Week 1: Steelers @ Bengals

[HoosierCat]

Why we lost today, by Hoosier:

1. Joe Burrow. He stunk today. I’m sure he‘ll get better. But if he isn’t terrible in the the first half nothing else matters.

2. Injuries. I know that’s usually a lame excuse because its next man up but when your long snapper gets hurt you are in a world of hurt. If Harris is OK we won today.

3. Zac Taylor. His preseason and in game calls are completely questionable.

4. Membengal. If he is there we win. Nope, couldn’t make it, all his fault.

5. Amphar. All purpose excuse. If we win, he had nothing to do with it, if we lose iit’s all his fault.

6. Army. Not here all day, drop and give me 20, you cost us the game.

7. TJ. Where the FUCK was your dead gramma???? She would have made that xp snap!

8. Hoosier. Everything’s my fault. Ask my wife.

[HoosierCat]

Oh also: COB: we could have us used Moobs on the oline, couldn’t you give him some time off of the gutters, man?

[COB]

He’s washed up, gets winded after 5 minutes trying to seal my driveway. 

[Stripes]

There's really nothing to be said. Joe was terrible, and I think he'd be the first to tell you that.

The PAT is going to burn my ass all year long. I can already feel it.

What the fuck ever. Just go beat these horrid Dallas Cowboys and get this taste out of our mouths.

[AMPHAR]

I just think Zac, Pollack, Joe and the O-line are going to get the Mahomes/KC treatment.   Defenses are going to make you prove to them that you can scrub out 12 play scoring drives consistently before they give them looks that they want to attack down field.

That's protecting for long periods of time with 4/5 man rush using stunts.   Showing the ability and the willingness to dominate a front with Mixon.    Then just patience to throw check downs.

I will say Burrow was horrible but he got the winning drive (twice) and at the time I did not realize the long snapper was hurt but those were clearly bad snaps.

As for the O-line the only thing you can do is blame poor prep because if they are going to be that bad all season long, yikes.  Pollack needs to start being questioned, IMO.  His line wasn't good in 2018 and he went back to Price despite Hopkins looking better.   He went to Adeniji last year and he looked way worse than Carman (given injury at RT was a big factor) now Volson, IMO, was basically set up to fail.   I'm not sure why the local scribes were into ball washing Volson so much but it was clear to anyone that wanted to see that he struggles big time in pass pro.   It might be time for him to see the bench, but I don't know who you put in there.   Don't let Volson become a whipping boy.  It takes time for young lineman to develop.

 

 

[ArmyBengal]

I will simply say I was way off in where I thought they would be.
I stand corrected on some of the items I simply thought the team would have had together.

Oddly enough, I didn't even find myself being angry as the game went on. They played like crap and deserved that loss.  That being said, week 2 needs to be prepared for and they have plenty of game tape to look at.

Get it right and go after a Cowboys team that just lost Prescott.

[ShulaSteakhouse]

Zac Taylor gets the nod for worst coaching job of the week from me:

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/worst-coaching-decisions-week-1-013436163.html

How you follow-up a Superbowl loss with a game like that is beyond me.

Also I've run out of patience with Pollack.  Find a coach and evaluator, they need to make changes to that whole position group and how it's handled and scouted/developed.  I lost track of the # of sacks yesterday, but at what point do you demand some higher standards there, instead of just making excuse after excuse?

 

[TJJackson]

10 hours ago, HoosierCat said:

Why we lost today, by Hoosier:

1. Joe Burrow. He stunk today. I’m sure he‘ll get better. But if he isn’t terrible in the the first half nothing else matters.

2. Injuries. I know that’s usually a lame excuse because its next man up but when your long snapper gets hurt you are in a world of hurt. If Harris is OK we won today.

3. Zac Taylor. His preseason and in game calls are completely questionable.

4. Membengal. If he is there we win. Nope, couldn’t make it, all his fault.

5. Amphar. All purpose excuse. If we win, he had nothing to do with it, if we lose iit’s all his fault.

6. Army. Not here all day, drop and give me 20, you cost us the game.

7. TJ. Where the FUCK was your dead gramma???? She would have made that xp snap!

8. Hoosier. Everything’s my fault. Ask my wife.

I coulda sworn COB wrote this one :-)

bravo my dude :-)

[cincyhokie]

When is it an appropriate time to start criticizing Frank Pollack?

[TJJackson]

so.........that was ugly

yeah

very very very very oooooooOOOOOOOOOgggggllllleeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEE

if the O had played even slightly better, or if The Nuge hadnt been injured, I believe we'd have still come away with a miracle win

Given that we played that gawdawful and still almost won, however, gives me plenty of hope for the rest of this season

Some observations

1.  Yes, I am glad we had a strong preseason battle at long snapper.  The ps guy will surely be better than Wilcox (who I do not blame, that was a rough call to duty) and maybe his time til Nuge is healed up will ensure he becomes the full time replacement at some point.  Love love love the Nuge but as I said about Huber, Father Time has yet to lose a battle.

2. The defense was and is playoff caliber, despite two things I find mysterious - no sacks, no takeaways. Hard to be a great D without one or both of these two aspects of the game.  Otherwise, just solid solid D.

3. The new TE is legit.  I am happy about that.  A bright spot, for sure.

4.  The Rapistburgers remain a headhunting thug team.  and the refs dont even call them.  Minkah, you should be getting a multi game suspension at this point, but of course you wont, because of Pittsburgh favoritism

5. So how much did we spend on the OLine his offseason? 

    5a. and whats Spain's phone number?

6.  Michael Thomas (the receiver) seems to have hands of stone.  5 targets, 1 catch.  Keep him off the field except special teams, please

7.  Joe, please just put this behind you and move on.  All of the greats have had bad games.  You just had one.  It happens.  If you feel the need to be forgiven, you are forgiven, a thousand times over.  Onto Dallas, New Guy

8. Mr Wilcox: as I said, I dont blame you for this one, but with this experience now under your belt, no excuses now.....put in the extra time after practice to ensure you are good to go when and if this happens again.  Take it as a lesson learned, ok?   Make it a point of professionalism on your part that the team can rely on you to make those snaps when and if called upon again

9. Does anyone have word on the severity of Nuge's injury?  Mr Google doesnt know right now, just that it is a bicep injury

10. My dead gramma also has a bicep injury, so sorry Joisey......she was declared out for this game and didnt suit up

11. again, I cant emphasize this enough: we played just gawdawful bad and despite that had multiple chances to win the game.  No loss is ever good, and I certainly dont want to see them play this badly again this season, but it definitely bodes well that we can still win while playing like absolute steaming turd

12.  Mr Volson: welcome to the NFL

[AMPHAR]

44 minutes ago, cincyhokie said:

When is it an appropriate time to start criticizing Frank Pollack?

Right now.    Volson was the worse starter.   But it is completely wrong to lump the entire unit's struggles on a left guard.   If you have top performing players at the other spots you can hide Volson better. 

I'm going to elect to believe it isn't talent at this point and it is a preparation issue.   If its talent they are in a world of shit situation.

From my vantage point the Steelers were prepared to exploit a new interior and young Left guard.   At one point they had 3 interior defenders lined head up on the RG, C, and LG. 

 

Quite franly ZT and JB need to get the ball out.  

[ArmyBengal]

I don't usually make appearances on gameday's around here, but will take that under consideration.

For this one, I have to be honest.  I was pissed with the first half. Like super pissed.
I decided to bail, cut my hair, take a shower, goof around with my youngest and then peeked back in around the start of the 4th.  I watched until the end, but there was no anger involved. Just week 1 silliness that can and did happen.  Once I resigned myself with what was happening, it was all good.

We are the only good team to lose week one and like I said, they have a ton of game tape to review and get right before the Dallas game. Agree that Pollack needs to get that group's shot together and quick.  He should have the hottest of hot seats after that travesty of a first game.

[UK Bengal]

There is only one thing to blame for the O-Line and that is it's Zac Taylor his staff and his soft camp approach.  There is no point in keeping guys out of preseason for injury's sake if they just haven't played enough together to gel and that is exactly what happened yesterday and Pittsburgh brought a defensive game plan that totally worked.  Haywood schooled Volson and the stunts and changes the O-Line could not handle because they haven't played together enough competitively.  You can practice all you want but it doesn't compare to live game action even preseason play.  The O-line will get better the more games they play together the sooner the better.  Joe was just not ready to play yesterday at all and boy did it show and he will get better the more he plays of that there is no doubt.

Play calling did not help at all either, I think they called 1 screen instead they were constantly trying for 10+ yard plays instead of running Mixon from the get go and throwing 6+ yard passes and using the agility of our players to get more yards.

Trubitsky didn't beat us we beat ourselves -5 on the TO ratio and still lost by just 3 in OT.

The injury to Clark Harris was the weird part of this game that cost us the win, that and the fact that Zac Taylor does not know what a red flag is for.

Roll on Dallas because yesterday is over lets start anew. 

[Earendil]

Yesterday definitely hurt, but I think it says a lot that despite 5 turnovers, they were still a blocked XP away from winning that game.

WTS, I know I shouldn't be shocked that the Steelers keep getting away with headshots, but geez. Higgins got hit in the head by three guys on the same play. Watt hit Mixon helmet-to-helmet. And there was a third one I was upset about yesterday that I am forgetting. Plus all the taunting by the Steelers and yet Chase is the one who gets flagged.

I'm not putting the loss on the refs, but it's really frustrating to see.

[AMPHAR]

Off another board:    Stat floating around that 35% of time Burrow has been sacked come after 2.6 seconds indicating coverage or holding the ball.    

The flip side is Joe has delivered big plays doing so but its very Ben Roethlisberger like in regards to number of hits/sacks. 

The next evolution of Burrow is going to have to be killing teams dink and dunk.  

 

[HoosierCat]

Looks like the Bengals blowing repeated holes in their feet was a big draw.

 

[TJJackson]

I think this is overly generous given he gave up two sacks - one on the first play of the game - plus at least one movement penalty but according to Sheeran Volson got a rating of 74 in pass protection. 

Thats close to all pro territory, and pass pro is allegedly his weakness, coming from a run-first college offense

If he can keep improving on this, I will go from hating this pick to thrilled to death with this pick

 

[AMPHAR]

28 minutes ago, HoosierCat said:

Looks like the Bengals blowing repeated holes in their feet was a big draw.

 

Bengals/Steelers has always had national interest for what ever reason.    I would guess the Bengals faced the Steelers the most on prime time and national spots in their history.

 

 

[HoosierCat]

Yeah, it’s part of the reason for the team’s historically bad record in prime time, even before Marvin/Dalton. Only time they got on was playing the Washington Generals to whatever good team was the Globetrotters.

[ArmyBengal]

I don't if it was Volson or Carman, that was going to be the weak spot of the o-line and that is where Pittsburgh was going to target throughout the game.  I think AMPHAR had mentioned that it was going to be a rough start whoever got the start  and I agree.  However, what I will not be doing is ringing the bell for a change to be made.  Stick with what you have and develop it.  Volson should continue getting those reps and the coaches should not let that outing, against that defense be a decision maker.

What I saw was that regardless of how strong he was in North Dakota, he has work to do in that department if he wants to have success in the NFL.  Hit those weights, drink milk, jerk off before playing, whatever the hell it takes.  GET STRONGER !!

[AMPHAR]

At this time I'm not interested in finding a "whipping" boy and going down that path of IF 1 player changes then the whole thing changes.  Maybe its true, but I don't think so.   Volson is the only rookie that plays significant snaps on offense.   The rest are multi year vets.

If you are going to lump the blame on a Left Guard then to be honest Joe Burrow and Co. really aren't all that great because in the grand scheme of things Left Guards aren't a unicorn with rare exceptions like Nelson.    

Don't treat him like Carman.   Both of those players have promise.      There are too many vets on that offense to suffer 5 offensive turnovers,  7 sacks, and I just counted Mixon had 10 4+ yard carries and 10 1 yard or less carries.   IMO, that is a team the treated training camp like a country club.

That is a horrendous performance from a group of players that everyone spent ALL off season worried about how they are going to pay them all in a year or two.      Left Guards are not that important and if we are still talking about Volson weeks from now its time to evaluate performances of "name" players and position coaches, IMO.

I think they'll right the ship because I think they screwed the pooch by having a very relaxed TC. 

 

 

[HoosierCat]

Volson had a rough start but I’m content to let him get some reps and get his feet under him. More concerned about Jonah, who got owned a couple times, and Collins, who was basically a coin flip. One play he looked like Big Willie, the next like Rod “Screen Door” Jones. Cappa and Karras did their jobs at least so there’s something to build on. My guess is it takes another couple games for them to start to gel and maybe they are something we can describe as an actual until by mid season.

Also worth noting:

 

[ArmyBengal]

I'm not in a position to "lump blame" on any of them to be honest.  I didn't watch the game exclusively focusing on o-linemen each play.  Hell, I didn't even watch much of the 2nd quarter.  I'm simply acknowledging that whomever was that starting LG against the Steelers was going to (and did) have a rough game.  I'm not the blame guy on this one.

However, and again, what I saw was lack of strength on certain plays and specifically regarding Volson.  I simply think that takes time, preparation and continued execution.  I mentioned once already that oddly enough I'm not even upset with that game.

It's been said for many years and will continue to be said for many years to come:
Things are never as good or bad as they seem in week 1.

Go prepare for and kick the shit out of a Cowboys team that is struggling.

[AMPHAR]

Plus Chase, Higgins, Mixon, Boyd are proven YAC guys.    Given the amount of cover 2 Pitt played there simply is no excuse to suffer 7 sacks, 5 TOs, and 10 Mixon carries for 1 yard or less.   It was just a poor performance from that offense beyond the Left Guard.

Pittsburgh has a very good group of WRs, High level RB,  Bad QB, Bad line.  0 TOs,  1 sack, and 3 running plays 1 yard or less. 

Just really no excuse for what we saw on Sunday.   

 

 

[Stripes]

https://i.postimg.cc/VLYVtNsx/chase-displeasure.jpg