HoosierCat

No surprise, Colts sitting all their starters. Here’s the depth chart of the guys who will play: https://www.colts.com/news/colts-release-unofficial-depth-chart-for-preseason-week-3-game-vs-cincinnati-bengals

Well, it’s a lot easier to go shopping for better players when your QB has an $8 million cap hit versus a $46 million cap hit just for starters. Could the Bengals have done more? Sure, but that means Tee is playing somewhere else, and big chunks the fanbase threw a shit fit over that idea. Or they could have traded Trey and used the picks and freed-up cash and cap space to remake the D, but anyone who suggested that got shouted down, too. Everyone wanted Jamarr extended, Tee resigned, Trey resigned, and so here we are. I am not unhappy with the choices they made, but those choices had consequences, and I’d like to think we all knew that. All we can do now is hope those choices work out.

Burrow was already lobbying to play against Indy last night. He might get a series but I doubt it. Otherwise, yeah, this is the "battle for the taxi squad" game.

Set aside all the pontificating pundits, ragebait headlines and AI slop and what you see is....pretty standard operating procedure for this front office. Even Burrow passed a comment about how they usually wait to do things until right before week 1. And Trey? Well, he traveled with the team to DC and was there mentoring the young guys. Doesn't look like a guy who is planning to sit out to me. And last night we hear that the contract is done, everyone agrees on money and length, it's just the lack of guarantees beyond year 1 holding things up. I see no reason to expect a deal won't get done. Likely the Bengals will offer some token year 2 guarantee that allows Trey's camp to claim a win and the whole affair will vanish down the same memory hole as the delays in extending Joe and Tee and Jamarr. And that, my friends, is a day to look forward to.

On offense, I think they accomplished what they set out to do by playing the starters relatively extensively. They knocked off some rust, got the early jitters out of their systems and seem as ready as you could hope for the real season to begin. The one glaring issue is RG and at this point it's too late to do much about it. It's going to be a weakness and they're going to have to deal with it, that's all. Defensively they look like the worst defense in the history of football. Just epically bad. Sadly, decades of watching this sport have taught me that preseason problems never magically vanish once week 1 arrives, so I am expecting the horror show to continue in Cleveland and probably for at least all of September. Hopefully with time they can find a groove at some point this season before it's too late, but until then the offense is going to have to score like 40 points a game. Teams look good. That could flip one or two L's to W's over the course of the season.

First preseason win since August 27, 2022.

Third penalty for Bobbie Hart! Tonight’s defensive MVP.

Penalty on Bobbie Hart forces the FG. Good job Bobbie.

Browning + Tinsley = CHAMPIONSHIP

Oh hai Carter

Browning > Burrow Tinsley > Jamarr Wiskey > me

Yeah. I liked him coming out but then he got hurt and never managed to get any traction.

Brooks imitating Gio.

Browning doesn’t look like shit this week

Nice Tycen

Nice jones

Nice Yoshi

If they don’t figure out this d it won’t matter if the qb is Joe burrow or Joe dirt

Patrick out, Rivers in

O line in mid season form, letting Joe get killed.

Well the good news is that the pass rush isn’t an issue even without Trey…

Nope

Can we stop Josh fuck8ng Johnson?

Complete Brooks fail on that drive.

Lol Joe throw it away dumbass