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Week 5: Bengals @ Cardinals Game Thread


HoosierCat

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Alert all degenerates: cbs says the Bengals opened as 4-point road favorites. Get your money down on AZ quick, that can't possibly last!

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Bengals at Cardinals. 

The Bengals are at a crossroads. Joe Burrow still doesn't look 100% and he just lost one of his top receivers in Tee Higgins (ribs) due to injury. Despite that, they are a road favorite as they head to Arizona. The Cardinals might be a live dog here as they are 3-1 ATS on the season while the Bengals are 0-3-1 ATS. Cincinnati's 4.0 yards per play is the lowest in the NFL through four weeks, while the Cardinals are averaging 6.9 yards per play at home (second-best in the NFL). 

https://www.cbssports.com/nfl/news/nfl-week-5-early-odds-49ers-favored-in-clash-with-cowboys-texans-slight-dogs-at-falcons-after-upset-win/

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I’m convinced Burrow can’t plant that right foot and drive the ball downfield.  I’m also convince that the DCs in this league can watch tape and figure that out.  Which I think is exactly why we saw the titans sending 7 guys without a second thought.  I’ll wait for the reports on Burtow’s calf, if it’s the same I’ll take the cardinals and the points.

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1 hour ago, COB said:

I’m convinced Burrow can’t plant that right foot and drive the ball downfield.  I’m also convince that the DCs in this league can watch tape and figure that out.  Which I think is exactly why we saw the titans sending 7 guys without a second thought.  I’ll wait for the reports on Burtow’s calf, if it’s the same I’ll take the cardinals and the points.

Add to that that Joe's mobility is...oh, let's be generous and say limited and yeah, defenses are going to tee off from the first snap.

I get that even a gimpy Burrow is probably better than a heathy Browning, but at least with Jake they could use the whole playbook.

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Tee saying it will be an issue of pain tolerance.   So he's not out automatically this week.

I will be excited if the Bengals are looking at trying to get even at 3-3 after Arizona.   I think it will be difficult.  West Coast trip 2nd road game in a row.  Not real excited about this match up.   I  think it will be bengals trying to get to 2-4 against Seattle.

Strength of schedule is overrated in the NFL.   Its way more about health and momentum, IMO.   Unfortunately the Bengals are mysterious boat of crap right now.

 

 

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Well, per Taylor Burrow is starting. Zac also says that as the guy calling the plays, it’s up to him to scheme around Burrow’s limitations.

Now, we can take that one of two ways. One, Taylor has just figured out he has a gimpy QB and has to adjust the game plans, or two, Taylor knows this, has been trying to work around it, and so far has largely failed.

Since I have no reason to believe Taylor is a total idiot, I’m betting it’s two.

So how much faith in Zac do we have here? After all, without a healthy Joe Burrow Zac’s got like 5 wins in 5 seasons. I can’t say I’ve got a lot.

And before anyone asks, I don’t think Taylor’s seat is in much danger of warming. They’d have to eat three years of contract. Tho looking at the schedule things could get ugly…

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I have no faith in Zac or do I think he should be fired, but he needs to give up playcalling. It’s like this every year, they had to figure out after 4 games last year something new. He has no clue how to scheme for his top players at all, he refuses to run the ball even when it works. So now he has to design a offense around a player that is not 100 percent, and he can not do it. Sorry he might be a ok head coach, but he has been a piss poor play caller  at the beginning of season, worst part is it’s only gotten worse this year. They have fixed it in the past before and went on a 8 game win streak so hopefully they can figure something out, but my confidence is down.

So I am a bit concerned about Burrow, and not just his calf. Sure he is physically off, but I also wonder if he is mentally off as well. We all say he is not 100 percent, but he obviously practices all week, he is not even on the injury list. If he was that bad and couldn’t play, I do believe he would be sitting. Is he a 100 percent no, but he and everyone thinks he is good enough to play. So even when the o-line gives him time his throws are so inaccurate which is a bit concerning, the fact he is practicing all week he should be in better rythem with his WRs and he is not. I don’t know it seems more then just his calf to me, hopefully he gets back into the swing of things, but you can just tell even with his press conference he is just not him.

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They say Burrow is gonna start, and Higgins says he wants to play with broken ribs

Idiots

Burrow needs to sit at least 2 weeks, Higgins even longer

The backups can at least force the ball downfield and give us more dimensions. 

If a game is winnable by a backup, its against the Cardinals

its absolute stupidity if either plays this coming game

Higgins should go to IR with option to return

this season is snakebit, but if those two can recover in a few weeks we have an outside shot at the final wildcard spot and with that, a shot at it all - if we're healthy goign into the end of the season

question: which OLs do we lose at the end of this season?

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People don't want to hear this but Hall of Fame QBs are not Hall of Fame 100% of the time.   They have bad seasons mixed in with their greatness.   When bad seasons occur usually that drags down the entire team.     I don't think the coaching all of sudden gets bad. 

Jane's and Joe's always matter more than the X's and O's.     I have faith in this coaching staff that they could turn it around, but it won't happen with Joe and company playing like they have been.

Zac Taylor or whoever basically schemed them into a win on Monday, maybe.   Joe was horrible along with several execution errors.  But a guy named Joe Burrow started, so I guess Zac Taylor has only won 5 games without Joe.   I damn sure know they haven't gotten Hall of Fame QB play the entire time Zac Taylor has coached Joe Burrow.

He's playing bad.  The rest of the team didn't pick up their performance as matter of fact there are several areas of the defense that folded on Sunday.  The defense was horrible against the Ravens.    There's no play calling in the history of football that's gong to take Joe Burrow as he's been this year and start scoring 28 points.     There's no offense scheme that's going to win games when Titans WRs are running wide open down the field or allowing an offense to suck 10+ minutes off the clock in the 3rd quarter.   

 

 

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They play Burrow because Burrow says he can play until Burrow says otherwise expect him out there. How hurt is he who know only he does, but if he feels like he is good enough to play, then maybe it’s just not his calf that is the problem right now. His accuracy is terrible, the play calling is even worse, he does not move in the pocket (if the calf is not as bad as we think then he needs to move more), the o-line looks the same as other years, he rufuses to run the ball, we could go on but what’s the point! However if Burrow is worse then what he is saying then blame Burrow, for not speaking up, they didn’t pay him all this money to play him and get him more hurt. There has to be more to the story then what we here and we won’t know.

Oh when the hell do they fire this o-line coach what a disappointment. Every year they get players who were great for other teams they come here and are somehow worse. It’s either his coaching or this shitty playbook Zac has.

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Eh, Burrow I’m sure wants to play, calf be damned, Taylor knows a return to form is his best (only?) chance for a W, and the FO just gave Joe a quarter billion dollars, so the constituency inside the organization for a change is nil. I just hope it doesn’t result in him getting hurt worse before he can get healthy.

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9-8

That was the worst record to get a Wild Card spot last season. Does 9-8 guarantee playoffs? No, and maybe this year 10-7 is the cutoff. Who knows?

However, at 1-3 and talking about possibly sitting Joe for 2-3 weeks really isn’t bad. A backup might actually have a better chance at beating the Cardinals than a gimped up Burrow. Then the Seahawks come to town and that one will be a little tougher. Let’s say they go 1-1 there and then hit the bye week 2-4.

Burrow gets 3 weeks for the price of two and they hit the tougher sledding part of the schedule with 11 games to go. That would mean they have to at least go 7-4 over that span just to get to that 9-8 spot. In looking at the schedule and they way the team has played to this point, I’m not exactly optimistic.

Really hard to say at this point, but if things don’t dramatically improve and the path is harder to get things done, there might be better options in the table. Namely ensuring Burrow is fully healthy entering 2024. Window be damned.

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I’ll be at the game. Let’s ensure I don’t suffer miserable Phoenix/Glendale traffic just to see another stinker.

If they somehow wake up, they’re 2-3 — just like last year through five games. If not, hard to see this season amounting to a playoff appearance.

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Mike Brown trumped AJ Green and flew his ass home for Christmas one year.     Fans can't really think this is Zac's call.     I have zero inside sources, but this franchise operates on consensus on just about everything football operations involved with Mike having the trump card.

I seriously doubt, they've outsourced the decision to a singular point and left the $275m player solely in the hands of Zac Taylor.  

Blaming Zac is so low level fan logic.  Its very similar to the early Marvin Days were he would get credit for everything good, but any bad draft pick Mike all of sudden popped in the room and made the pick.   Same logic that tried to blame Alexander for Bodine, even though Marvin was on record of personally scouting him and banging the table to trade up for him. 

Zac has a seat at the table along with several other people.  They are going to get on the same page and IF they can't,  Mike will make the call. 

I doubt Mike Brown is risking Burrow.   Nobody outside that building knows the injury specifics, but I doubt Mike Brown is listening to dire injury news and leaving it up to Zac.    This maybe a case that Burrow isn't at risk, he might have limitations but an athlete of his caliber should be able to overcome.   Who knows?  I don't.   

I'm fairly confident Zac Taylor does not have final say on starting/sitting Joe Burrow. 

 

 

 

 

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I think Zac has some say, but in the end it’s Burrows calf and if he feels like he can do it they are going to let him play. At this point who knows how bad the calf is, the fact is he is practicing and was not on the injury report at all last week. So with another week of practice you would think he would be more in rythem with his WR, but that was far from the case last week. 
 

So does Burrow suck right now because of his calf, because he did not get the reps he needs in the offseason, is it because he is mentally not there yet? So many questions, but this is not the same QB we saw last year. I just wonder how much practice it takes for him to start feeling comfortable again. Hopefully he finds his MoJo soon. 

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Cole Trickel needed Harry's help to get the nerve to drive through the smoke after a crash took his friends life.  

Burrow re-injured his leg vs. Baltimore, a non-contact play.    There's probably a bigger mental piece than people realize.   He got the ball out vs. Rams while standing in the pocket.   Titans found a way to make him hold it a tad longer with a better pass rushing front.

You can roll out Burrow,  I know it in my heart, pick a line and drive through it Cole.

 

 

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It’s 100 percent the calf. Burrow didn’t just somehow forget how to play. The problem is that the only cure is rest, which is the one thing he isn’t going to get. Burrow has to adjust to it, Zac has to scheme around it and the rest of the team has to step up their play because their margin for error has dropped to little/nothing. Through four games they have struggled to do any of that, which is why they’re 1-3.

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It's either one of two things:

The calf is still a concern, even if mentally, and is impacting various things for Burrow (Throwing downfield, rolling out, etc.)
OR
Burrow has regressed to a point he can no longer drive one of the most explosive offenses in the league.

I'm betting on the former and with that being the case, Burrow should be rested.
Do it now when they can sit him for 3 weeks for the price of 2 games, take your chances with your backup QB, and then hope Burrow comes back and can rattle off at least 8 wins after the bye week. Again, I'm not sold on that happening, but I would be more comfortable with that approach instead of utilizing the "Hope and Pray" method in that this ugly ship will simply correct course and sail straight.

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29 minutes ago, ArmyBengal said:

It's either one of two things:

The calf is still a concern, even if mentally, and is impacting various things for Burrow (Throwing downfield, rolling out, etc.)
OR
Burrow has regressed to a point he can no longer drive one of the most explosive offenses in the league.

I'm betting on the former and with that being the case, Burrow should be rested.
Do it now when they can sit him for 3 weeks for the price of 2 games, take your chances with your backup QB, and then hope Burrow comes back and can rattle off at least 8 wins after the bye week. Again, I'm not sold on that happening, but I would be more comfortable with that approach instead of utilizing the "Hope and Pray" method in that this ugly ship will simply correct course and sail straight.

Unfortunately it seems unless Burrow says to Zac I think I should rest my calf over the next few games it will not happen. Burrow continues to say he can go, and the coaches continue to believe in him that he can. Guess they are just hoping that it will heal itself by playing. 
 

Or maybe there is some clause in his contract if he does not play games he will not get paid lol lol

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