Ain't it funny

Over the middle of the defense?! I could not agree more!! All the more reason that Keith Butler needs to continue to place his players in winnable situations.



From then on, it will soley lie on the players.

 

I don't think your going to see alot of slot receivers in the middle with Fitzpatrick.. He will light them up.. Love this kid' He is faster and smarter then Ryan Clark but hits like em

 

To me, he is Malcolm Jenkins 2.0. They have near identical traits across the board. Minkah is more faster and more explosive.

 

I think there's medication out there for being so pre mature? If you know it's cinci then you understand why you can't possibly pass any judgement on our safety or secondary play. I saw many plays were the Bengals had wide open targets deep and in the middle of the field - those opportunities were missed because Dalton was running for his life or wondering who was going to hit him next. That O-line is as bad as it gets . When Dalton did have time he had no problem finding open targets - usually in the middle of the field. IMO if the Bengals had a good O-line we lose that game. So credit IMO goes to our front 7 taking advantage and the offense for mixing it up w/ new plays and sound play from Mason. The safeties had nothing to do with it.

 

I should add - a good pass rush goes a long way to covering up secondary issues. A good secondary will also help the pass rush. IMO our secondary probably isn't as bad as it was with our new personnel - (It couldn't get an worse) . To put it into context the Bengals O-line was our secondary. Hopefully the two (pass rush and pass coverage) can feed off each other. IMO if we had just a little better pass protection our pass rush would improve to very high level. If our pass rush gets much better it will cover up the short comings of our secondary.

The part that's hard to understand is the scheme. I think alot of the problem is clearly schematic. We can't possibly be that bad at covering the middle of the field because of player talent. Much of the issue is the coaching...and that's hard for me to say because I really like Keith Butler. The fact that Tomlin has shown no ability to make the situation better also tells us what we need to know about Mike Tomlin. Butler's defense seems to be 100% dependent on an elite pass rush. Which makes me wonder why Bud Dupree has stuck around so long but that's another topic. Good o-lines and QB's that can deal with pressure kill us. I don't see that changing until our offense can score alot of points consistently and control TOP by running the ball. The only way you beat Brady is to A: hit him, and B. Run the ball and keep him off the field. Having a FS that doesn't screw you every game certainly helps but I'm not so sure that was the root of our problems.

 

All our good defenses always had at least 2 very good lbs. The 3-4 depends on great linebackers.
We now have Watt & Bush, do we go olb with our 2nd pick or dline?