Bengals offensive line
 

In weeks 1 through 8 Burrow was sacked 29 times. Since week 9 Burrow has only been sacked 17 times in 10 games. The only game during that time frame where he was sacked more than 2 times was the WC game against the Ravens, in which they sacked him 4 times.

Burrow gets the ball out the 2nd fasted in the league. Did he adjust to get the ball out faster to help the line or is the line just playing better. Burrow isn't a guy that is going to extend the play like a Mahomes, so he's not helping keep the sack numbers down like that.

So what is it? Better line play or Burrow is just so fast it's hard to get to him?

If it is because of his quick release, then would us jamming the shit out of the WR help the pass rushers and give them just a big more time? What is the key to getting to Burrow?

Burrow actually is very shifty in the pocket, but mainly the ball is coming out too quickly to sack him. Teams are playing 2 deep alot

Can certainly jam at the line, but had better have safety help over the top because if the pass rush doesn’t get home Chase and Higgins will get open. Also, Mixon and Perine are going to get some yardage forcing the safeties to want to come, which then possibly leaves them exposed to the deep ball. I still think they should feast with Cappa and Collins both being out, DL has to do their job though. Need to hit Burrow hard and set the tone.

Here's what their O-Line plays like when they face the Chiefs:

LT - Anthony Munoz
LG - John Hannah
C - Jim Otto
RG - Will Shields
RT - Forrest Gregg

It’s both. His quick release puts even more pressure on DBs to jam and cover their WRs effectively. Hard to do when they’ve essentially got 3 number 1s on that team plus a solid pass catching TE. Aside from that, the Bengals O line is just playing really well, despite that they’re down 3 starters.

The game on Sunday imo really boils down to who wins in the trenches. If our line can generate enough pressure to cause Burrow to hold the ball even a split second longer then we’ll be in good shape. If not, he’ll pick our young secondary apart and put immense pressure on our offense to keep up. We really, really, really need CJ to blow up the middle consistently in this one.

I want tight man bump n run coverage

Double Chase all night, make the other guys beat us and send blitzers thru the A gaps all night... yeah we might give up a few, but thats better than giving Burrow all night IMO

The Bengals had four new offensive linemen to start the year, so I'm sure it took time for them to mesh and learn the protections.

Better not see Spags dropping dudes like Karlaftis into covering Chase.

Jamming their receivers is an over simplification of what you're trying to achieve. You definitely want Burrow to have to hold onto the ball longer and go through his reads but that needs to be achieved by mixing coverages and not tipping away the coverage presnap. Maybe the occasional jam to their receivers but vs Chase and Higgins I think you're playing with fire if you try to rely on press.

The Ravens wildcard game to me is the most interesting. Obviously divisional games are always tough since each team knows each other inside out but how do you replicate what Baltimore did. Spags and the defense had a very good 1st half against Cincy in the AFC final last year, need to find a way to put a full game together.

Pretty sure Zac Taylor addressed this months ago. He and Burrow made the adjustment to have Joe throw a lot sooner, because his OL was having trouble blocking properly early in the season (don't remember what their issues were). he went from holding the ball for upwards of 3.5 seconds or whatever, to right at 2 seconds. You can't get to him if he throws in 2 seconds. As in, no one can.

Hell, it's exactly what Brady was doing his last couple season with NE. He just got rid of the thing in 2 seconds so no one could get to him. He only got in trouble when he was forced to hold onto it longer, like when NE was down late in a game and he had to go through his progressions. Even this season vs. KC, he was operating okay early in the game, but in the 2nd half, when they were down and he had to work past his first read, that's when we got to him consistently.

Somehow, we have to take away his first read, and get pressure on him from someone half a second after that. In Cullen we trust. Or, I do, at this point. Cullen has to come up with some funky cold Medina shit and mess Joe up. Repeatedly.

You're playing with fire regardless. Obviously you can't jam them and play man every down. They're going to have to mix in man, zones, and some creative blitzing and pick their spots and hope for the best.

The bottom line is the DL has to win, not only in pass rushing, but in the run game.

What Perine did to us in our last game isn't being discussed enough. They ran it 21 times with Perine to the tune of 5 YPC. That simply cannot happen again if you want the pass rush to have any chance in getting there. Last game, the pass rush spent a lot of time checking for the run before actually rushing the passer because they were getting gashed on the ground.

And then Joe Burrow added in another ELEVEN scrambles.

Yeah, we added a run game. But so did they.

The other thing is we have to get a lead and extend it a little late in the game. Force joe to have to go through his progressions trying to get the ball deeper downfield. Then our DL can get to him before he gets rid of it. If they can operate their base offense and run the ball/throw short passes, we're going to have problems. Gotta make them as one dimensional as possible.

Chief’s d-line is good at knocking down passes. Sans sacks, hoping to see a lot of batted passes. Maybe an interception off of a deflection. Would prefer to see both batted passes and sacks. Howdy Doody sobbing in the fetal position would be ideal. :)

But here's the thing - zone blitzing is how you disrupt a rhythm passer who's relying on short passes.

Yes, everyone's going to get pissed anytime Karlaftis gets isolated in space - but fellas, it's how defense works. Sometimes the bear eats you.

If you run zone blitzes, you're going to have DEs in coverage sometimes. And those zone blitzes that get Burrow thinking he's going to have space for short throws to his hot route only to clutch as he sees a DE flashing into that space are what you're going to have to do to get him thinking and hopefully slow down his processing.

You don't have to like it - but if you think you're not going to see ends in coverage at all, I have really bad news for you.

Need the secondary to cover well enough for 3 seconds so he can't do those quick throws in less than 2 seconds. That's a very difficult task for a lot of inexperienced players in the KC secondary, while going against some very good receivers.