Film Takes: Bengals Offense SOARS Behind Joe Flacco & Tee Higgins—Defensive Troubles Somehow DEEPEN

Film Takes: Bengals Offense SOARS Behind Joe Flacco & Tee Higgins—Defensive Troubles Somehow DEEPEN

The Cincinnati Bengals stayed rolling on offense against the Chicago Bears, but the defense continues its downward spiral. Let’s break down what the film tells us about each side of the ball against the Bears. You are Locked on Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. What up, Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Locked On Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On Network, your team every day. I’m Jake LCO, joined today by Mike Santaga, our weekly film guest for the first of a couple film episodes that we’ve got for you over the course of this by week. This one, we’re going back to the Chicago Bears game, talking about why the offense is still working and why the defense continues to look the same and miserable every week. Welcome back to everyone who makes locked on Bengals part of their everyday routine and those of you who make locked on Bengals your first list and we appreciate those of you who are sticking with us who are part of that every day club and well locked on Bengals is your one-stop shop online five days a week of coverage on YouTube anywhere you get your podcast all things Bengals all the time here as we’re revisiting the film today like I said and an episode brought to you by game time. Maybe you’re looking for something to do on Sundays that is to distract yourself from the Bengals. Maybe you’re just looking for tickets to the Bengals game. You can save $20 on your first purchase of tickets in the game time app with promo code locked on NFL. And Mike, while there is a lot of negative that we can talk about in the game against the Chicago Bears for the Cincinnati Bengals, most of that on the defensive side of the ball to be sure. There’s a lot going right for the Bengals offense in recent weeks on offense. And I know nobody really likes to hear people be terribly positive or there’s very few people that are here for positivity at this time of year, but I can’t help but be a little bit poetic about Joe Flacco. What T. Higgins did against the Chicago Bears was pretty phenomenal. And you know, Dylan Fairchild had what could be a breakout game. He had a really nice game that we’ll talk about over the course of the next couple of episodes. And the offense in general when Joe Flacco has been running the show for the Bengals has been one of, if not the best, depending on the metric you look at in the NFL as the Bengals once again scored 42 points and uh once again lost despite scoring an oversized number of points. But they’re doing it in different ways. And that’s interesting. The big difference between this week and last week, between the Bears game and the game that preceded it against the Jets is run game, pass game. this this week. Joe Flacco, bulky shoulder and all, flinging that thing and finding huge success in the passing game. Yeah, it’s one of those um situations where this old dog seen all the tricks. I mean, the Bears are trying to throw cover two at him because I mean in theory, good idea. Let’s if Jamar on one side and T on the other, let’s you know, let’s get a guy underneath that’s physical, can jam him. We’ll play a safety over the top so we’re safe there. and that didn’t that didn’t work because got high low don’t have inside outside in this scenario. So they’re able to win in those ways and also well sometimes they went away from that and when they got solo opportunities. Higgins especially I feel like made good on those. But also they tried some fire zones. They’re trying to throw some stuff at him, some a little bit exotic stuff and the ball’s just out quick. Like he’s seen this before. And I think back to I mean early in his career. You think about some of the stuff that gets thrown at him and he probably saw it from like a different look personnel wise, but maybe this like old Steelers defense early 2010s type of Steelers. He was like fire zone. Yeah. Yeah, Dick Leau was the the Fire Zone guy. He’s seen all those. It’s just accumulating all this experience over time. Makes it so that just it feels like nothing is really fooling him. And the only time that the pass game has really struggled is when a team will commit full resources of a safety and a corner locked in on Jamar Chase and T. Higgins like the Jets did and try to force him to win through anybody else because right now he’s he’s playing it’s no everybody’s got to eat with Joe Flacco. It’s uh I’ve got I’ve got two top dogs especially at some points he’s like I’ve I’ve got Jamar Chase and I’m just going to throw it to that guy if I have any opportunity I can. And you know his confidence in T. Higgins is growing after watching a couple of the catches that T. Higgins made in ridiculous coverage. One of which is like an absolute yolo ball from from Joe Flacco down the left sideline. I don’t think I still don’t think T. Higgins actually had eyes on the football when he caught it. There’s there’s a miked up going around. I thought it was T saying he couldn’t even see it, but it I think it was actually Tanner Hudson who you can hear in the background of the Jamar Chase miked up saying you couldn’t even see that uh expletive was the the full quote. But I mean just incredible game from T that we’ll get to as well. The other thing to slow down the Bengals in the past passing game is when Joe Flacco has been pressured on the upside, he hasn’t been pressured a ton with the Bengals both because he’s getting rid of the ball very quickly as time to throw is up there, but I think they are protecting better. The offensive line has figured some things out the last couple of weeks and some of that is the quality of the opponent and not facing a Brian Flores defense and some of that is some guys are just playing better. When Joe Flacco has been pressured though, the production really isn’t there. The bad interception that he threw, uh, targeting Chase Brown on the checkdown, a little bit hurried there to try to get rid of that ball, not finding a ton of production when he’s pressured. And against the Jets, just 2.9 yards per attempt when he was pressured. But on the other side, when he was clean, completing 75% of his passes for 12 yards per attempt, you absolutely take that level of productivity from Joe Flaca, who like you said is has seen it all, still has the arm talent, even if he just like doesn’t really have the mobility or or ability to to create at all. It was always pretty limited for Flaco. That just was never his game. and and whatever ability was there certainly diminished at this point with the Bengals. But it wasn’t just Jamar and T in this game either. And that’s kind of the the beautiful thing about this game where against the Jets when the Jets were dedicating all those resources to Jamar, they found success in the run game. In this game, it was Andre Yosv has a bit of a bounceback game collecting five catches on seven targets for 66 yards. still had, you know, a contested ball that he doesn’t end up coming down with, but and also had the play where he stepped out of bounds. Of course, that that could have been a touchdown. Had a Chase Brown drop in this game, but Chase Brown led the team in targets with 13 and went for 9.4 yards per catch, which is pretty good despite having that drop in in there. and the the other big plays to to Noah Ant to Tanner Hudson like this what and Mitch Tinsley like this was a game where like you said he doesn’t have to spread the wealth but the Bengals had seven players catchable and seven players with the catch it went for 20 plus yards. Yeah, I think the offense starts with the two on the outside and like you’re saying when the resources do get committed there, um I it got stopped against the Jets and the Bears rightfully also did commit the resources to try to stop this and yes, Yosphas won against Tyreek Stevenson who was having a pretty good year for them. Uh smoked him on that one release outside go caught it down the field. thinking of the fan up the seam. And I think the reason Chase Brown got so much work was also in part of why the run game worked is if you’re going to play over the top and stop these two receivers on the outside, it ends up kind of, you know, creating a lot of room underneath in the coverage if you’re going to be trying to stop the explosive plays to the two big guys. And even Andre Yosvas and Mitch Schindley were able to get some of those. So, it creates a bit of room underneath for those checkdowns. And it’s not even all checkdowns. Uh the play he dropped that might have been a huge gain, if not a touchdown, was uh like a mesh concept, which they haven’t run a ton of with Burrow. And I don’t know if that’s Burrow’s comfortability with mesh or maybe just maybe also look, I don’t care about running MSH if uh he’s got other ways to beat those coverages because they’re also not getting man coverage that much. And when he gets man coverage, he likes to go to Jamar T like most people probably would, but resources are getting committed against them. So, need to find another man winner and mesh is a good one. Gets the uh break in the coverage, dropped the ball. But it’s just these opportunities are provided for them because of what’s happening to the two big targets on the outside. Um I didn’t I did think that the Bengals run game was fine in this game, wasn’t it? You’d say so wasn’t terribly productive, but they didn’t go to it much either. They were having so much success throwing the ball. They were down in the second half for a lot of the game. And so, I mean, it wasn’t particularly effective, especially when Samaj Pan went down with injury. I think that losing that that bit of the one-two punch actually did uh diminish the running game a little bit and probably the coach’s willingness to go to it. But on that topic of coaches and and we we’ll get to the run game here against the Bears as well, which was a lower volume game for sure. But how much credit do we do we give the offensive coaching staff here for finding these solutions, finding ways to keep this offense going with Joe Flacco taking over and finding different ways to attack defenses and finding uh ways to adapt and evolve this offense again where we’re sick of talking about slow starts, but this offensive staff every year seems to find answers. So, we’ll talk about those answers that they found in the run game coming up next. We’re brought to you this week by Mint Mobile. If you’re still overpaying for wireless, it’s time to say yes to saying no at Mint Mobile. Their favorite word is no. No contracts, no monthly bills, no overages, no hidden fees, no BS. I said yes to making the switch and got premium wireless for just $15 a month. MIT makes it simple. All plans come with high-speed data and unlimited talk and text delivered on the nation’s largest 5G network. You can bring your own phone and even keep your same numbers, keep your contacts. That makes it really easy to switch and you get the same quality service that you had before for a fraction of the price with really easy setup where you keep your number and you’re up and going in minutes. So, if you’re ready to say yes to saying no, make the switch at mintmobile.comlockn. That’s mintmobile.comlockon NFL. An upfront payment of $45 is required, equivalent to $15 a month. Limited time new customer offer for the first three months only. Speeds may slow above 35 gigabytes on unlimited plan. Taxes and fees extra. See Mint Mobile for details. We’re also brought to you today by Game Time. With the NFL season back and well, if you’re looking to go to a Bengals game or not, the the home stand just ended. Maybe you’re looking for something to do over the course of the by-week. You want to get some tickets to an event. Well, avoid the hassle with Game Time where you can avoid the cues and the login screens and prices jumping at checkout and all the frustration that comes with it. It’s an app that gives the advantage back to you, the fans in game time. Game time is fast, easy, and backed by the game time guarantee, which means you’ll always get 100% authentic tickets delivered on time at the best price, and all fees are included. So, the price you see is going to be the price you pay. In just a couple of taps, you can get to the unbelievable deals with Game Time. Talking about Bengals games as low as $100. You’re talking about events in the Cincinnati area. So, all you have to do is download the Game Time app, create an account, and use code lockdown NFL. You get $20 off your first purchase of tickets. Terms apply. Again, that’s promo code len NFL for $20 off. Swipe tap ticket go download game time today. Mike, how much credit do the coaches get here for finding ways to find what by EPA per play has been the best offense in the NFL since Joe Flacco took over. Between the running game and finding answers in the passing game, finding ways to get Joe Flacco going, getting him up to speed on time, it’s been a pretty big achievement at least from the outside looking at. Yeah, I think what it seems like with Flaco is one, you’ve got competent level quarterback play, which they didn’t have with Browning. So, they’re able to I mean, you’re able to at least get the ball to Jamar Chase and T Higgins every game. I think that’s important, which was something that wasn’t happening with Browning. Um, to go with that, I do give the coaching staff a bit of credit because it feels like they’re breaking their own tendencies. It feels like they get into formations and motions and shifts that at least with Joe Burrow and previously with this team were tells. They were if we motion the wide receiver, the slot wide receiver right behind the tight end, they’re going to run duo. And in this game, they motion the slot wide receiver right behind the tight end. And then they run a jet sweep with him without using any motion for the jet sweep, which is interesting. It goes for like four yards. So it but it’s interesting, right? like those four yard plays end up being tendency breakers. Now you have to think about like okay so when they motion there they actually have a concept that can work to the weak side of this formation quickly and outside and then you can build play action off it. And I think of this too with the play where they motion a tight end all the way across the formation from one side to the other, stays in motion, and then when Joe Burrow was at quarterback and when Jake Browning was at quarterback, that play was always a run right behind that tight end. Some type of gap run that way. And then over the against the Steelers specifically, but even against the Jets too, they changed it into we’re going to run that motion to run wide zone the opposite way, which now we’ve got a play that goes the complete opposite direction. So they can’t slant, stunt, blitz, whatever to that strong side and create a pile up and make it difficult to run. So, I I think there’s more thought and care into in the run game right now than there has been in the past because it just feels like they’re looking at what are our tendencies and how can we break them when teams are going to cheat against them. And I think that along with that you have the play action game which with Joe Flacco has been pretty successful. It’s only 28 dropbacks. 15% of Joe Flacco’s drop backs with the Bengals on play action plays. 6% of Joe Joe Flacco’s drop backs with the Bengals have been screen plays. And they’ve obviously had a lot more success with package plays, run pass options where Flaco is pulling the ball on run plays, getting it quick to Jamar Chase on the perimeter where he might have a numbers advantage. But what about the play action game, Mike? That that feels like it’s one of the more successful bits of the transition with Joe Flacco taking over at quarterback. Yeah. Well, one, he’s good at it. Uh that’s he grew up in an era from under center and that’s where the package plays come into play where a lot of current quarterbacks don’t run those. You see Aaron Rogers throw those. You see Joe Flacco throw those. And I’m hardressed to find other guys that get under center, maybe Jared Goff, but get under center, get the ball, it’s clearly a run play, and they just flip it out to the wide receiver before ever having a chance to get back there and hand it off. So that plays into it. But also, I think he he comes from an era of play action, not having my eyes on the defense, finding little ways to cheat that. Like, okay, take a long look at the defense on a play action play when I get this snap and then go back just so I can maybe see if the safety rotate. Can I watch that weak safety? Does he go back? Does he rotate down? Do they stay flatfooted? And then I’m going to have a good idea in my head to map the field and know where guys will most likely be when I flip my head back around on a play action play from under center. There has been plenty of play action as well from shotgun. I think in this uh offense, it’s still to me been quite a bit of shotgun in the offense because I think if you get really reductive with the analysis, I think some people just say, “Oh yeah, they’re going under center more.” It’s like, but the shotgun stuff’s interesting too, right? like they’re they’re doing stuff from shotgun that’s working as well. The run game is working really well from shotgun and because of that the play action game’s working a bit. They’re pooling guys in this play action game as well to try to give false reads to the linebackers. It just feels like there is now that Burrow’s not at quarterback, they’re putting more thought not just in the run game, like I was talking about thought and care in the run game, but also to the play action game. And also, let’s know your personnel, KY of what does Joe Flacco do well and what does he not do extremely well. So, they’re not asking him to do things he’s not as good at. And you do see concepts that we haven’t seen. We talked about mesh, but it’s when burrows in there, it feels like you get more sail, you get more sail concept. You get more of like flood, three-level flood concepts and drive, a twole intermediate field concept. And I haven’t seen those as much with Joe Flacco, but Joe Flacco has other concepts. He’s more adept at running. They’re both really good, and it could be testament to our series. Both like running Dragon and Lion and slant concepts. just get those guys the ball on slants or on go routes. It feels like Joe Flacco kind of likes an outside receiver running out routes a little bit more. I think Joe Burrow throws those too, but it just feels like that’s a major part especially against the Steelers is a major part of the Jamar Chase game was yeah just just running out. just go beat that guy and it’s isolation and you see Joe Bro run those plays but it’s just what is the frequency and it feels like they do a good job of tailoring the offense to Joe Flacco specifically and not asking him to run the Joe Burrow offense even if he is in the shotgun even if it is still a spread football team they are able to put a little more thought and care in the run game and the play action and then knowing Flaco like what do you really like to run pass conceptwise and putting implementing those for him I Wonder how much of this is stuff that they would have gotten to with Joe Burrow at quarterback. I don’t think that there’s any way to know that. Maybe if we see Joe return later this year, we’ll see how the offense changes or doesn’t change significantly depending on what’s working, what’s not working. I think another thing that’s really been impressive with Joe Flacco is a touch on some of the passes that he’s thrown, especially last week. The ball to uh Tanner Hudson on the left sideline, the goal line fade ball to Jamar Chase, which Jamar wasn’t able to bring down. should have been a touchdown, wasn’t a touchdown, and the the ball to Andre Yosvash on the right side, even even the ball to T, which is very tight to the sideline. The the amount of of touch that he’s putting on some of his deep passes has been really impressive. That in the last note that I have, I mentioned the 15% play action rate with Joe Flacco. Before Joe Burrow uh stopped playing quarterback for the Bengals this year, they were at 18% for him through a a game and a half or so. So, it’s not like they weren’t using it at all with with Joe Burrow. It’s not like this is a new thing entirely with with Joe Flack with Jake Browning. They were 22% play action, but he was just terrible in those situations, putting the ball in harm’s way, only six yards per attempt on those plays, which is the same as the noplay action plays for for Flacco. You see a slight uptick in overall uh yards per attempt and taking care of the ball much better on on play action plays. And like you said, it’s just like there’s more thought and care that seems to be put into it. And so as a result, you get better results. And I do wonder how much of that would still be the case with Joe Burrow out there. I wonder how many of these things we would be seeing if Joe were still at quarterback because there’s all invariably when the offense performs well when Joe Burrow is out. We saw this with Jake Browning a couple years ago, people start talking about, well, what’s Joe Burrow doing? Like why can’t Joe Burrow do the things that Joe Flacco is doing? The answer is that he probably can and he does get rid of the ball very quickly and we just don’t know how different it would look with Joe Burrow out there. Unfortunately, the defense makes all of this kind of moot as they continue their downward spiral. Everything continues to get worse and there’s not a whole lot new to say and that’s maybe the more most frustrating thing about this defense. We’ll finish the show there coming up next. This episode of Lockdown Bengals is brought to you by Prize Picks. You and I make decisions every day. The Bengals made decisions at the trade deadline. But on prize picks, being right can get you paid. I’d say that’s also true for the Bengals in terms of ticket sales. But let’s put that behind us. You don’t have to miss any of the excitement on sports. Whether you’re following the NFL or whether you’re checked out of the NFL, you need the NBA or or any other sport. No better time to get in on the action if you haven’t tried it yet. Prize picks is the simplest way to play. Just pick more or less on at least two player stats, and if you get them right, you win. It takes less than 60 seconds to make your lineup and you can play anywhere Prize Picks operates including California, Texas, and Georgia. There’s a new stacks feature on Prize Picks this season. It’s a game changer. You pick more or less. For example, on Steph Curry’s points, three-pointers, and assists in the same lineup, and there’s injury protection. The injury reboot feature will save your lineup from a loss if one of your players leaves early with an injury. Download prize picks today and use code locked on NFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup. That’s code locked on NFL for $50 in lineups after your first $5 lineup with prize picks. It’s good to be right. Unfortunately, the defense um this is much of the same story we’ve talked about in recent weeks, Mike. We’ve got coverage defenders that don’t seem to be in the right place at the right time. You’ve got slow processing from individual players in terms of reacting to where a run is going or what angle they should be taking or how they should take on a block or when the quarterback is getting ready to throw the ball and you need to stick your foot in the ground and break downhill or finding the ball in the air at times or not really knowing how the offense is trying to attack you or just simply missing tackles or being out of position to even attempt a tackle at times. And you’ve got Al Golden saying he couldn’t make it any simpler. Yet the defense continues, as you would expect after they did what they did against the Jets, who are one of the worst offenses in the NFL, to get worse. The Bears, while they have their strengths on offense, were not entering this game as an offensive powerhouse. They were down to running backs three and four. And it didn’t matter. I don’t think it matters at all who’s playing running back for the Bengals opponent the way they’re playing right now. Why is it the same thing, Mike? Why is it the same every single week? Why? I guess that’s my my basic question. Why can’t anything seem to improve on that side of the ball? It’s never going to improve. While guys aren’t going to do fundamental things, right? And like comes down to tackling. And you see the way they try to tackle, none of it’s teach tape. None of it is the effort required to make those tackles. It’s leaving their feet, diving at guys, and praying for the most part. And that’s how you end up with like five different guys in the top 10 of missed tackles on the entire season, but it shows up in this game. And every week it shows up. It’s not like there was one bad game that you could point to for these guys. It’s like, well, that’s why the missed tackle rate’s so high. It’s every week they go out there, they miss three or four and they also can seems like some of them are going to have a few plays where they’re going to take a terrible angle and not even have a chance to miss the tackle. I think to go with that, they’re not physical. It’s just a defense that’s not very physical, too. Where if they were a physical defense that tackled well and they just lost because, you know, they’re just not as good, it wouldn’t be historically bad, right? Like we’ve seen plenty of defenses not have the talent on paper but be able to put up at least something that looks like an NFL defense because this to me, especially in like the fourth quarter of this game, felt like what I imagine a college defense would look like against an NFL offense where they get the ball back with a minute left to win the game and like, yeah, we’ll win the game and we’ll have time to spare. Uh it’s it’s tough. Uh it it just felt like the Bears could score at will. It feels like when other teams run against this Bengals defense. I mean I think it’s above five yards a carry like you’re not seeing third down by virtue of just running the ball and that should never be the case. So they can’t stop the run. They’re a bend but don’t break defense philosophy right now. I feel like which is part of like well we can’t make things simpler as well. It’s like well let’s just spot drop into split field and try to keep everything in front of us or maybe cover three at time. They’re not playing like tight man coverage and getting beat that way. They still give up. They don’t have guys in the right place processing awareness-wise. Understanding that in spot spot drop zone coverages, you still have other things you have to do such as reroute guys, get physical, get hands on guys as they go up the scene so that you can disrupt route timings and distribution and try to move guys, funnel them to each other and into your help. It doesn’t feel like they understand that too well. It feels like when you watch a great defense, you know, they’ve it’s 22 eyes but with one brain. They’re all moving as a collective hive mind. The Bengals feel very individually brain to me. It feels like every defender is doing their own thing and it doesn’t feel like they’re playing team defense very well. It feels like the second level and they try to avoid blocks more than take them on because they don’t really want to go take on that block. They’d rather, well, I’m just going to cut around the backside and go make the play. as an offensive lineman, you cut around the backside of my block while I’m on a crack toss or something. You took yourself out of the play and I just had to take a jog and get a plus get a plus one. Like, good job. You took your defender out of the play cuz he just ran around you the wrong way. And that’s not Patrick Willis, so he’s not going to go make the play. It’s It’s bizarre. And it feels like there’s just no help for it because they’re not What can you do as a coach? It feels like it at this point it’s players need to be held accountable for how they’re playing. And if you’re going to do things like not make the not make tackles, take bad angles, just not do little things, right? It feels like that you need to be held accountable. And there’s plenty of guys that you could look at and go, “Hey, if you’re not going to be physical, I’ve got a guy on the roster that can be physical.” Do they? I don’t know. Maybe. Well, that guy’s probably hungrier, right? Like, is that an empty threat? I mean, you got Dejan Anthony tweeting about, you know, I’ll do anything to play and wants to get on the field. DJ somebody. Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. Those two will hit somebody. Orin Burks will go play the run. He’ll he’ll at least be physical. It’s They’ve got guys I feel like that might at least be phys because these guys aren’t playing so well with anything else that they’re going like, “Well, I know he’s not physical, but look at the coverage that these guys are bringing.” It’s like that’s not there either. What what gets me is the consistent I you talk about guys playing individual in these spot drop coverages like consistently guys not getting enough depth in the second level or too much depth in the third level passing off routes that shouldn’t be passed off that should be carried. It’s just like stuff that seems so simple. So when I hear Al Golden and I I start to be a little bit sympathetic to Al Golden as we talk about it and we think about how this defense has played week to week like if this is truly as simple as he can he can make it and they and they can’t handle anything more than this and they can’t even execute this stuff when you’re when you’re calling a ton of six and three and in the back end and there’s nothing in front of a guy holding coverage and and you’re still not carrying a seam and and that’s how you got beat by Coulson Love And at the same time that you don’t carry the seam, you also don’t reroute it as you’re talking about. And at the same time that the the second level defender, the the primary defender who’s on that tight end closer to the line of scrimmage doesn’t reroute him, doesn’t get hands on him, just lets him run by him and is parallel to the line of scrimmage and is flatfooted. Your your deep safety on that half of the field is five yards deeper than the the safeties on the other the the the two deep on the other side of the field because you’re in cover six. You got two quarters defenders on one side and a half on the other side. And yeah, you’re trying not to get beat over the top, but when you’re you’re ending up with a 15 yard void between your second level and your third level, and we’ve seen this against Pittsburgh with those couple of seam routes, one that got dropped, one that’s just free running because Gino Stone is too wide. It’s just like this consistent issue week to week where if you can’t execute these these basic coverages correctly while you don’t have a pass rush, which we’re not going to get to in this episode. Nothing really new there. Nobody’s winning in the pass rush. And that they’re still having a hard time manufacturing a ton of free runners. And even when they do, it’s it’s sporadic. And they got quite a bit of pressure to Caleb Williams actually in this game with their terrible left tackle for Chicago. But they they couldn’t get him to the ground. So there’s there’s no contain. There’s maybe one guy winning. And so it’s still the the same problem it is. But when you can’t do the basic stuff right in coverage and and all the other things we’re talking about, yeah, I mean, it’s going to take a massive change for this defense to be anything other than continuing its trajectory to being one of the worst in the NFL. That being said, there are some players ascending on this team in general. And and I think that’s where we go with our next episode, Mike, is we’re going to take a focus on the young players on this team, the players on rookie contracts on this team. Dylan Fairchild turned in a great game against the Chicago Bears. Didn’t get there in a ton of detail today. DJ Turner continues to show that he is more than worthy of a contract extension coming up this off seasonason when he will be eligible to be extended, assuming that he continues the season the way he started it. So, we’ll get to our young player progress report at the midway point of the 2025 season as the Bengals desperately need some players to build around for the future. You can find Mike’s work at benglestock.com and on Twitter at Bengals_ands. Until next time, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast who day and have a good one.

The Cincinnati Bengals’ offense keeps firing as Joe Flacco and Tee Higgins ignite against the Chicago Bears, but defensive woes have derailed the season. Jake Liscow and Mike Santagata break down how the Bengals stayed explosive on offense, and the offensive staff’s creative adaptations, including play action, mesh concepts, and tendency-breaking run plays. Unfortunately, the problems on defense are the same. Missed tackles, poor positioning, and coverage miscues persist as the unit gives up chunk plays and struggles to contain even backup running backs.

Join the Locked on Bengals Subtext Community: joinsubtext.com/lockedonbengals

Follow & Subscribe on all Podcast platforms…
🎧 https://link.chtbl.com/LOBengals?sid=YouTube

Locked On NFL League-Wide: Every Team, Fantasy, Draft & More
🎧 https://linktr.ee/LockedOnNFL

For your next listen, check out the Locked On Fantasy Football podcast. Get daily insight to the best Fantasy draft strategies so you can win your league this season. Click HERE to listen now. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network. Your Team. Every Day.

Support Us By Supporting Our Sponsors!
BILT
Turn your rent into rewards and start earning points around your neighborhood by going to https://joinbilt.com/lockedonnfl.

Supply House
Join the free TradeMaster program today and score serious perks like priority shipping, lower prices, and a dedicated support line. Visit https://SupplyHouse.com to sign up for free and use promo code SHNFL5 for 5% off your first order.

Peloton
Let yourself run, lift, flex, and push forward. Explore the new Peloton Cross Training Tread+ today at https://www.onepeloton.com.

PrizePicks
Download the PrizePicks app today and use code LOCKEDONNFL to get $50 in lineups after you play your first $5 lineup.
Click Here: https://prizepicks.onelink.me/LME0/LOCKEDONNFL

Gametime
Download the Gametime app, create an account, and use code LOCKEDONNFL for $20 off your first purchase. Terms apply. Download Gametime today. What time is it? Gametime.

FanDuel
Right now, new customers can bet just FIVE dollars and if your bet wins—you’ll get THREE HUNDRED dollars in bonus bets to use across the app.

FANDUEL DISCLAIMER: 21+ in select states. First online real money wager only. Bonus issued as nonwithdrawable free bets that expires in 14 days. Restrictions apply. See terms at sportsbook.fanduel.com. Gambling Problem? Call 1-800-GAMBLER or visit FanDuel.com/RG (CO, IA, MD, MI, NJ, PA, IL, VA, WV), 1-800-NEXT-STEP or text NEXTSTEP to 53342 (AZ), 1-888-789-7777 or visit ccpg.org/chat (CT), 1-800-9-WITH-IT (IN), 1-800-522-4700 (WY, KS) or visit ksgamblinghelp.com (KS), 1-877-770-STOP (LA), 1-877-8-HOPENY or text HOPENY (467369) (NY), TN REDLINE 1-800-889-9789 (TN)