Maybe he's a big Dax Hill fan?

Maybe. I dunno. Not a big fan of his.

well, and maybe he should be, but if we're going to assume our guys who haven't done it yet can't, then we should assume theirs can't either.

And they rarely shelled out any money in FA to bail out bad drafts.

Defense is so unpredictable year to year.....I think they'll take a hit but if the offense is better it should theoretically make up for it.

Johnston would most likely be fine here, he's fast enough and has good size.

That's just the thing - the hallmark of Cinci's defense the last couple of years IS it's consistency.

Any amount of inconsistency introduces entropy in their system. It's not a top 10 defense, it's not a bottom 10 defense. It's a defense that consistently performs good enough to get a win.

Let's not forget that Joe Burrow, in the playoffs, has NEVER had to score 25 points or more to win a game.

I really don't think Brown's going to move the needle much for them. Burrow knows to get the ball out fast, and Brown gets beat at the snap when he loses, so I don't really see it making a big difference.

Their weapons are all still there, for now.

Defensively, they lost both of their very good safeties.

I'm not saying they're going away, but they're going to have to draft well and play them early now.

Not that it means anything, but a quick skim of the thread titles on the Bengals board reveals almost no worries about their safety situation. I don't really dig into their roster/depth chart, so I don't know if they have players on the team that can fill in adequately, or if they expect to draft replacements in the draft. bottom line though, they don't seem that concerned.

FYP

Because like us, they're banking on their offense overcoming any weaknesses in the defense.

The problem is that Pat has proven he can win even when the defense gives up 30+ in the playoffs. The Bengals so far under Burrow have never done that.

All due respect, problem is they don't allow KC to score 30 anyway. Not in the last three games in a row. And they would've both times last season if not for an inexplicable drop by Boyd in the EZ in the regular season matchup and a wildly implausible INT off Burrow on the AFFCG.

That's exactly my point.

They don't allow KC (or anybody else for that matter) to score 25 points, especially in the playoffs.

Burrow has NEVER had to do what Mahomes has done consistently since 2018 - overcome atrocious defensive performances that resulted in more than 30 points against. Burrow has not only never done it, he's never HAD to do it.

If the defense takes a step back at all, they're absolutely banking on their offense to overcome it. On paper, it's looks like they could do exactly that but the simple fact is that, up to this point, they simply haven't done it. There's no historical evidence to backup the assumption at all.

The drop I'll give you.

The INT? Those happen on those deep throws. Maybe not always in as spectacular a fashion, but he threw to a covered guy and the ball got picked - that's gonna happen from time to time.

They haven't either because they didn't have to, or it literally took a bad bounce against them to prevent them from scoring 30+. I wouldn't bank on 'bad luck' being a consistent 12th defender for us every time we play them.

I'm just saying they're a really good team, offensively and defensively, and getting lucky every time we play them isn't a great strategy. I know Andy/Spags know that better than anyone, so I'm not worried.