HoosierCat

Stone now week to week with a soft tissue injury. Not supposed to be a long term issue but we’ll see.

Finally a slightly more optimistic review from Charlie here. https://charlieschalkboard.substack.com/p/takeaways-from-the-cincinnati-bengals

Dehner’s take. https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/6541884/2025/08/08/bengals-preseason-opener-eagles-burrow-chase/ tl;dr he thought Stewart looked promising, Fairchild looked good and if the plan was to replace Hudson with Fant, that got knocked off schedule last night. Also Chase Brown looked scary. On the flip side, Ivey and Isaiah Williams didn’t help their case last night. Patrick was the weak link on the line and Ford and Rivers both looked bad too. Past time to sign someone.

I’m very happy with what I saw out of the starting offense. We lost the opener last year in large part due to the O looking like it forgot how to play football. Yes they were up against mostly backups, but that was how you would want them to look against backups. They also ran the ball well, one of the two things I was looking for. O line held up. Yes, again, second team opposition, but we have seen them get rolled by backups before. Good start for them. Looked like Money Mac is back. That would be a welcome return. D was a horror show. The Eagles ran the ball at will and for big chunks. 2023 sixth round pick Tanner McKee looked like a different sixth round pick the Pats once made. There were occasionally good individual plays here and there but overall Philly moved the ball at will. Just awful. At least Al has lots of film to hit them with, and I hope he does, good and hard.

Roughing the snapper…can’t say I have ever seen that penalty before.

Nice return Burton.

Volson beat, Brooks blown up

Stewart TFL

D is a horror show. Fire Golden!

Brooks looked good running and in pass pro. He’ll earn time sooner rather than later imho.

Burrow out for year, broken ass.

Minor victory

That Jamarr Chase guy is pretty good.

Blind squirrel, acorn.

Yup. They should have dominated and did, which is what you want to see. D still can’t stop the run tho. JFC.

Way to not fumble on the goal line, Hudson.

Per local media, Eagles are likely to play starters on defense but not offense. https://phillysportsnetwork.com/2025/08/07/eagles-bengals-preview/

I would file that under hyperbole myself. Not hyperbole: SB Nation really hit their sites with the ugly stick. Poor CJ.

I think my biggest point of both hope and fear is the reports on Stewart. On the one hand, him coming in and immediately being disruptive and productive, even if it is just practice, is great to hear. We need him to hit, badly. On the other hand, given the reports on the oline, maybe he looks so good so quick because they completely suck ass? My heart wants to believe it’s the former. My head says, wanna bet?

Dehner reviews the rookies after the first 10 practices. His bottom line on everyone: Shemar: Knight: Fairchild: Carter: Rivers: Brooks: UDFA standouts (2):

Vikes WR Jordan Addison suspended for the first three games, so he will miss the week 3 game against the Bengals. https://stripehype.com/bengals-scored-big-win-rectify-early-season-woes I'll take all the breaks we can get.

I would actually have Burrow just hand off a lot. I know, I know, Joe wants to throw, Zac wants to throw, but the cold hard fact is that not being able to run the ball has been a big part of opening day losses the last two years. I would also make stopping the run a preseason point of emphasis for the defense, that's been an equally major problem. Last year, future hall of famer (checks notes) Rhamondre Stevenson gashed the Bengals for 120 yards on 25 carries. That was 15% of his total yards for the season! That let the Pats play keep-away all game. meanwhile Moss and Brown managed just 55 yards on 12 combined carries. The year before that, Mixon got 13 carries for 56 years, while Chubb and Ford combined for 142 and Watson threw in 45 more on the ground. If we go up to Cleveland and Chase is getting stuffed while Ford and Judkins run wild we will lose again, even though the Browns' QB will probably be some random fan who wins a pregame punt, pass and kick contest.

The preseason is upon us! Burrow and the starters will play a bit. https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/allbengals-insiders-plus/zac-taylor-reveals-starter-workload-for-first-preseason-game-players-out-with-injuries-01k1wxdr7t26

In other Browns news, they signed Trayveon Williams.

And I see things are going just fine up in Cleveland... I think it was back around 2001 when the Bengals had a QB competition between Akili Smith, Jon Kitna and, if memory serves, Scott "the water buffalo" Mitchell that someone quipped that if you have three QBs, you have no QB. So if you have six QBs, is that like negative one QB?