Cincinnati Bengals Offense JUST AS BAD As It Looked: NFL Week 3 Film Review

Cincinnati Bengals Offense JUST AS BAD As It Looked: NFL Week 3 Film Review

Usually when you put on the tape of a bad loss, it doesn’t look as bad as it felt when you watched live. Unfortunately, that’s not the case for this week’s Zack Taylor offense. Let’s break it down. You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans? Welcome to another episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast, part of the Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. I’m Jake. Let’s go joined today by Mike Santagon at Bengals Sands on socials where he will tell you all about his favorite coaching clinics and the things going wrong with the Bengals offense. That’s the case this week, a run game disaster. I’m Jake Liscoco and I’m one of your regular hosts of the Locked On Bengals podcast where we’ve had you covered daily as a one-stop shop for all things Bengals going back to 2016. And if you’re new, join the Everydays, join those of you who make us your first listen as we navigate what has become a very tumultuous Bengals season that threatens to spiral and maybe even death spiral depending on how the next few weeks go. And it’s not like it gets easier, but today we’re going to take a retrospective and look at how the Bengals approached this game in Minnesota. What went wrong? What can be fixed in the next few weeks realistically as the defenses remain difficult on the upcoming schedule? And maybe we’ll get to the defense at the end of the show, time permitting, because the defense mostly was the same defense that it has been. They didn’t have any takeaways this week. That’s the difference obviously with the Bengals giving the ball away infinity times in this game. So we’ll see what we have time for on the defensive side of the ball. But the the meltdown on offense, it’s not just the fumbles, right? As we were talking earlier, Mike and DMs is not just the fumbles that you can’t necessarily lay directly at the coach’s feet, but the ineptitude in the run game is staggering when you look at it on tape. But before we get to what went wrong and why it went wrong and all those things, as you reviewed what the Bengals tried to do in the first half, which is really all we’re talking about here because then the game was over. What was the Bengals game plan going into this matchup with the Brian Flores Minnesota Vikings defense? The game plan seemed to be one, we’re going to establish the run and make our presence felt and try to work the game off of that. They were going under center, running the ball a lot on first down. And if you think of the very first sequence, it was a run on first down and then a screen, a quick screen on second down and then third down, incompletion punt. And that felt like kind of what they wanted to do was just let’s make this easy on our quarterback. Let’s give him a run game. Let’s give him some screen game. Maybe some tap pass type stuff, jet sweeps that he can lean on so that we don’t need to ask him to be Joe Burrow. and we’ll get there. But it didn’t work. They did. They I think you realize that this offense needed a Joe Burrow to work out against these at least the Brian Flores high level defense. We have seen the Bengals play against by DVOA anyway. Two of the best three defenses in the league in the Cleveland Browns and the Brian Flores Minnesota Vikings. And then I think the Jags were seventh. And that’s probably on the strength of them having played Carolina and Houston outside of their game against a half of Joe Burrow and a half of Jake Browning in which they collected multiple turnovers on the defensive side of the ball themselves and had several sacks. So it’s not like their defense uh by DVOA probably even measured up that poorly against the Bengals. So they they’ve played some top defenses so far this year. That has something to do with the results. It’s not like it gets easier though. The Packers are one in DVOA for defense. They’re a couple weeks away. Denver is one of the lower and I think everyone thinks they’re better than this number. I think they were like 13th or 14th by DVOA, but they have a very very good defensive front and obviously the defensive player of the year at cornerback. Not like that gets easier. Detroit maybe is the the quoteunquote easiest defense this team will see in the first six games of the season. And uh well, I think that’s a pretty well coached unit. That being said, that’s not really an excuse for the performance that we’ve seen from this team. When you have that approach to a game, you would think that it would look like you have practiced these plays before in some cases, especially in the run game. What other easy buttons did the Bengals try to use early? Was there anything that we saw different from them in the passing game before this thing got out of hand that you thought that’s a nice wrinkle that they put in for Jake Browning to try to take some of the load off his plate mentally? Main one would just be the play action keeper stuff. I think they tried a couple of those and uh didn’t work too well. The bizarre thing on one of them and this was a completed pass to Noah Fant. I don’t remember how long it went for. He took forever to get the ball to Fant. like he’s sitting wide open in the flat and this is where like you don’t have an offensive performance this bad without everybody having some level of stink like Browning was just off like and I you know you see the two picks but it’s more than that like by not getting the ball to Fant earlier on that keeper well now he can’t gain yards after the catch and that’s one of Noah Fan’s best attributes as a tight end be getting yards after the catch same with the other play he ends up getting that first down but Browning puts it high and inside he has to jump and contort his body to catch it. It’s like if we get that down, he can run f. He can turn to a runner faster. So, a couple of the easy buttons like those keepers ended up kind of being a detriment because Browning didn’t even he missed the easy button. He he missed pressing the easy button. So, we have issues along the offensive line. You have a quarterback. You got Jamar Chase putting the ball on the ground. You got Chase Brown putting the ball on the ground. You got Sam Peran putting the ball on the ground. You got Noah Fan putting the ball on the ground. You got Cam Grandandy putting the ball on the ground. I feel like I should never have to say putting the ball on the ground five times in a row about different guys. And yet that’s part of the problem too. And and that’s not something you scheme up obviously, but accentuates the errors where you go from a potential 1017 game to a 3 to 24 game to very quickly a 30 something to three game at halftime due to a comedy of errors in a few plays. obviously ignoring how badly the plan went and how badly it was executed. If you turn the ball over five times, including three times in four plays, that’s what a game is going to look like. I think that point has been made by Zack Taylor, by other observers of this football game. But the the concerning thing when you take a step back and you look at the film again and you think about what we’ve seen from this team through the first three weeks, Mike, that I want to get to next is There’s there are these trends in the run game in particular that are making the Bengals so easy to defend. Even if Joe Burrow were out there, I think this would be pretty tough right now with the state of the Bengals run game. Maybe the run game actually performs a little bit better with Burrow. I I think there’s an argument that everything could be like just a touch better if you still had your quarterback that makes your team go, which is contrary to what a lot of people were saying last week. We tried to when we talked last week talk about how there’s just a run game issue with this team and that played out this week. So, let’s talk about what went wrong. We’ll do that as we continue the discussion and dissection of this offense with the caveat that it’s only one game. 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Get the favorites you love or be bold and try something new in store and online at fiveour energy.com or Amazon today. Like let’s talk about just how wrong it went and and let’s start with the running game because we’ve had three games now and the Bengals are by far the worst rushing offense in the NFL. They just had their worst rushing performance in the NFL as the worst rushing offense in the NFL. What trends have you noticed that were kind of accentuated in this game? and what was new and like what are they throwing at the wall and why is it not working? All right. Uh so we start with what’s new. They went to wide zone. They went to some wide zone. Uh and it looked like it had never been repped by this team. Um and perhaps it had not because it has been a few years since that was a primary staple of this offense, but they went under center, they went pistol, they tried to work horizontally in the wide zone system. And then you think about knowing your personnel. I got Orlando Brown, uh Ted Carris, and uh Dalton Rise. Will this work? The answer was no. Um they tried that power play that they used to run with Eric all in different ways. Either under center, but it’s the same idea. Motion the one tight end, have him kick out the end, and have the other tight end come through and get the backer to back power. Well, uh that was a disaster, too. And really, it’s bizarre to see an NFL offense have this many missed assignments in week three and then also botched assignments. I think you just had both going it was haywire. It went haywire. And that this because they tried to establish the run and be a run first team to try to protect Browning, it really put the problems to the forefront. A lot of times with Burrow, they’re really just running inside zone duo. Maybe a little bit of fun, something fun here or there, like that draw play where he fakes it and hands it off, but they’re really running some simple concepts and keeping it easy on this offensive line in terms of the run game. Now, they’re going to try to diversify, run power, run C. They didn’t run counter, but run power, run duo, wide zone, inside zone, try to do all these different tags to it. And it didn’t work because the offensive line just got manhandled. tight ends got manhandled and I hate to say this as a Cam Grandandy supporter, but there’s a play of power that he’s at fault for because he gets dominated by the defensive end. And then Drew Sample on the kickout block doesn’t get any movement on that kickout block. So the tight ends are not fully absolved here, but the offensive line just looked horrid in these run blocking situations. There’s two play I can’t remember an NFL game where I saw two different plays where the offensive line didn’t block the nose tackle in the A gap. that. Not that they couldn’t, they just didn’t. Not by design, right? Like these were not gone the wrong way. It’s not it was And that kind of makes me think like where was the wham and the trap and the counter. I guess you just run out of time because they tried running it first on four or five drives maybe on first downs that they were they were trying this early down run stuff. It didn’t work at all. But maybe that’s just not enough time. if nothing’s working to get to the trap, the wham. I mean, they they maybe ran one draw play. Maybe it wasn’t even a draw play. I thought Sam Pine’s 12- yard run was was a draw play out of their own end zone, but you you called it duo, I think, or or inside zone, actually. Inside zone. Yeah, they just they’re making they’re making room for the punter, and that was the best run they’ve had all year. What What about Chase Brown? Because I think that I I want to be clear about this. I I feel like even Zack when he was talking about the run game kind of absolved his running backs. I I know that Sama had a fumble, Chase Brown had a fumble. You obviously can’t fumble the ball if you’re you’re going to be relied upon as a running back. And so that aside, are they missing things or is this like missed assignments from the blockers, guys getting blown up as blockers, guys getting run around as blockers? It’s mostly the blocking. I I can’t really blame Chase Brown too much. I actually I think the only time I wrote down u an actual misre misread was a Sam Per Ryan run oddly enough where I felt like he went the center gets blown back a little bit but he does establish leverage and he goes against that leverage and goes for like a three- yard game where if he was able to get around him could have been I don’t know six, seven, eight yards. I don’t know how fast Sam can get through there, but uh Chase Brown, I didn’t really write anything bad down because it felt like he really took the brunt of the offensive line’s worst plays. Both plays that they didn’t block the nose tackle. It was Chase Brown back there that had to had to take him on. I mean, the one play that nobody cares. It looks like an Oklahoma drill. It looks like they lined them up, had the fans on the side and try to just see who would win, the nose tackle or Chase Brown. Pretty devastating. Don’t run Oklahoma drills in NFL games. That’s not That’s not the goal. There’s a reason the teams don’t use the Oklahoma drill in practices anymore. It doesn’t really replicate a whole lot of uh game situations. What can be fixed in this run game? Obviously, you would expect guys to know their assignments a little bit better and try to block the nose tackle, but there are number of plays that feature the entire interior offensive line on running plays where they’re trying to get downhill getting blown two, three yards into the back field by a defensive line that, yeah, there’s some guys on that defensive line that are good players and Jaylen Redmond, I think, maybe chief among them in in this game in particular, but this is not a defensive line that is, you know, quote unquote run deep hill like we’ve talked about that the Bengals approach with some of their moves on the defensive line and the way they’re approaching the game in the trenches on defense and yet you’re seeing guys trying to run block getting blown two, three yards into the back field instead of like worst case should be a stalemate, right? Worst case you you should be not generating that vertical movement that you’re looking for as an offensive line. They’re getting blown into the backfield. And when it’s multiple guys on one play, it really makes me wonder how fixable it is within this year given the guys they have available to them. One of my favorite clinics, to bring it up, was Howard Mud doing Inside Zone in the 90s. Here we go. Clinic of the week. Howard zone. Inside zone. Cool clinic. Don’t know what year. It’s like 98. He’s in a bright yellow shirt. And uh rest in peace Howard. But what he talked about, and I’ve always thought about this, is in the NFL, you really, unless you have a Larry Allen, you’re not going to create a ton of knock back and just blast these holes wide open. What you’re looking for are ways to get into an advantageous stalemate where you’ve got your butt in the right spot. You’re able to give the running back a clean read. You’re not blowing that guy off the ball, but you’re not getting blown back. You create that stalemate between force and then you move to position yourself into leverage. I think that’s what they need to do because there’s not a Larry Allen on this offensive line. They need to be able to find a way to just at least get into a spot where the running back can read and get to the second level. Just get your butt in the right place, not get blown back. I don’t know if that’s all physical. The main play I think of is that one Ted Carris gets knocked like four yards back on the snap and then Dylan Fairchild also gets knocked to the ground at the same time. And that’s another one of those Chase Brown, he did nothing wrong. Like what are you supposed to do? Two defensive tackles are right there. Like you need to be able to They don’t reset the line of scrimmage and they won’t with this unit. But they can’t let the defense reset the line of scrimmage on these plays, which is what happened repeatedly in this game. That’s just something you’re a professional. When when when Mud said we don’t get those because we don’t have Larry Allen. Like the defense also isn’t supposed to be able to do that every play unless they have Aaron Donald. And credit to Redmond 61 I believe, but he should not have looked like Aaron Donald uh on Sunday, but he sure did. And I think that is just like take some pride in your work. I know they don’t rep this stuff a ton. You think of all the install that they do that’s all pass game. They want their they want to, you know, build the offense around Joe Burrow that way. But these guys do know these plays. Like you can’t tell me Ted Caris, a what 10-year vet or something, doesn’t know how to run inside zone or doesn’t know how to run these concepts. Like he knows like at at some point it becomes players need to take pride in what they do and go out there and even if the game stinks and even if like you’re getting blown out, you need to be able to show that you can do this. and they didn’t on Sunday. But I think that’s just a player thing. Like you can’t get blown back like that. Just have some pride. Have some pride. Grard Redmond and a fellow named Levi Drake Rodriguez who is starting for the first time in in a not starting getting getting rotation for the first time this year as a secondyear player with the Minnesota Vikings. All had apparently excellent days with numerous run stops blowing plays up. Redmond was noticeable. Grenard was certainly noticeable in Orlando Brown’s worst game of the season. It was very ugly for the Bengals up front. That’s just in the run game. Let’s talk about the impact on the passing game. Let’s talk about what was different this week in the run game that made it worse because it was worse and it’s not been good this year, but it was noticeably worse in this game. I don’t know if we’re going to get to the defense, Mike, as this offense is a disaster that needs to get fixed sooner than later, lest it turn into a very ugly death spiral this season. We’ll continue the conversation on this offense, this running game, what went wrong in the pass game, and how the impacts are intertwined coming up next. The NFL season firmly underway at this point and things are not going so well for the Bengals after three weeks, even though they’re two and one. But FanDuel can help you get ready for kickoff with this can’t miss offer regardless of what’s going on with the Bengals. That offer is when you make your first $5 bet with FanDuel and that bet wins. You’ll get $300 in bonus bets to use anywhere on the FanDuel app. $300 in bonus bets if your first $ five dollar bet wins. And FanDuel is great because it’ll fit any way you like to bet. Whether it’s player props, whether it’s the same game parlay or live betting as the game unfolds. You think you see the way things are going in the first half, you want to get into some second half bets, FanDuel has those options for you. It’s quick, it’s easy, and it’s accessible over at fanuel.com, making every game more exciting. If you get in on the action, again, you can bet $5 and if that bet wins, you can get $300 in bonus bets. Maybe you’re looking at that seven and a half point line for the Bengals against the Broncos on Monday Night Football and you feel away about it. Well, there’s your opportunity to get in. Download the FanDuel app right now. You can check it out at fanuel.com as well. You can get started there. That’s fuel.com to place your first $5 bet. Mike, what was different this week in the running game? Was it just the violence with which the Vikings played? Was it that they just don’t know how to run wide zone and it was just maybe too much for them in a week, but they tried it anyway? What What were your biggest takeaways as why it was so much worse this week than an already bad performance from this unit in the run game has been this year? Yeah, I think the wide zone and the power don’t help things. I think the other part is they tried to make it the forefront of the game plan. So, it was front and center instead of being in the background. And then three, Brian Flores is a chaos creator as a defensive coordinator. He’s a guy that tries to dictate things for the offense, not the other way. Doesn’t react to how the offense plays. I think there’s certain coordinators that go both ways. Um, and I think Flores is always going to do what he does for better or worse, which is weird because Bellich to me was a guy that I’m going to adapt to the offense I’m facing. Well, as the chaos creator, it worked too because it’s not just the physical ability, the technical ability, and the missed assignments. But part of missing those assignments was that they were bringing a lot of blitzes. They’re playing funky fronts. They were bringing a lot of stunts. And when you’re trying to rep wide zone, for example, and they’re going to run a threeman stunt where two guys go out and another one loops inside, do you think the team that doesn’t rep wide zone knows what to do in that scenario? Probably not. like you have to hang back, pass those guys off like it’s pass protection and then be able to push them, displace them horizontally, but instead they’re just like, I’m blocking my guy. And then the third guy that comes around, Omarius Mintz is trying to chase and people are going to blame him for that, but really he can’t do anything. What’s he supposed to do? He’s he takes his outside step and starts working that way and the guy’s going the other way. Like you need to be able to pass things off. That guy’s a better athlete. That’s just these defensive ends are better athletes than the offensive tackles. That’s why they need to be technically stronger. So, I think I think the chaos of a Brian Flores defense really played into it as well. That’s why I’m not gonna say the run game will be good. I don’t even think it’ll be average or even passable, but it might look a little bit better this week because I don’t think Denver does as much. They’ll just get there’s a difference between missed assignments and getting your butt kicked and just getting your butt kicked. They might just get their butt kicked this week or maybe they’ll surprise me, but I’m assuming they they get their butt kicked this week, but it won’t be we let the nose tackle for the second time in one game. We let that linebacker just go through and kill the running back. like I don’t think that’ll happen as much this week, but that’s part of all these missed assignments and why it looks so bad was Brian Flores is also a chaos agent. And part of why I talked about the defenses the Bengals have played so far this year. We just saw what the Cleveland Browns did against the Green Bay Packers who looked like Super Bowl favorites going into week three and now there, you know, there’s clouds of doubt over Green Bay’s team success possibilities after you lose to the Cleveland Browns. the impact on the passing game though and again you talk about the defenses the Bengals have played doesn’t help but how does that go together for you Mike especially when we’re thinking about how this offense of Browning is using more play action than with Joe Burrow you’re turning your back to the defense a little bit at times you’re trying to run screen game a little bit more but the entire offense was bad it wasn’t just the run game and the run game got them behind the sticks and kind of doomed them as they started to find adjustments. They they when when they were driving to to score that field goal to try to make the game 1017 before the half, they did find some little things. It looked like they were starting to work in the pass game. But is it just that they were just behind the sticks the whole game or or what were the what were the passing game notes for you as you watched the Bengals trying to adapt with Jake Browning at quarterback? Despite destroying the Bengals run game to a level I hadn’t seen in a while, Flores also was respecting their abil like T. Higgins and Jamar Chase’s ability by playing too high over the top. And that’s also part of what makes it so kind of embarrassing the Bengals run game performance is that they weren’t even selling out. They weren’t even selling out to stop this run game. They’d rather stop the pass. They’d rather stop Jamar Chase Higgins and force either the run game or Browning to win throwing to F Giki Yos. So when you say that, it makes me think of something that a lot of fans are going to bring up and might might even be thinking right now like when you have when you have T and you have Jamar, shouldn’t you be able to use those guys anyway, even if teams are trying to take them away? Like maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s just you’re so bad at running the ball you can’t make them pay for those plays where they’re really selling out to stop Jamar and T. like shouldn’t these coaching staff be able to put these guys in positions to make more plays than we saw from them anyway? A lot of middlefield open beaters in this game. Um and one that Burrow doesn’t really run is a flat seven, which is smash, but instead of the outside guy hitching and the inside guy running a quarter corner, the outside guy runs the corner and the inside guy just runs fast to the flat. Um, they ran that probably three, four, I think four times in the game. Browning never threw it, but I assume he likes it. Uh, part of not throwing it is the offensive line. There were a couple plays that were like, “Okay, you just can’t do that.” But part of not throwing it was also he just would see it and didn’t feel comfortable throwing it. I don’t know if that’s a Browning thing or if that was maybe Taylor really likes that con liked that concept as a quarterback, likes that concept as a coach. Thought like, “Oh, I like doing this, so may Browning will probably find it easy, too. He’s better quarterback than I was and he just doesn’t like it. Uh they went to drive a few times which was the play that Browning probably his most impressive throw against Jacksonville other than like the go balls where he throws the deep one. He threw a pick this time. Uh he didn’t even look at the shallow. I think the shallow was Jamar Chase and he threw a pick trying to throw the deeper one. So that made me question the other one where I’m like maybe he just likes throwing the 12 yard in. Maybe because he never even looks at the shallow route. Um, so I don’t know. Those are some different dropback concepts they got to, but when the play action game didn’t work, the keepers didn’t work, the screen didn’t work, and the run game doesn’t work, that’s all you got. All you got left is your dropback stuff. And they tried a couple of different things. Like to me, Burrow is more of a sale guy. He likes sale. He likes uh wrap race, whatever you call that, with a little short stop route and then the in route behind it. And they didn’t really run those. So that made me take a little bit of notice of like, so they’re not running the burrow plays. The other part they didn’t run despite being middlefield open team and trying to run a bunch of middlefield open beaters, two high beaters, is they didn’t run Lion, the two double slant concept. That feels like a missed opportunity because I’ve seen Browning make that play. So, that one feels like I don’t know if they just got way behind early and just kind of tried to hurry up and figure out what play calls they would get to. But that felt like a missed opportunity because that’s a chance to get Jamar Chase on the run. That’s an easier throw and concept. It’s quick game. It’s easy on the offensive line, too. So, they’re moving to these fivestep, sevenstep concepts that I talked about, like the flat seven, like drive, and not working the quick game as much. So, that was a little bit surprising to me personally where I was thinking, I know quick game can be hard on quarterbacks, but Browning’s a vet, and Browning also has shown the ability to work quick game before. So, it’s a little surprising to not use it here against this chaos creating defense. Yeah. What would you change? You have you have a week to make some changes here. Are you making any personnel changes if it’s you? Are you thinking about any personnel changes along the offensive line? Are you thinking about any personnel changes anywhere else? Yeah, I’m thinking about Jaylen Rivers because I thought he played okay uh at times. I don’t think he was great, but I do think he wasn’t getting blown back. He was getting into the stalemate. So, if I can get a guy that is at least hitting that stalemate part, I feel like it’s easier to get him to start getting into the advantageous stalemate, too. Just get your get your leverage in the right spot than it is where Rynner was getting blown back. So, it’s kind of hard to go like, well, I need you to first get to the stalemate portion of this and then we can work on getting you to an advantageous position, too. So, I think about making that change. And the other one is Ted Cares is a real big concern right now. I think it’s three straight weeks and it’s not even the highest quality of competition. He has not really faced like premier nose tackles yet throughout this year. So, I’m wondering what’s going on because it’s three bad games in a row where when does that lease end and Matt Lee gets the nod to get a shot? Because his athleticism, his uh he’s he probably not getting blown back the same way. it might not be as good communication wise, but the communication stinks right now against these stunts and twists. So, if that’s the calling card for Caris is things are going to look right. They don’t look right. So, I I I wonder about bringing in Matt Lee, too. I think Orlando and Mims and Fairchild, they’re pretty set. You’re kind of working those guys. I would also keep Grandandy activated and try it again because if the run game doesn’t work against Denver, that stinks. But that is something that could really help you. And the only feasible run offense I can think of for them is the sample Grandandy combo. Maybe Grandandy Fant. So you get a guy a little more athletic in the F spot and just have Granny be the Y. But those are a couple of personnel changes I’d think about. The running back stuff I think is overblown. Like Chase Brown to me is a good back. I think he was I think he’s still the best back in this group. If they’re getting really destroyed, yeah, it is nice to have a Taj or P rhyme to be able to just fall forward, but if you’re at that point, the run game is not going to help you in this in a game. Yeah. To the point that it’s a detriment. It’s making them easier to defend when you can stay too high and take away the guys on the outside and just beat the numbers advantage. like plays where you have a clear plus one or even plus two in in the numbers game and you’re still getting blown up for no gain or minimal gains. A lot needs to change with this offense. And I think one of the more disappointing things for three weeks, Ted Carrison and Daltton Risner, just a falloff, a year-to-year falloff. Like I know that sometimes these things happen and they catch us off guard and we say there’s a cliff and you can’t see it. you’re walking through the fog and and the end of that cliff is coming at some point. I don’t know if that’s the case for these guys. Would love to see them bounce back. But if that’s the case with Risner, especially Risyner, it’s another case of them trying to get a guy who has had some solid, you know, average plus years and then you just see this precipitous falloff happen when you get to Cincinnati. But this year for the entire offensive line outside of maybe Amarius, you know, Dylan Fairchild has been a little bit up and down. Amaria still can’t run block or hasn’t been able to produce in the running game. Everyone’s a little bit worse this year. And so, you know, you start to ask those questions as well because everything on this offense, Burrow or not, Burrow, looks looks worse right now. Also, fair to remember as we’re closing up here, Browning had games like this against Pittsburgh in 2023 and then he had Superman games on the other sides of those Pittsburgh games. So, we’ll see the next few weeks. The the difference then might have been the the quality of competition that he faced those years versus the quality of competition this year. Bengals are just coming out against a bunch of defenses that are really good this year and offense around the league is down in 2025 so far. So, just some context to keep in mind for those of you that made it all the way to the end here. We appreciate y’all for checking out this episode of the Lock On Bengals podcast. A film review episode that we do every week here, even after a bad one. You can find Mike’s work at benglestock.com where he’ll do his film review articles every week. You can find him on Twitter at Bengals_ands and maybe he’ll start posting his uh coaching clinics of the week so you can find the link to the Howard Mud video on YouTube. Until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast. Who day and have a good

Zac Taylor’s offense looked worse than it ever has in his Bengals career against the Minnesota Vikings, and it didn’t get better on film. Jake Liscow is joined by Mike Santagata to break down what the Bengals were trying to accomplish, and all the reasons it went wrong. Plus, we discuss what they can try to do to get things moving in the right direction.

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