Assessing Blame for Bengals’ Struggles on Defense | Enter the Jungle

Assessing Blame for Bengals’ Struggles on Defense | Enter the Jungle

The Bengals defense stinks. Like they’re really, really, really, really bad. Like Andrew Fox Miller throws a screen pass to James Orpeen and I just might score bad. It’s time to play the blame game on Enter the Jungle. [Music] Hi again everyone and welcome in to Enter the Jungle. I’m James. He’s Andrew Fox Miller. All right, fine. Maybe I wouldn’t score, but I’d get to the red zone. You’re you’re you’re being a little But I digress, James. Usually you’re much more competitive. I just think that someone in that locker room might say, “Hey, James, you really think you can score?” And I just I got to I got to make like, “Ah, I don’t know if I want to get tackled this week, but someone should get tackled because it certainly wasn’t Bree Hall. It certainly wasn’t that New York Jets team led by Justin Fields that came into pay court and really delivered a dagger to the Bengals chances of of making a run here with Joe Flacco at quarterback. And we’re going to play the blame game. Today’s show is as always brought to you by FanDuel. Also brought to you by Lakes Marketing and our sponsor uh Garage Beer. I’m sure that uh Andrew your birthday spent at Payor Stadium. You consumed plenty of garage beers and you needed to because it was a rough one on Sunday at Por Stadium. We’re going to play the blame game in like 30 seconds, but sum up your birthday that you spent watching the Bengals fall to three and five for no reason other than they couldn’t get out of their own way on defense. A little bit of tailgating, a lot of optimism. This is just going to be a fun day. Never mind the fact that it’s my birthday. It’s, hey, this is a gimme. We got it all lined up perfectly for October 26th. let’s just have a good time and enjoy. And we kind of did for a good period of that game to be honest. Yeah, there were plenty of things that you could scowl at and things that you knew need to be improved. But as it went on and you could feel the collapse coming, I was in a dark place. I knew I had to come back and edit videos for Cincinnati Bengals talk on YouTube as well. So, it wasn’t like I was just pounding garage beers. It was uh some caffeine involved towards the end there just to wake up. But man oh man, it was it was a downer to say the least. The Bengals defense needs all of the caffeine because they they they still didn’t wake up. And let let’s dive into this and and obviously there’s a lot of blame to go around. Anytime you give up 23 points in the fourth quarter to an offense that had no business scoring 23 points in the entire game and you lose a game to fall to three and five, instead of getting to four and four in a half game back in the North, they’re scraping clawing and and much farther away from their goal. Look, th this team, there’s a lot of blame to go around. And front office wise, I think they’re under the microscope. Obviously, Zack Taylor, he’s the one who brought in Al Golden, the Bengals new defensive coordinator. They’re under the microscope. The players, can someone hit the quarterback? They’re under the microscope. Where do you put it when we play the blame game? Who deserves the most blame here for this Bengals collapse? Realistically, you’re going to look at it from top down, right? But that’s just not how things work. Like for the sake of being consistent with everything you and I have said leading up to this season, James, like like even the things that were said during the 2024 season when Joe Burrow, Jamar Chase are having these statistical, you know, career seasons, Trey Hendrickson racking up 17 and a half sacks. The defense overall kept Cincinnati from reaching the postseason. We know that. And we also know instead of hitting the reset on the defense, it was decided that coaching must be the issue. Mhm. like not Zack Taylor, but Luan Rumo, of course, and others. And it was this decision that you and I both said put Zack Taylor in a position where the gamble, we’ll call it, was apparent. We’re betting on these players and our head coach. We simply need to change the defensive coordinator. at the time. It’s like, okay, I don’t I don’t know what’s going to come out of this, but you Bengals front office seemed to know or at least you made it clear that this is your belief. We’re left with a continuation of that same defense. Not only that, we’re actually seeing a regression. I like I didn’t even think was possible. I I saw it in person as we’ve established on Sunday against the Jets. So, realistically, it should be the top down. And you could even argue that’s probably not fair to Zack Taylor that that’s he it likely is gonna be the one to feel the heat, but that’s just how any organization works. Not just NFL, any organization. It’s unfortunate, but you can’t have a game like that. Also, by the way, you cannot have a game like that, James. Like, you can’t you can’t have a game like what we saw on Sunday. Speaking of Zack Taylor, well, that’s it. Like, Zach deserves blame because there’s no way in hell you can lose a game up 38-24 with 8 minutes to go. And the coaches deserve blame because regardless of who what kind of talent you have, they should be able to wrap up and take semiirectrect angles. I mean, their angles were so bad. They all got Fs in geometry. Every single one of them. There’s no way they did better. I sting at geometry, too. But guess what? It’s not my job to take the right angle. It’s your job to take the right angle. And since it’s your job to take the right angle, take the right angle and make sure you tackle Bree Hall and and make sure that Isaiah Davis doesn’t run for 50 yards straight through your rookie linebacker that you’ve been raving about for the past four weeks in Barrett Carter. Make sure that Demetrius Knight Jr. in open space with Justin Fields honestly just keeps him in front of him a little bit. Just slide those feet a little bit and instead of running right toward the ball and Justin just ran around him. It’s very simple, very simple things that they’re doing at a a poor level. And that’s why the coaches deserve a ton of blame. Duke Tobin deserves a ton of blame. This front office put together a talentless defense. Like there are three guys that I’m all in on that I think can really matter. And one has uh gave up a big play, gave up a touchdown partially because Jordan Battle didn’t run through the quarterback, which he should have done, but but Dax Hill, DJ Turner, and Trey Hendrickson. Well, Trey Hendrickson is in the final year of his deal and he’s got a hip issue right now. So, you can’t do that one and and say him. So, you’re really talking about two corners and and we’re not talking about like the second coming of Derell Rivas here. We’re talking about corners that are still going to give up plays and miss tackles and like that’s it. That’s what there’s to be excited about. And so the front office deserves a ton of blame. I did a video on Monday about that. It is up. Make sure you check it out after you watch this on the YouTube channel Cincinnati Bengals Talk. But to your point, Zack Taylor’s the one that said we need Lou out of here. Zack Taylor, which by the way, I don’t necessarily disagree with it. I think Lou got had grown frustrated and and things weren’t working and that’s fine, but the front office still needs to add talent and the coaching staff still needs to get these guys playing fundamentally sound football. Gap assignments wrong, technique tackling wrong, angles wrong, just physically not winning at the the tackle point. All of these things are happening and these are all basic things like master those things. Be be fundamentally sound. Like that’s a reflection on coaching. So everyone deserves blame here for me. The front office, the coaching staff, obviously the players, but the players put in a a tough position. Like Shamar Stewart was known as a project coming out of the draft. And I know that’s a disrespectful word and he probably wouldn’t like that, but that’s what he was known as. Is it fair to think that he’s going to suddenly be a top pass rusher with Trey Hendrickson out? Your top pass rusher on a contending team with a solid defense. Like that’s a lot. That’s a lot to say year one, right? And so that’s that’s what’s really tough here is there’s plenty of blame to go around everywhere. But one thing is certain, the Bengals have the NFL’s worst defense. They’re not bottom five, bottom seven. Like a lot of the offseason we spent talking, can they be 15th best? The answer is no. They can’t be 15th best. They are the worst. And we saw it on Sunday. I know I’m going to sound like a Zack Taylor apologist here, but bear with me. I mean, Zach has been tasked with a lot over the past several weeks. Like, he’s currently on his third starting quarterback. Mhm. There have been some there have been some successes despite losing your franchise quarterback, we’ll say. M you know finding a way to win at least once so far with Joe Flacco. But again, I can’t help but go back to the fact that you just can’t have a game like the one that we saw on Sunday. You can’t especially a a head coach of Zack Taylor’s tenure like to be a fan out and watching this game live and sitting there and feeling that dread of oh trap game. Oh, but they don’t have Sauce Gardner out there. They don’t have Garrett Wilson out there. You’re making these excuses in your head, but because you’re convincing yourself it’s not going to happen because you know it very well could and it did. And that feels very repetitive. That starts to feel like insanity as a fan from where I’m sitting. And then you have a game like that. Imagine. Imagine you need more than 38 points to beat this Jets team in 2025. And they couldn’t even do that. But you still did need that whether they won or not. It’s crazy. Jamar after the game said, “It should have been over when we were up 14. It should have been over when we were up 3116.” And then and then he referenced the the 38-24. The Jets were so confident that they could get back in the game. They were still running the ball. Like that’s what’s crazy to me. I watch a ton of NFL football. That doesn’t happen. When you’re down two scores in the fourth quarter, it’s pass. and and so one that just shows lack of fundamentals cuz if you have a fundamentally sound team they’re going to get t they’re going to at least make the tackle instead of seven yards you give up four and a half yards and and that’s the problem here I don’t think that defensive front was getting blown off the ball so much that the linebackers couldn’t make plays like they were in position to make plays the Isaiah Davis run when it was 3116 I believe where he just runs through Barrett Carter and then is off to the races for 50 yards. Like can’t happen and yet it happened. That’s the most frustrating thing I think about this current team is is where they could have been four and four a game or or a half game out in the North versus now three and five still in second place in the North, but it just feels so much farther away from getting back to even so much farther away from being in the mix from a playoff contention standpoint. And their defense is the worst in the league. Like that’s the other It’s not just that you lost the game. It’s that you also found out that yeah, there’s there’s not really much hope. There’s not really much hope. And by the way, real quick, I pulled uh everyone on X, James on X. Over a thousand votes. This was just a quick one-hour poll. And guess what? 43.4% of you say everyone deserves blame. 42.6 say Duke Tobin in the front office. 12% say Zack Taylor Alen. 2% say players not stepping up. Guess what? Everyone deserves blame. Everyone failed on Sunday. And that’s why I think everyone’s pretty much accepting now that this 2025 season uh is going to not be a good one when it it comes to the Cincinnati Bengals and their chances of getting back to the playoffs. Yep. I I agree with the poll. You can probably rank who deserves play blame again from top down. Tobin front office, Taylor, Al Golden. But going back to my point earlier, Zack Taylor is going to feel the heat before anyone else on that list. Maybe aside from Al Golden, but at least he has the excuse of not even having a season of defensive coordinator experience under his belt. We’ll see. Up next, Joe Flacco with a bit of perspective. Everybody’s pointing their finger at the Bengals defense, including us. Yeah, we’re looking at you, Bengals defense. We’ll uh find out what Joe Flacco had to say about that idea that the offense is blaming the defense. We’ll hear from him coming up next. Welcome back to Enter the Jungle. I’m James Renee. He is Andrew Fox Miller. Make sure you catch us every single Tuesday on the YouTube channel Cincinnati Bengals Talk. And this segment that you’re going to hear from Bengals QB1 Joe Flackco in just a second is brought to you by Lakespur Marketing. Let Lakes Marketing be your trusted marketing agency. They have a broad range of experience regardless of industry. Lakespur Marketing prides themselves on building partnerships and they’re confident that they will deliver results and more importantly it’s about the relationship with their clients. Lakespur Marketing, the proof is in their partners. Visit lakesmarketing.com today. The Bengals defense certainly could use a marketing team like Lakespur Marketing to try to turn things around because well, it’s ugly. Everyone is blaming the Cincinnati Bengals defense right now and rightfully so. After a 3938 loss to the Jets, QB1 Joe Flacco was asked if the offense is going to start pointing fingers and blaming the defense for their struggles. I think that slips into people’s heads, you know, like it it’s hard not to. And I think it more slips into the the the guy the side’s heads who’s who feels like they’re not necessarily, you know, living up to their standard. This is a team sport and we’re all in this together. It’s not offense, defense, special teams. I mean, at the end of the like, they’re out there doing their job, but we are one. Uh, we feel this as one. I think it’s hard to maybe not be in your head when when maybe you’re that side of the ball for a given stretch. But, man, like I’m so consumed with doing my job and everybody should be so consumed with doing their job that they’re not worried about what other guys are doing and how guys, you know, put the blinders on and go do your job. And I think when everybody can do that, that’s when you turn out, that’s when you get out of those things. There’s no judging, you know, your brothers for not playing up to their expectations. Um, their support and trying to give those guys confidence to because that’s what it is a lot of times. You, you know, you need to play this game with confidence. And if you lose a little bit of that because you think your brothers are kind of looking at you like, “Oh, come on. Like, can’t you just do this?” Uh that’s not a good feeling to have and and hopefully we can all get across that that’s not how we should be feeling towards our teammates. It’s amazing perspective again from Joe Flacco. Andrew, I’m not sure anyone wanted to hear that. I thought Bengals fans needed to hear that. Having his leadership and that kind of answer, I think that’s big this week because the defense is going to take all of the heat. But if the Bengals are going to to do anything and let’s say beat Chicago on Sunday, well, they’re going to have to rally and not point fingers. Yeah. And I know I I made the comment about Zack Taylor earlier saying, “I’m not trying to be an apologist by any means, but let’s let’s be honest. The fact is that one of the greater qualities he has as a head coach is his ability to, you know, instill and and be an influence on the overall culture, right? And to me, Joe Flacco, who’s been in the league long enough where we know Zack Taylor isn’t rubbing off on Joe Flacco just yet in that regard, but you can see why there was alignment, why Zach wanted someone like Joe Flacco over a lot of the people that had been discussed as possible replacements at quarterback for the Bengals when Joe Burrow went down. It makes a lot of sense because I think it aligns a lot with what the message to this team would be from Zack as well. Feel awful for Joe Flacco. Again, I’m going to point that out one more time. They should be two- one with Joe Flacco, 4-4 on the year in a half game back in the North. And instead, should have, could have, would have, they’re not. Three and five, one and two with Joe Flacco. And uh just feels much, much different. Up next, we’ll take a look at the odds this week. The Bengals went from heavy home favorites to now major home underdogs. We’ll do that courtesy of FanDuel next. Welcome back to Enter the Jungle. He’s Andrew Fox Miller. I’m James Rapine and the Bengals are trying to get to four and five this week against the Chicago Bears. We’ll dive into the odds in just a second courtesy of FanDuel. FanDuel is America’s number one sports book and well NBA is here as well. FanDuel is your home for live betting. So even if you miss the start of the game, you want to ride the hot hand, FanDuel has live bets on everything from who will score the next fourth quarter comeback. Who knows, maybe it’ll be the Jets again, even though they’re talking about NBA here. All you have to do, whether it’s same game parlays, live bets, prop bets, is check out FanDuel right now. And FanDuel is giving new customers $300 in bonus bets if your first $5 bet wins. Visit fanduel.com/bigplay to sign up today. That’s fanduel.com/bigplay. To sign up today, you must be 21 plus and present in select states for Kansas and affiliation with Kansas Star Casino or 18 plus and present in DC, Kentucky, or Wyoming. First online, real money wager only. $5 first deposit required. Bonus issued as non-withdrawable bonus bets which expire seven days after receipt. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fandal.com. Gambling problem. Call 1800gambler or visit rghelp.com. Call 188789777 or visit ccpg.org/hat in Connecticut or visit mdgamblinghelp.org in Maryland. Hope is here. Visit gamblinghelplinem.org or call 88 800 327-50550 for 24/7 support in Massachusetts or call 18778 hope NY or text hope NY in New York. Andrew, let’s dive into these odds. The Bengals are underdogs again after one week of being favorites. Two and a half point underdogs right now. The overunder set at 51 a half uh on Sunday against the Chicago Bears. The Bears are coming off of a 30-6 loss to the Ravens. The Bengals obviously coming off of their 3938 loss to the New York Jets. What do you think about this one? You think the Bengals get the Bears and get to four and five going into the buy? Uh or the season just continues to stumble and they lose? I I I don’t know what to make of two and a half. I don’t know what to make of win loss over under. I I know this offense at least I’m confident enough that this offense will rack up some points on the scoreboard. I’d be betting the over. The Bears are generally scoring in the 20s week in and week out. If the Jets manage to get 39 points, it it you know, I’d argue that the Bears could get into the 30s as well. So, yeah, I’d be hammering the over. That’s about it. I don’t know what else to expect from this team after that game. They it it it messed up everything as far as my expectation for this team other than offense good, defense who knows, probably terrible. So if they had won 3116 or 38-24 or heck 3832 or even 4139 and that comeback happens and they win, I think I’d probably pick them against the Bears. I I do. Now I I don’t really know how you could feel like this defense is going to be confident enough to turn it around because the path has been well in the preseason’s not showing anything. It’s not a big deal. He’s not showing anything playbook wise. And then it was, well, Jake Browning’s at quarterback and the turnovers have just got in the way. Well, there was no excuse against the Jets. It was like the worst offense of football versus the worst defense in football. And they’re clearly the worst defense in football. So, it’s hard to be confident in that. So, I I get it. I understand where the line is. Wouldn’t be shocked if it moves a little bit this week, but yeah, they should be underdogs and rightfully so. I I think that they’re viewed as the worst defensive team in the league. some fun toys on offense, but uh when you don’t have Joe Burrow, it’s going to be tough to overcome that. We’re going to continue the conversation because it is Bears week. It’s Bengals Bears as the Bengals try to get their fourth win of the season. We’ll do that coming up next. Welcome back to Enter the Jungle. It’s Bengals, it’s Bears on Sunday at Por Stadium. Andrew, you witnessed that Jets loss. What would a win over the Bears do? What do you think it would change your thoughts on the team at all? Tweak anything, tweak? Because I think if they would have beat the Jets and then lost to the Bears, I’d still believe. Yeah. But with the way they lost to the Jets, I think that was a a painful one that’s going to take more than just a win over the Bears to overcome. Yeah. It It’s crazy how this loss of the Jets feels so heavy. Like I I we we even said it on another jungle. You said it on separate videos on S Bengals Talk on YouTube. This Jets game was a better win game. not must win, important, but not must win, better win. And when you lose a better win game in the way that they lost it, it just feels like after that, especially after that Steelers win, it just feels like a heavier loss than really on paper it should be. But seeing what we saw, man, beating the Bears, if that were to happen, it’s going to feel more like, hey, they salvaged things a bit, especially if the defense looks close to average. It’s going to feel like, oh, I’m glad they kind of scraped something together and now we have a bye-week. We escaped what that trajectory that that Jets game was seemingly putting us on uh on the defensive side of the ball. So, that’s where I’m at. It doesn’t sound great. doesn’t sound glamorous, but it feels like they kind of scraped something together and, you know, a little hope is is injected into the season. I think it’s easier to dig the hole. Yeah. As challenging as it can be than it is to climb out of it if you don’t have any gear and it’s not like the the defensive gear is there. There aren’t reinforcements. Tequilo Spikes isn’t walking through that door, you know. And so, we’ll see. We’re going to cover it regardless right here on the YouTube channel Cincinnati Bengals talk weekly on FanDuel Sports Network. For Andrew Fox Miller, I’m James Rene. Thank you so much for watching and listening to Ena the Jungle. [Music]

The Cincinnati Bengals’ embarrassing collapse against the New York Jets exposed Cincinnati’s defense as the worst in the NFL. James Rapien and Andrew Fox Miller break down how Cincinnati’s defense reached this point, who’s to blame, and whether or not they can turn things around. They also react to Joe Flacco’s postgame comments about accountability, and look ahead at the odds for Bengals vs. Bears.

00:00 Who is to blame for this defense?
12:04 Joe Flacco shares his thoughts on defense
15:58 FanDuel Odds – Bengals vs. Bears
19:55 Would a win in Week 9 change anything?

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