New York Jets vs. Cincinnati Bengals Preview & Prediction | PFF

New York Jets vs. Cincinnati Bengals Preview & Prediction | PFF

your New York Jets traveling to Cincinnati take on the Cincinnati Bengals. You’re gonna be in the house for this one, right? You’re going you’re actually you’re actually going to this game. I’m going to see it in person. Where do you want to start here? You want to start talking about the Jets or you want to talk about the Bengals? Um I’ll talk about the Bengals defense, which I know a lot of people in this town don’t love talking about. There are some things going well though, at least one. and a and a group that I think has been pretty impressive and one player specifically DJ Turner, their cornerbacks have actually been pretty solid. The Bengals actually both of these teams are tied for 26 this year in coverage grade, but the Bengals issues are a lot more over the middle of the field with all their shuffling at linebacker and the safeties haven’t been great. The quarterbacks as a group have not been that bad. DJ Turner has been the best among them. He’s got six pass breakups and an interception over the last three weeks. As a unit, they’re actually fifth among all cornerback units in coverage grade. You’ve got DJ Turner, Cam Taylor, Britt, Dax Hill in the slot has been solid. Um Josh Newton works in the rotation there as well. 12th in yards per reception allowed. Six and forced incompletion rate. They get to the football. They got a lot of size and competitiveness in that room. And I think DJ Turner is trying to establish themselves as the number one guy here. And you look at a Jets team and their passing game. Look, they’re 29th in the league in receiving grade. And that’s with Garrett Wilson and Bruce Hall mixed in. Garrett Wilson may not play again. Right now, we have no idea who’s playing quarterback for the Jets because it sounded like Justin Fields was going to be on the outs for the starting job. Now, Tyrod Taylor’s got a knee injury that he’s dayto-day with. Who knows if we’ll see either of them or if it’ll be Brady Cook or somebody else. And if none of them have Garrett Wilson, I don’t think it’s all that relevant. Anyway, we saw the Panthers corners this past week shut down these Jets wide receivers. When you talk about Josh Reynolds and Tyler Johnson and Alen Lazar, these guys just aren’t prime time threats in the same way that Garrett Wilson is. So I think you know the the Bengals corners might have an advantage across the board anyway. Even if Wilson does play at less than 100% but if Wilson is out this unit actually has a chance to dominate this game. I am focused solely on how the Bengals defend the run because one I I did not know that that Tyrod Taylor was sort of up in the air here. I was thinking that like okay Tyrod Taylor’s going to start and you’re going to kind of get that bump because Tyrod’s actually going to pass the ball. um and be willing to pass the ball in ways that Justin Fields just has been gunshy to do. So, so with that being the case, I figured that they will Tyrod’s not going to light the world on fire, right? He’s not going to throw for over 300 yards, I don’t think, but he’s going to at least give you something in the pass game to complement the run game because the Jets, a big part of the Jets problem is the fact that they are one-dimensional as one-dimensional gets. like every single team that they have faced is truly selling out to defend the run because they are not afraid of what Justin Fields is going to be as a passer from a consistency standpoint. And then certainly the more gunshy he has gotten, they’re not even worried about the passing attempts really at all, giving extra attention to the coverage unit. So to me, I felt as though Tyron Taylor being back out there and at least throwing the ball with a little bit more regularity was going to alleviate some of the stack boxes and just aggressiveness that they have that other teams have been able to have against the run. The Bengals specifically though over the last three weeks, Dalton, on the defensive side of the football, they are 28th in APA per rush allowed. They are 28th in team rush defense grade. They are 28th in average depth of tackle and they are 25th at total missed tackles against the run. They have not been good against the run. And if the Jets are able to start Tyrod Taylor, I actually think that they’re going to get the bump here. Like I think that they’re going to get the backup quarterback coming in. You get the bump there. There’s a little bit of rejuvenation. People are a little bit more fired up. They’ve got faith in Tyrod Taylor to at least attempt the passes that you need him to attempt in order to win football games. If Tyrod starts in this game, I’m gonna go Jets upset. I’m gonna say the Jets win this one 20 to 17. I think it’s going to be close. Um, but the the way that I look at it as well is with as much success as the Bengals had last week against press because the Steelers pressed him a lot. I’m ju I just can’t in all good consciousness tell you that Joe Flacco is going to have that type of a game again where he’s just gonna kind of throw it up there and somebody’s gonna get it. Like Jamar Chase is going to get it. He’s going to come down with it. And that’s not Jamar Chase Slander in any way, shape, or form, but I don’t think it’s going to look as good as it did last week versus press coverage the way that it did for the Bengals against the Steelers. And because of that, I think that they’re going to be less potent, you know, on offense, less points on the scoreboard. And I really do think that they could struggle to defend the run in a way where the Jets actually get to open the door and do what they want to do in this game. So again, if Tyrod Taylor starts, I’m going to take the Jets in this one. But if if Tyrod’s not starting in this game, uh I do think that the Bengals win just because I I can’t trust the Jets with Justin Fields at quarterback. Um I I mean, I don’t think I can trust him either way, especially if they don’t have Garrett Wilson. I just don’t think there’s any viable options on the outside. And then you talk about again these teams are loading up to stop the run. And then and last week against Carolina, the Jets after a while just chose to stop running the football. They only ran it 15 times the entire game by design. So um that’s one issue. The other one is on the offensive side like you mentioned that that press coverage um and the and the Jets use a lot of man coverage in Aaron Glenn’s system is Sauce Gardner’s in concussion protocol and it’s really 50/50 if he’s going to play. If he doesn’t play against Jamar Chase and T Higgins and you’re talking about Brandon Stevens and Aaria Thomas against those two on the outside, then the Bengals are at obviously a huge advantage more than they usually are, right? So, I like the Bengals in this game. I think Joe Flacco’s brought the stability they were looking for. And this Jets team is just embroiled in so much, really controversy right now with Woody Johnson’s comments and Justin Fields and Tyrod Taylor and who knows who’s starting at quarterback now. 24-9 Cincinnati.

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

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