Let's talk about the Bengals

[TLO]

A sneaky big game in the AFC, and probably our toughest game left before playoff time.

Talk about it here

[ThyKingdomCome15]

Dunlap gonna be in Joe's lap for four quarters. Dude is a force out there.

The Chiefs are not only a different team but a better team than last year. CIN feasted on KC's top heavy offense when it mattered most. Now the Chiefs are historically balanced, as they showed in the game today.

The biggest difference may be KC's pass rush. George got his first sack today, Dunlap is playing well, Chris Jones is having a career year, Clark looks to have some extra burst in his step, Saunders has been a pleasant surprise, Dana too. Big improvement.

Overall, the Chiefs defense is hot right now. All three levels. CIN is going to give us a game but they're playing us at the wrong time. Early in the season was the best time to play us. We're rounding into form for the stretch run now. Time is up, it's our time.

[KChiefs1]

Originally Posted by RaidersOftheCellar

Mahomes isn’t allowing 0-3 vs Burrow to happen, especially when the last one denied him a golden opportunity for another ring. If he needs 50, he’ll score 50.

His comments were as close as he’ll ever come to saying “we’re going to bury these assholes.”

Mahomes doesn’t go 0-3 vs anyone.

[Direckshun]

This thread is pretty much a rah-rah thread, but here's some actual analysis.

This Bengals team is damn good. Way better than their record.

Burrow is fantastic, of course, and they have a top 3 set of offensive weapons in the NFL. We should assume Jamar Chase magically is healthy enough to play this week, and this is one of those games Spags loses sleep over. To accommodate the rookies in the secondary, his back seven is incredibly basic zone, and really good QBs can carve it up if they don't face a ton of pressure. If we can't get a ton of pressure on Burrow, it's going to be very hard to stop him, even without Chase. Their weapons really are that good. (For the record, the Bengals will get one additional year of not-breaking-the-bank-Burrow, but two years from now this team is going to have to pay Burrow and Chase, and it's going to gut their team.)

After the bye, Spags has done everything in his power to generate the best possible passrush, and it shows. The Chiefs live in teams' backfields right now -- though I do wonder how well that's going to work against Cincy. The Titans have a really great passrush and only planted his ass in the dirt once. Do not believe the advance stats, guys: the Bengals offensive line is very good in pass protection now. They're healthy and they're not allowing a ton of pressure.

Of course, the Chiefs have a cheat code in Chris Jones, but Burrow is nearly Mahomes-esque in pocket navigation. They need multiple passrushers to have a game, and Spags needs to be surgical with his blitz calls: none of these stupid fire blitz calls by the handful that killed the D against Josh Allen.

The Bengals have a run game that is workable, but won't kill them necessarily. Mixon is very good but not healthy. Perine is basically late-career Spencer Ware: good player, but he's not the guy who beats you.

The Bengals defense is underrated, I think. They just shut down Derrick Henry, which is somewhat deceptive. They stacked the box against the Titans, which you can't do against Mahomes. But their two interior DTs are healthy now and they're massive and extremely hard to move.

The Bengals have a good secondary, but it doesn't matter right now with Mahomes and this offense... This is as good an offense as the Chiefs have ever had, and the multitude of weapons the Chiefs boast with what's probably going to be an A-game from Andy Reid with tons of man beaters... I just don't think there's much the secondary will be able to do other than double Kelce and dare Mahomes to beat them with anybody else. Mahomes is extremely sharp this year, and he will beat them with everybody else.

The only hope for the Bengals is to get to Mahomes, and Hendrickson/Hubbard is going to give our tackles a lot of problems. I'm guessing the Chiefs give Wylie as much help as they can manage in this game, and just pray Brown can hold off Hendrickson, which he couldn't in the playoffs. So this will be how the Bengals contains Mahomes, if at all.

The Bengals also have that deadly "rush three with a spy" alignment that they stifled Mahomes with twice last season, including the AFCCG where Mahomes was so locked down, he seemingly forgot how to play football. I suspect the better talent this team has across the board will be the solution to that problem, but it's not one we should dare to forget.

The Bengals are a balanced team, with a metric ton of offensive talent, a good secondary, and tough in the trenches.

The Chiefs are capable of handling all this, but they have to get to Burrow, and they have to keep Mahomes clean.

I do agree with everyone that Mahomes and Reid want to absolutely murder the Bengals, and I bet both of them will be at the top of their game. But there's a reason the Bengals swept us last year in the exact same way: they are very talented and their coaching staff had a great feel for our tendencies.

I have this game as a true tossup, maybe even a very slight lean to the Bengals.

[Best22]

Originally Posted by tredadda

Do they though? KC was comfortably ahead in both games last year in the first half. They scored a combined six points in the second half of those games. KC did more to lose those games than Cincy beating them.

Their offense is a nightmare matchup for our defense

I think our offense matches up against their defense, we just have to perform

[Best22]

Originally Posted by Direckshun

The Bengals also have that deadly "rush three with a spy" alignment that they stifled Mahomes with twice last season, including the AFCCG where Mahomes was so locked down, he seemingly forgot how to play football. I suspect the better talent this team has across the board will be the solution to that problem, but it's not one we should dare to forget.

The Bengals are a balanced team, with a metric ton of offensive talent, a good secondary, and tough in the trenches.

The Chiefs are capable of handling all this, but they have to get to Burrow, and they have to keep Mahomes clean.

I do agree with everyone that Mahomes and Reid want to absolutely murder the Bengals, and I bet both of them will be at the top of their game. But there's a reason the Bengals swept us last year in the exact same way: they are very talented and their coaching staff had a great feel for our tendencies.

I have this game as a true tossup, maybe even a very slight lean to the Bengals.

Our change in personnel wont be the reason we don’t get stifled. Mahomes is just better than he was last year. He’s been the key to this explosive offense, and he’ll be the key to us winning on Sunday

Mahomes sucked in the AFCCG and it had nothing to do with personnel. The key is for him to do what he’s done all year, play at an elite level and give no ****s

[KINGPIN CHIEFS FAN]

Just let Chase catch his first pass and make sure he lands on his bad hip, nice and hard, and he'll be done for the day. Then their offense will be limited. then Mahomes will feast as our defense gives him a few extra possessions.

[Reroka]

Will be a tough game, Cin is a good team that just got off to a slow start.

[chiefzilla1501]

Gonna be a tough one. I can’t stand bengals fans but respect the hell out of burrow. I was hoping the Achilles heel was holding on to the ball way too long but he seems to have cleaned some of that up.

I trust that Andy spent the entire offseason figuring out what went wrong last year. Have to prove we can win after our initial script is done.

I take comfort in a few things… mahomes got even better and is extremely battle tested having played tough defenses. Our running game is way better and will take some heat off the passing game. If there was ever any doubt about bieniemy calling games we can be sure Andy will be the main guy Sunday. Most importantly I think our DBs are way more ready to handle their WRs. Burrow didn’t have to do much but heave lobs to his guys.

This will be one of those games where we flat out have to score points to win.

I think we pull off a close one. But if we play them again in the playoffs I think hardman and Toney are the difference makers that help us blow the thing apart.

[Hog's Gone Fishin]

They've never played against Trent McDuffie #21. Consider Higgins eliminated. Sneed will be on Chase until his hip flares up. We got Bolton spying Mixon. Our defense is better than any they've seen in the past.

Oh, and Chris Jones is having a career year, 10 sacks so Far. He'll add to that Sunday.

[In58men]

We should be getting Toney back as well, going to be an all hands on deck for both teams. Chiefs know they need that #1 seed.

[PunkinDrublic]

We’re going to stomp the **** out of the Bungholes and then shit in their chili in a display of dominance!

[KCUnited]

[dirk digler]

biggest and toughest game of the year so far. If Chase is back we are going to need all hands on deck in the secondary.

[notorious]

Our defense isn't the same as last season.

That'll be what changes the outcome.

[Why Not?]

Here's some depthful analysis:

It would greatly help to get the outcome in our favor if we can score more than 3 points after halftime.