HoosierCat

Well that was a shitty bye week. Not one iota of help. No Deebo for SF and we get them on a short week, so I guess that’s something. I wish they’d done more than just lip-flapping last week to get better, but no dice. Here’s to a double OT game tonight!

Just pathetic. Exactly the kind of game that makes me wonder why I even watch this shot anymore.

Congrats to the Cleveland Referees on the W

Colts getting hosed

Oh look utter crap call 2

Utter crap call

Oh bullshit

That’s 200 percent a fumble

Lol way to go colts!

Clowns rolling

Big catch should have kept him in bounds tho

Wow Lions suck.

Colts suck.

Well looks like Detroit has reverted to form. Go Colts!

In case anyone wants to talk about other games this week.

No Deebo for the 9ers game. https://www.threads.net/@bbaby41/post/CyrPZC8uNkl/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

So anyhow, Bengals are off but the rest of the division is playing. Lions @ Ravens: easily our best chance for help. Go Detroit! Browns @ Colts: lol Clowns in a walk. Steelers @ Rams. I’ll go Pitt here. They’re not that good but LA is awful.

There is a good column today in the WaPo that I think hits on a lot of what we are discussing here. Gift link around the paywall here. But the gist of it is that what we ae seeing with the bengals offense isn't unique, it's happing all over the league, because defenses have finally caught up to offenses. How are the doing this and how can offenses respond? Well, if you have been reading this thread you know the answer already. So yeah, the No. 1 thing they should be doing during the bye is looking at ways to run it more. How, I don't care. Put more on Trayveon, give Brown a shot, sign or trade for somebody, I don't care. Hell, give Captain America a few lugs for once.

Just going to leave this here since, in addition to Fournette, there have been a couple online articles calling for the Bengals to work a dead with Denver to bring back Perine. https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/mecole-hardman-trade-grades-jets-send-former-chiefs-wr-back-to-kansas-city-for-swap-of-late-round-draft-picks/ I’m fine with what I’ve heard out of Callahan the last couple days, but unless they’re planning on, say, giving Chase Brown a shit ton more carries post-bye, I’m not sure it amounts to much more than rearranging the deck chairs.

Another mile marker on How Times Have Changed Highway: Delta has added two round trip flights to Jacksonville for fans who want to catch the Jags game in person. https://www.eaglecountryonline.com/news/local-news/delta-adds-two-flights-to-bengals-away-game-destination/

The problem with an offensive lineman is it only takes one bad play to erase a bunch of good work. Eric Steinbach was a top tier guard, but he’s remembered for one play here and it was a playoff (and arguably career, for Carson) wrecker. Unfair as hell but it’s an unforgiving job. On another note, there’s some capital-S speculation going around about the Bengals pursuing Fournette. He was scheduled to visit Buffalo today but the visit got cancelled because the RB they thought they were going to lose from their PS is staying. Reportedly Fournette has interest from multiple teams. As someone who argued they should sign him this past offseason I’m obviously a fan of the idea but as far as I can tell this is all smoke, no fire.

I was wondering about the post-Brown protection and if it had an impact on Joe. Can’t catch a break on the o-line can we? And yeah opposing defenses are clearly targeting Volson.

Sorry, only been there twice, both times for business, and one trip I never got out of the airport. Always wanted to tour the USS Constitution...

I think what we are seeing (and talking about in this thread) can be summed up as a rolling series of issues that have compounded to shirt-circuit the offense so far this season. The starting point of the problems is Burrow's calf. That injury killed his mobility outright and mostly killed his ability to plant and throw deep with any accuracy for the first couple weeks, at least. That in turn means that half your playbook goes straight into the trash can for a while since Joe just can't physically execute those plays. Layer on top of that the usual rust and adjustments involved in starting a new season. The first couple games featured those ugly drops Amphar mentioned. That seems to have largely cleared up now but cost them any chance in the first two games. Since then, Joe's calf has gotten better, opening up more of the playbook. But that's revealed a second challenge, which is that the plan to replace Perine and Hurst with Williams and Smith has been a flop so far. Right now the only players the opposing DC really has to worry about are Mixon and Chase. Chase is accounting for nearly a third of Burrow's targets this year, versus about one in five in 2022, and Mixon accounts for nearly 80% of running plays this year, versus just over half in 2022. So yeah there's just really not a lot to the offense right now. They need some guys to start scaring defenses. Burrow has to play better, Higgins has to show the hell up, injured or not (he wants to get paid, right?), someone in the pileup of RBs and TEs has to step up.

Totally different subject: is it just me, or are there way more QB injuries this season? I mean so far this year we have: -- Burrow and his calf -- Aaron Rogers of course -- Watson missing multiple games -- Richardson in Indy likely done for the year (shoulder) -- Fields in Chicago now doubtful (thumb) -- Jones out in NY (neck) -- Trevor Lawrence a ? mark (knee) -- Garappolo left last week's Raiders game late with back issues -- Tannehill out with a high ankle sprain Rough year to be a QB it seems.