Stripes

Simmons said a little bit about McPherson's rough day.

I can't match the covid, but my furnace is bad too. The water heater is broken, and I am stuck here suffering in the smell of my own un-showered crotch. This has been a Stripes post on bengalszone.com

I was playing with one of the playoff machines, and there exists an extremely remote scenario in which the Bengals will need the Bears to defeat the Vikings to obtain the AFC 1-seed in week 18. It's so improbable that this post is pointless, but it is a lot of fun to screw with these things (this particular scenario requires a Bengals/Bills tie and a ton of other things that leave the 1-seed at the strength of victory tiebreaker).

The Jets can also still get in by winning out (they play @Seahawks and @Dolphins, both free-falling) and getting one loss from the Patriots (@Dolphins and vs. Bills). Otherwise there are very low-probability scenarios for the Raiders and Steelers. Essentially, the 7-seed is going to be a bad playoff team in almost every iteration, so the 2-seed is very attractive if the 1-seed doesn't work out. Hosting whatever 7-seed and then the Bills would be pretty decent all things considered. I also think the 5-seed Chargers at the 1-seed Chiefs in the divisional round would be dangerous for the Chiefs.

This is going to be a long, boring week. Here's a prediction: Bengals: 67658455 Bills: -4

I completely bought into Money Mac when he had a 14/14 postseason. I’m not worried.

I don’t think there’s much chance of Hubbard playing, but Hurst should help.

Adeniji at least should perform better at his natural position (tackle) than he did at guard in the postseason last year. The offensive line is still far better on the interior.

Per 538's model, the biggest games of each of the last two weeks league wide are the games being played in Cincinnati. https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2022-nfl-predictions/games/?ex_cid=rrpromo

7-seed Steelers at 2-seed Bengals sounds alright to me. I understand that I am basically giving the football gods the finger by saying so.

Yeah. Fuck. Adeniji didn’t grade well in New England. Gonna have to grind.

Whew. Glad they were able to get that sorted.

The Bills open as 1.5 point road favorites. I appreciate the free motivation.

Would be a huge win. Even without the 1-seed it’d force them to turn right back around and come back to Cincinnati for the divisional round.

The Patriots converted multiple 3rds and long against triple coverage, with a barely-good catch on the sideline, with a colossal fluke ricochet TD, and forced a Chase fumble. That’s not to mention the miscommunication and pick six. I’m throwing it out. Horrible luck throughout the second half and the Bengals won anyway. We’re on to Buffalo.

Thank goodness. I suggest we all throw out that second half. New England had more than one very unlikely play to keep them alive.

Jesus fucking Christ

Just unbelievable flukes keeping New England alive

Every kick on that side of the field has gone wide, including by NE

That was an incredibly unlucky drive on third downs. Triple coverage nonsense followed by CTB brain fart. Big that they failed the conversion though

You build a 22-point lead precisely so goofy things like that don’t kill you. No emergency yet.

Oops

Control the ball and shut their asses out

Way to maintain that goose egg

Joe also just tied his own franchise record for single season TD passes.