especially these last two weeks where he's shaking off sacks left and right and center. I think that gets into our mind. But like it was really these last two weeks where he's like sped up and like backfoot hits. If this guy's not open, he's created. And that comes from having nobody on this offensive landscape that's able to pass protect when you throw in Cody Ford in there as well. I think Amarius Munes is a fine pass protector and take care of it's the fine pass protector.

The guards lead the league in pressures. They're number one and number two. So that's not ideal. But it's stunt work. Stunt work is always an issue. And how long have we been talking about this theme and issues with picking up stunts? And that's where the conversation with Frank Pollock was yesterday. Like there are these consistent issues with the offensive line.

and maybe some of it is talent and some of it is having the guys that he wants, but there are also these consistent issues that we've seen year over year. And I also question the scheme fit. We get into the running game here. By the way, one stat before we transition to the running game. Cody Ford has 218 pass blocking snaps this year.

Orlando Brown has 276 pass blocking snaps this year. One, I didn't realize Cody Ford was that close to Orlando Brown in terms of snap count in how much Cody Ford has played this year. But Cody Ford has given up 24 pressures. On 218, past walking snaps, that's more than 10% of the time. He's giving up a pressure according to PFF charting. Allander Brown gave up eight pressures. It's going to ask for a single digits.

On 280 pass blocking reps. The difference their left tackle and the ripple effect there for the rest of the line is definitely a factor here. It's not an excuse. For the team at large, I would say they've gotten around bad offensive line play before. I'd say they've largely have mitigated it this year, but that's mostly Joe Burrow. hero ball. Cody Ford has been bad, but that's obvious. Let's talk about the run gate and the impact there on the rest of the offense because I'm curious to get your perspective on how much of an opportunity there is in the run game, like how much are teams daring the Bengals to run the

ball and they try to run the ball perhaps into light boxes like light box kind of stuff, the success rate into light boxes versus how much they're just passing it up or passing it things up that they can build off of it and how well that marries into the rest of the offense, because that's been a criticism of this offense in the past. We'll talk about that coming up next and get into how sustainable this kind of offense is when it relies so much on these superstars that may not be around in Cincinnati forever, especially in the case of T. Higgins, who looks likely to depart after this year. We'll finish the show with those offensive topics coming up next.

This episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by a fan group. America's number one sports book and one of the many reasons that are the number one sports book in the United States is that new customers, when you win your first $5 bet, we'll get $150 in bonus bets. That's just a whole lot of free money that you can play with with the Fan Dual Sportsbook. Not only that, the Fan Dual Sportsbook app has all the information that you need in one place. If you want to get into some live bets during games, during NFL Sundays or college football Saturday. So when you get that hunch in the middle of the game, you can see the latest stats, the latest play-by-play. And so much more information on the same page where you place your bets. That means you don't have to tab between multiple tabs or flip between multiple screens on your phone.

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This is not a good running team, even though I think Chase Brown is having a pretty good season. This is a really good passing team. The teams that can do both, the lions, the Ravens, the Bills, these are the teams that are the teams that are. are ahead of the Bengals, even the commanders, the Buccaneers, the five teams ahead of the Bengals and scoring offense this year can all run the ball significantly better than the Bengals can run the ball. What does that impact on the offense and how is it performing where they're getting dared to run as we talked about just a couple of minutes ago?

Yeah, you get dared to run. And one of the reasons I brought up that pistol stuff is because I thought that was one of the few times that they're not, I like when they don't treat the running game like a kid eating their vegetables. Like when they're, when they're just running duo and inside zone, that is, that is, let's take a hit off the quarterback and pick up four yards. And don't get to pass the ball until you've had your broccoli. Exactly. It's like, okay. No, second and six. Oh, boy. That's like, the ceiling of it is like seven yards probably. And we saw in 2022 where they're the king of five to seven yards on these good runs, never an explosive.

But like the pistol stuff, I thought, had the ability to become explosive plays. Like there's runs in there that I think when you're running 12 personnel and on a whiteboard, you've got everybody blocked up and the running back one-on-one with the safety. Now how often the Bengals get there, you know, whatever. But you never get that one-on-one with a safety opportunity. I don't care what's a light box. If you are running five offensive linemen as your whole thing and they are just running inside zone, I don't see that go for huge gains without some type of miraculous running back performance.

And that's too much to ask for. I think that's too hard on a running back. So getting five yards. That's what it is. So I get excited about when they don't do that, and that includes this pistol set. This pistol thing was pretty good idea. You get downhill. You get these runs with 12 personnel, good blocking. You got two blocking tight ends in this mix to be able to do this, do all this funky stuff in there. And they just never, they'd never treated it like it could be more than eating your vegetables. They just kept going like, yeah, that was a good run. Okay, so should we build something off of that? Should, should.

And it could be past place that you could build off of it that keep defense as honest. Because it was the biggest one, the biggest time happened to me was I watched the Eagles cheat the back block like crazy. You can't. And yeah, Keras needs to make a better block. A back block is my center is going to block back and protect against. the gap that the pulling guard is vacating. He's running over. And instead of that, that guy caring whatsoever about this could be something, blah, blah, blah. He's just cheating right over top of it. Like, there's no thought

in his mind that this can be anything other than a run that way. And you just got to have some type of answer for that. When teams are cheating it like that, you have to have an answer because there's explosive plays left on the table in the ground and air when you're giving those type of opportunities to the defense allowing them to do that. So I think they run okay against light boxes. It's never something with a ceiling, but can they pick up four yards against a five-man box? Yeah?

Can they pick up 15? No, not usually. Yeah, maybe if Chase Brown can turn some of those into some bigger plays. But like you said, he's not perfect for one and two. It's really hard. And, you know, this isn't Sequin Barkley. This isn't whatever, name whoever the best running back in the NFL. I actually don't know.

the best running back in the NFL. Probably Barkley. That's why I went to Berkeley. That's what came to mine. That backwards hurdle lives in my mind on repeat sometimes. But despite how good he is as a runner, it's just tough sledding in there, man. Like he's dealing with guys on block. The receivers aren't necessarily winning in the running game either.

And you lose Eric Hall, it kind of changes your offense in a big way. And despite that, they did actually run the ball. I thought pretty well against the Chargers. There was quite a few runs that got stuff, but I thought, and there's one particularly bad read from Chase Brown, unfortunately, late in the fourth quarter there. But I thought Chase Brown largely was pretty good in that game, like making guys miss, getting downhill quickly, using that speed and explosiveness, and then getting off tackles too. But it's just very hard to continue to run into brick walls. And Chase Brown has done a lot of running full speed into brickwills. walls this year, which is unpleasant to see.

And like you said, that takes away opportunities elsewhere. And you're talking about not having things built off of tendencies where you're seeing defense's cheat. And that takes me to this issue of getting out coached at times. And this, to be fair, in the passing game, at least, has appeared to happen less as the season's gone on. But for the first six, seven, eight weeks of the year, I felt like we were getting a lot of instances of calling plays into the teeth of coverages, especially some of their quick game

stuff where teens were. sitting on it. That initial one, two, read wasn't there for Burrow. Leads to a lot of checkdowns, leads to some hits, leads to some sacks. And there were these tendencies of getting outcoached in a couple of ways in that sense from either a play-calling perspective or from a design perspective. And then, you know, you think about that some of this happens when T. Higgins is missing. And so much of this offense is like, okay, we got some studs out there. Those guys can win.

well, what happens when you don't have the stunts? And we still see them produce in some games without T. Higgins this year. T. Higgins has missed a lot of time. But without those easy buttons, without having these answers in the running game, without the physicality you need and the protection that you need on the offensive line, feels like there's a lot that needs to change here. And maybe it's not a structural change that's needed, although easy buttons, I think, and having more answers and diversity in your running game

when you see teams start to cheat and fixing this issue, where the play call is getting in too late. Those things you can talk about from a coaching perspective, but what are your thoughts around this conversation in general where we're talking about what needs to change? Is it more structural or is it more personnel to you when you look at what they do, knowing that T. Higgins is unlikely to be part of the team's future?

I think you've got to find, I don't know if it has to be a major structural change, but the identity of the offense when you lose Higgins, I think if your offense is just, we're going to try to isolate Jamar Chase as much as we can, it's not going to work when the other guys out there, nobody cares. It works when T. Higgins is out there, but it doesn't work when nobody cares about those guys. And I think a good example of what happens sometimes with their quick game,

because they use quick game almost like the run game sometimes, where their run game is so bad. I can think the great example is the Ravens game, the first Ravens game. they're using a quick game really effectively. Think of all the slants that T. Higgins and Jemar Chase were catching in that game for eight yards. It works the entire game until the end of the end-s. Up until and that interception is knowing the tendency won

and knowing how often the Bengals will run slant dragon, slant flat or dragon line, whatever. Slant flat one side, double-slan on the other side. The Ravens show one high safety. And despite Jamar Chase being out of the numbers, that safety is playing or he's inside the numbers that safety's inside leverage even though it's cover one he's not supposed to be doing that he's supposed to be funneling to the safety behind him that corner's playing inside leverage and he's cheating the plan and the reason for that is because as you're saying from a tendency

perspective from a tape study perspective from a how offenses or design perspective they know marlin humphrey knows that because of what they're showing on defense joe burrow is reading out his side of the field and he knows that exactly it's a slant there unless they unless they hit him with a sluggo On that particular play, he has a great chance of an interception. So it's a gamble, but he gambled right. And that was a game-changing play, a season-changing play. I think a fade. I don't think it had to be a slug of.

Like, inside leverage pressed up on Jamar Chase. Sure. If that was just like a fade route, something. But yeah, exactly. He knows. You get the idea. Like something different. A tendency.

Single high, you're coming this way in quick game. So if I play inside leverage and cheat the slant, and Jemar Chess doesn't run a great route on the play. So that's why it probably ends up in a pick instead of, a PBU, but exactly what happens. He knows on his side of the field he's going to get this slant flat combination. That's the side is going to be red because you have to read slant flat in this offense when you get one high in this quick game look.

Cheat it. If you run so many slant routes eventually, you get caught. And that's why it can't really replace your run game, I think. I think at times it can, but you can't use it just in lieu of a run game over the course of an entire game, especially because they don't really run a lot of outbreaking stuff in the quick game. I mean, you know, stick sometimes, but it's not like you see a quickout on the outside as a staple of this office. Yeah, there's some of it, but it's not something they spam the way that they spam some of the other stuff. They more so isolate their outroutes to me, like 10 yards.

I don't know. There's some like short yarding situations I'm thinking of where it's Jamar Chase on outbreakers. The yo-yo motion. No, no, like just straight up like blaze out kind of stuff. There's only a few examples that I'm thinking of. But I was. thinking like true. I did see Higgins run a true like five yards speed out in the last game. But, you know, they don't hammer that the same way they would hammer a slant route. They don't hammer that the same way they hammer a lot of their routes. So when you cheat that, you know, I'm probably not getting an out route here. It just that fits in.

And that's where it becomes, is this sustainable? That's where I'm just like pay T. Higgins and try and make a minor structural change of just focus on your run game. Like actually build an effective run game. bring in some type of good interior offensive line run blocking and be able to fix this run game. But we'll see. Because I think you really have to fix the run game if you lose T. Higgins. And that becomes a big issue of a major structural change.

I don't think this offense is ever going to be something that's not Borough led. It's not going to be what Burrow doesn't want to do more than 50% of the time. Like you're going to probably see shotgun and all the stuff he loves to do it. Because at the end of the day, making your quarterback comfortable and having an extremely effective passing offense is going to be the best offense that you can muster, especially with these groups that they keep bringing in. It also feeds Jamar Chase. But it can't be this bad as a run unit. It can't be this bad up front. And you need to have ways to get other guys open that isn't just isolation.

Because that's, to me, why Burton and Yoshivas, they're not doing a whole bunch. You think of Yoshivash's catches. His big catches. Those are isolation plays. Is whatever route that is in front of the pylon against the chiefs. He's running that isolation route and winning. And sometimes, you know, it's just a little in route. He's able to throw that.

I can think of a few of those. But sometimes they're just isolating Yoshivas too. And is that sustainable? No. We know that. So can you find ways to get this to play off each other? I think there's concepts in there that are like three level flood reads and whatnot. but I don't think it's sustainable without T. Higgins, this current offense.

I think you can run some of it, but I think you got to figure something out to take some pressure off when he's not out there. And even when he is, which is not necessarily a whole lot of time left, the lack of the easy buttons, the lack of some of the answers in the run game where they're too predictable. And the protection issues just make it look really hard. but when you have a quarterback like Joe Burrow, there's also nothing inherently wrong with building around Joe Burrow. They should be doing that because he's really good. And Jamar's really good and T's really good.

So you understand why they've structured it the way they've structured it this year. But if they lose T as you're talking about, talking about a big overhaul necessarily to keep this offense going. And then the question is, you know, if they have to make this big commitment to the run game and change their style on the interior offensive line and get different players there and get under center more, then you have to worry about, to me, I'm worried about anyway,

the marriage of those run game concepts with the past game concepts. Because like you're talking about the pistol, that's another piece that seems to be lacking this year, from easy buttons to marriage of run game and past game to some of these tendencies that they have that have bitten them, not to mention the pressure issues and the performance issues and pass protection and the stunt issues. There's a lot to fix structurally.

And then there's some stuff that you can fix from a person perspective and some stuff that like maybe you don't really necessarily need to fix because it is working and you don't want to make these radical changes to something that is working at a high level. But finding that balance and finding some of those answers that we're talking about that are lacking right now is an important piece for this offense that needs to carry the team in a year like this until they figure out the defense, which is something that we'll talk about in our next episode, Mike, we're going to talk about what's going on with that

defense from a from a structural perspective, from a coaching. perspective from a player perspective. That will be next time here on Lockdown Bengals. Until then, again, you can find Mike on it's always game day in Cincinnati on Twitter at Bengals underscore Sands. Thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals

podcast. Ho-Day. Have a good one.