Week 8: Bengals @ 49ers Game Thread

[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!

[COB]

Tough schedule the rest of the way, seriously need to beat SF with what is happening in the afc north.

[HoosierCat]

Yeah, whatever room for error there was this season appears to be already spent.

[HoosierCat]

Just for the record, the Bengals are currently 10th in the AFC.

https://www.nfl.com/standings/playoff-picture

The positive news is that at the moment the teams between them and a wild card slot are the Jets, Texans and Bills. The not so positive news is that right now the Ravens, Browns and Steelers are all in and the Bengals win no tiebreakers with them at this point. So absent a plain old better record the Bengals are locked out of anything higher than the seventh spot at the moment.

Obviously things can and will change but they have a lot of work to do if they want to make the postseason this year.

[ArmyBengal]

The whole, "This is a must win game" at this point is of absolutely no value.

EVERY GAME is a must win.

They can't afford to drop games against the really good teams left on their schedule, because they need to get ahead of them in the standings.
At the same time, they can't afford to lose to the teams they are suppose to beat.

49er's
Bills
Texans
Ravens
Steelers
Jags
Colts
Vikings
Steelers
Chiefs
Browns

They put themselves in a hole early on and now have to dig their way out.  Is that impossible?  Of course not, but it's not going to be easy sledding.
Go on the road and hand a very good 49er's team an ass whooping, with solid execution since they had extra time to prepare.

[Stripes]

As it happens, the least important game remaining is probably... this one. For tiebreaking purposes, these NFC games are useless. And every win so far is an NFC win. That's the problem.

The Bengals will just have to win enough games that they don't need tiebreakers. For a playoff berth, that's probably 11 wins? Which would demand an 8-3 finish. Woof.

[ArmyBengal]

"Woof" indeed.  8-3 with that schedule?
I don't care how much we love our Bengals and think it's feasible, that's a tough ask.

Well, bring on Sunday and let the sledding begin !!!

[volcom69]

At this point we should just ask the refs how the game will go, depends on the bets I’m guessing. 
 

All I know is they better have found what kind of team they are going to be after the bye. With the way all these other teams are winning, there first half struggles really hurt them this year, yea they went on a run last season, but how they looked it’s hard to see that this year, but guess time will tell what has changed

[Stripes]

Last season the Bengals sat at 4-4 coming off of their worst loss of the season in Cleveland. We looked at the schedule and saw a gauntlet from hell.

They won all of them. 12-4.

That probably won't happen again, but at least we know they have been here before. They need to find a way to at least split SF and Buffalo. If they can achieve that, I will feel okay.

[HoosierCat]

3 hours ago, Stripes said:

As it happens, the least important game remaining is probably... this one. 

And the Minny game, for the same reason. All the division games are must wins and same for pretty much all the conference games.

[HoosierCat]

Brown sounds positive about playing, so good news there.

https://www.si.com/nfl/bengals/allbengals-insiders-plus/orlando-brown-jr-eager-to-get-back-on-field-continue-o-line-growth-were-progressing-really-well

[ArmyBengal]

Agree with them getting wins and feeling good about things. That would be better than where I’m sitting now.

[volcom69]

Well looks like they might lose tonight to the Vikings not sure how I feel about them on a 2 game losing streak and playing in there stadium. 
 

Hopefully the Bengals play with the same attitude the Vikings are tonight, like they are playing for there season!

[COB]

Oh no Fred Warner writhing in pain on the turf in Minnesota.

[COB]

Niners fall on face, they’re on a 2 game losing streak and Purdy is looking like an ok QB, not a great QB.  

[AMPHAR]

9ers coming off 2 game road losing streak heading home with the bye week on the horizon is going to be very tough to deal with.   Any sort of ugly win for the Bengals would be a huge positive indicator for the rest of the season.

No matter what the injury report says the 9ers will be looking to right the ship at home before heading into the bye.

 

[HoosierCat]

Baby:

Current probabilities of winning the AFC North, via ESPN Analytics: 
BAL -- 50.7%
CLE -- 24.9%
CIN -- 19.4%
PIT -- 4.9%

https://www.threads.net/@bbaby41/post/CyyQjhsLpXb/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[ArmyBengal]

Sounds like Orlando Brown wants to play and may be ready.
God knows I would feel better about things with him in the lineup Sunday.

[COB]

Niners are on tilt, Cinderella story QB suddenly faceplants.  We can win this game.

[Stripes]

Agreed. I don't think "the 49ers are angry" or "they really want to get a win" mean anything whatsoever. They've proven the last two weeks that they are vulnerable, so the Bengals can beat them. They'll have to be on top of their shit obviously, but I don't view this as some kind of unreasonable underdog situation.

[AMPHAR]

A 1 point ugly victory by the Bengals will be huge.   They are 5.5 point road dogs right now.    Which isn't  the biggest dog in week 8 but that's not respect by any stretch.

 

[ArmyBengal]

I don't care how they win or by how much.  
Just walk out of there with the "W".

That would be a huge boost for them kicking things off after the bye.

[HoosierCat]

Quick vid from baby, brown moving well it seems.

https://www.threads.net/@bbaby41/post/Cy1RU79utXM/?igshid=NTc4MTIwNjQ2YQ==

[volcom69]

So Purdy in Concussion protocol right now, when did he even get hit I wonder?

[HoosierCat]

So Sam Darnold on deck, and the spread drops to 3 per DraftKings. Niners just getting standard home field advantage now.