I have watched the Bengals very little this year apart from the postseason. But some early thoughts...
On paper, this seems like a top-4 team (Rams) vs. a team that's maybe 12th or 13th in the league.
ESPN NFL FPI
Rams- 4th
Bengals- 13th
Football Outsiders
Rams- 5th
Bengals- 17th
TeamRankings.com
Rams- 5th
Bengals- 11th
FiveThirtyEight.com
Rams- 3rd
Bengals- 7th
Cincinnati played a (regular season) bottom 3 strength-of-schedule while the Rams were middle of the pack. But winning against the Raiders, Titans and then Chiefs can't be dismissed. Impressive run. They were also the 2nd-least penalized team in the league (72) with 17 penalties in the postseason.
On offense the Bengals have good weapons- 3 quality WRs in Chase, Higgins and Boyd, a good RB in Mixon and of course Burrow. Both the Bengals and Rams were top-3 in yards/attempt and yards/completion.
Their issue, clearly, is their offensive line. Perhaps most specifically at RG.
PFF wrote:
"The right guard continued to be the weakest link offensively for the Bengals. Hakeem Adeniji started the game, but he was promptly benched after allowing a team-high three pressures. His replacement, Jackson Carman, ended up leading the unit with six pressures allowed in the game, per PFF’s first-run analysis." They allowed 55 sacks and were bottom 3 all year in sack rate and pass blocking win rate.
Defensively, They're led up front by two good DEs in Hendricskson and Hubbard (44 QB hits and 21.5 sacks between them- about half their total as a team), ILB Logan Wilson (100 tackles, 4 INT) and the CB Awuzie (14 PD). I think it's all about neutralizing the two DEs.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/31/2022 06:25AM by LMU93.
