HoosierCat

Wow Balti self destructing

Chiefs look terrifying.

Sigh…must be nice to have a punter.

Oh look it’s Stabby.

Chiefs v Ravens, I’m rooting for the meteor.

Dont know how much I’ll be around, but in case anyone want to talk about the games.

Counterpoint: whether you attribute it to the coaches or the QB, the Bengals’ preferences on offense are exactly what defenses now are built to stop.

Lol https://www.cleveland.com/browns/2024/01/deshaun-watson-makes-a-strong-pitch-for-bengals-wr-tee-higgins-cmon-to-the-land.html

Nope. https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/news/bengals-head-coach-zac-taylor-considered-giving-up-play-calling-to-brian-callahan

Yeah, I initially had no interest but everyone who has seen it loves it, so I might have to break down and check it out. It’s back in my local theater along with a bunch of other Oscar nominees. I am so far behind on movies right now, this not having a car thing sucks.

Good ol' Wicky Wacky. Those were the days. I'd still take Hue back as OC. He might not be much good at being a head coach but he had more rabbits in his OC hat than a magician's convention.

They say it takes three years to grade a draft, so here we are again, back in April 2021 and a draft whose talent level was heavily impacted by covid, and which for Bengals fans featured The Big Debate: Chase or Sewell? Good times, good times. So, how'd they do? Round 1/pick 5: WR Ja'Marr Chase. Yeah, that one worked out okay, didn't it? A+ here. 2/14: OT Jackson Carman. Insert sad trombone sound here. Complete bust. F 3/5: DE Joseph Ossai. Ossai has shown flashes but is constantly hurt. Not sure how many more chances he's going to get. Gentleman's C I guess. 4/6: DE Cam Sample. Turned out to be a great find in the fourth round. Solid rotational contributor in the d-line. B+ 4/17: DT Tyler Shelvin. Covid had stripped the DT class and the Bengals took a shot on the big guy, but it didn't pan out. Last seen getting released by Tennessee last September. Will give this one a D just because it was a longshot from the start. 4/34: OT D'Ante Smith. Career backup/teams guy. Maybe a C? 5/5: K Evan McPherson. And it's good! That's an easy A. 6/6: C Trey Hill. Teams guy mainly. But it's round 6, what do you expect? B? C? I dunno. At least he contributes. 6/18: RB Chris Evans. He's made some plays, but we've seen so little of him and he keeps getting buried behind new arrivals like Chase Brown. Again no idea really what grade to give, maybe an incomplete. 7/7: DE Wyatt Hubert. Tore a pec and missed his whole rookie season, retired the next year, unretired the year after that and tried to make a comeback with KC, now apparently a medical sales rep per linkedin. Grade: who cares. Overall: three years later, this feels like a B-/C+ draft. Chase is a golden god, but they faceplanted in round 2, 3 is looking iffy, and they went 1/3 on three fourths. Might bump it up to a solid B since they did get some value after, particularly McPherson, and as noted above the talent pool was shallow due to covid.

PFWA names Jordan Battle to their 2023 all-rookie team. https://sports.yahoo.com/2023-pfwa-rookie-team-rookies-050933735.html

Official announcement: https://www.bengals.com/news/dan-pitcher-offensive-coordinator-quarterbacks-coach-promotion

Not sure where you’re getting the “again.” They didn’t suck last year, much to everyone’s surprise. Been pretty busy in the offseason. We’ll see if it pays off. https://www.mlb.com/news/david-bell-on-reds-offseason-additions-for-2024

Status quo hire. Just have to see if he brings anything else.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/id/39380148/sources-jim-harbaugh-accepts-head-coaching-job-chargers

Bengals interview former Seattle OL coach Andy Dickerson for OC. https://www.cincyjungle.com/2024/1/23/24048387/andy-dickerson-seahawks-ol-coach-bengals-offensive-coordinator-oc Not sure if serious or just done to satisfy the requirement to interview a minority candidate.

I think unless you are one of the teams selected to coach the game there’s a limit on how many people a team can send. Tobin and the scouting staff going would be at least five people, so that may fill up their card. But yeah, good catch. I’ve always championed the idea of having coaches coach and scouts scout.

It’s official. https://www.bengals.com/news/brian-callahan-titans-head-coach-bengals-offensive-coordinator Notable:

The one question I never seem to hear in the Higgins conversation is, ok, why can't you pay two good wide receivers? You never hear pundits say that a team can't pay for two good defensive ends, or two good offensive tackles or two good defensive backs, etc., but pay two good wide receivers? Why, that's crazy talk! Reality is, if they want to keep Higgins and Chase, they can. It's not going to wreck the cap, it's not going impoverish the Brown family, it's not going to force them to cut everyone else and field a team full of people picked out the stands, yadda yadda yadda. It does mean the front office would have to do business a little bit differently, meaning a little bit more like just about everyone else, but it can be done. It's just a matter of them wanting to. Do they want to? That's the real question.

So to continue an off-topic topic from December, Oscar nominations are out and Godzilla Minus One has been nominated in the visual effects category. It’s the first time in the 70-year, 38-film history of the Godzilla franchise that a Godzilla film has been nominated for an Academy Award. Interestingly, director Takashi Yamazaki, who started as an effects guy, led the effects team in addition to directing the movie, so he is the first director to be nominated for the vfx Oscar since Stanley Kubrick in 1968 for 2001: A Space Odyssey. Pretty good company imho. The film is set to end its U.S. run Feb. 1. For its last hurrah starting this Friday, a new black and white version, Godzilla Minus One Minus Color, is rolling out. If you haven’t caught it yet, grab a ticket!

Newton hive assemble!

In case you ever wondered why networks pay so much for NFL games... https://deadline.com/2024/01/chiefs-bills-nfl-divisional-playoff-ratings-1235802215/

Mel goes with Latham in his first mock. https://bengalswire.usatoday.com/2024/01/23/bengals-mel-kiper-first-2024-nfl-mock-draft/ I think I lean toward Newton in that scenario.