New England Patriots vs. Cincinnati Bengals Preview & Prediction | PFF

New England Patriots vs. Cincinnati Bengals Preview & Prediction | PFF

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And one of them was, okay, this secondary had kind of struggled. They gave up some big plays early in the season. But when you look at the way they’ve played since week five, right? So the first, so it’s several weeks. It’s not a one or two game sample, Trev. They have the highest coverage grade in football since week five. So, they’ve got a really good front seven with Robert Spain and those guys that can stop the run. Now, the secondary is playing better. The offense has been outstanding. You just look at a lot of these metrics. First in coverage grade, second in yards per reception allowed, fifth in open target percentage. You can’t get open against these guys. Ever since Christian Gonzalez got healthy, Carlton Davis got healthy. This team looks a lot better on the back end and the fewest missed tackles in coverage in that stretch in the NFL. And now you look at a Bengals team where if Jamar Chase was playing, I would look at both sides of this matchup. But now Chase is suspended for spitting on Jaylen Ramsay. And we know the Bengals have a bad record when Chase and Higgins miss a ball game. I I think you have a really tough task here obviously offensively for the Bengals. They don’t run the football very well generally anyway. But now that you’re missing your best player on your entire team this week due to suspension, I don’t know where the holes are exactly that Cincinnati can exploit. Joe Flacco is certainly going to try, but it gets a lot harder without Jamar Chase and with the way this New England secondary has been playing lately. It’s hard to see the Bengals winning this game. Um, they’re sitting here with the Patriots being on the road getting eight and a half. And to be honest with you, I I I I would think that the line would be bigger than that for the Patriots side of things. If Jamar Chase was playing, I could understand the line being what it is. But you talk about how this team has not had very much success when one of these guys is missing, let alone Chase being the better of the pair. I I just I it’s hard for me to envision the Bengals keeping this one close. Now, you talked about weak points um for the Cincinnati Bengals. The weak points for the New England Patriots seems to be on the interior offensive line when it comes to Garrett Bradbury and Jared Wilson. Now, Wilson’s playing at guard for the first time. He played center uh last year with the Georgia Bulldogs and he could have played center this year, but they ended up signing Bradbury and he was the better fitted center and so you slide uh Wilson over to guard. So going through some growing pains, but those are the two guys that I think you really go after. That’s the that’s the duo that you try to overload that you try to have, you know, maybe two defensive tackles over both of those guys. You just try to overwhelm them a little bit. When it comes to Bradbury, he still struggles with power. you know, if you got Bull Rush straight up from a nose tackle position, if you’re playing a zero technique or a one technique, and that defensive tackle is just able to kind of put him on a sled and just get him going towards the quarterback, he just doesn’t have a lot of anchor to be able to stop that. So, do the Bengals have players to be able to exploit that? Can you get two defensive linemen sort of in front of those offensive guards and then maybe having one of those fast linebackers be more of a downhill attacking linebacker to shoot those gaps because we know it’s difficult for them to handle those one-on-one assignments. Both of those guys have a higher defeated run blocking percentage, which is more negatively graded players than plays than they do an impact run blocking percentage, which is positively graded plays. So, that’s really I mean, when you look at an offense where the wide receivers are playing well, the tight ends are a great compliment. Now, we’re getting Trayvon Henderson on a role here. Drake May is obviously playing at an MVP level. There’s not a lot of areas where you can attack this Patriots team or at least certainly with what we have seen over the last couple of weeks, but it’s those two offensive line spots that maybe Al Golden just gets really aggressive and just tries to overwhelm those two guys to get in the back field. Rattle Drake May a little bit because outside of that, it’s hard to see an advantage here for Cincinnati to take to to take care of against one of the best teams in the NFL. I’m going Patriots 28, Bengals 13. I don’t think this one’s a very close one. I’m with you. I’ve got Patriots 31, Bengals 14. I just don’t see a whole lot of advantages, if any. And Trey Hendrickson seems doubtful to play again. So, we we won’t even get to see him challenge Will Campbell in the pass protection. Um I I Yeah, the Patriots are just better than the Bengals. Maybe next week we might get to talk about Joe Burrow going into that Thanksgiving game obviously against Baltimore and basically at that point it’s the Bengals last breath for this season. Maybe they try to reel off six in a row, but I think the Bengals are starting three and eight here. They play on Thanksgiving. Burrow. Yeah, there’s that’s been the target date. No, no, no. I mean like their next game is Thanksgiving. Oh, yeah. Thanksgiving night in Baltimore. Yeah. Yeah. It’s Ravens and then I Is it Ravens, Bills, Ravens? I think their schedule is. Damn. I wish they had till Sunday. I feel a little bit better about it. I mean, this is kind of the way Cincinnati season has gone here, but No, I I I know. And and and they they have to, right? They basically because if you lose to Baltimore there, then yeah, like you said, it’s Buffalo, Baltimore again, Miami, Cardinals, Cleveland Browns. You could win those two games there at the end. issue, you can win those three games, but if you don’t put up a fight, if you don’t win two out of three against um Ravens, Bills, Ravens, and even then probably all three at that point, you lose one of those games, you have a ninth loss for as for as bad as that division has been this year, eight n eight and nine even won’t get it done still. Yeah. Yeah, you’re right. Bad timing.

PFF’s Dalton Wasserman and Trevor Sikkema preview the matchup between The New England Patriots and The Cincinnati Bengals.

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