3 minutes ago, nkypete said:

At 7-5 and currently in the 6th spot in the AFC playoff picture, the Bengals are in a critical point of their season.  I have no idea which direction the Bengals will go from here on.  Do they get back to their winning ways and challenge the Ravens for the AFC North crown or do they settle into a lengthy losing streak and start thinking about the draft and a lost opportunity this year? 

I've seen nothing this year to expect them to get into a deep losing streak that carries on and eliminates them from the playoffs early. With that said, they've yet to be faced with injuries like they were last week. 

Direct quote from Tee Higgins, “I just felt there was no energy at the beginning of the game.”  Maybe the lack of focus I talked about was right after all.

Paging @Voice of Reason!

49 minutes ago, theguru said:

Paging @Voice of Reason!

EXCUSES! Protecting egos. When you are getting it handed to you, it has to be low energy. No way it could be getting outplayed and outcoached. 

1 minute ago, Voice of Reason said:

EXCUSES! Protecting egos. When you are getting it handed to you, it has to be low energy. No way it could be getting outplayed and outcoached. 

I agree I don't ever want to hear "excuses" like that from any pro athlete. 

13 minutes ago, theguru said:

I agree I don't ever want to hear "excuses" like that from any pro athlete. 

 If you think about it, a pro athlete saying they had low energy or weren't focused is a self indictment of lack of professionalism. He basically admits that either he or other players on their team didn't do their job.  I will take an admission of "we gave it our all but they just had a better plan" over top of not focused every day of the week.

6 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

 If you think about it, a pro athlete saying they had low energy or weren't focused is a self indictment of lack of professionalism. He basically admits that either he or other players on their team didn't do their job.  I will take an admission of "we gave it our all but they just had a better plan" over top of not focused every day of the week.

I don't disagree but at the same time we are all human. 

3 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

 If you think about it, a pro athlete saying they had low energy or weren't focused is a self indictment of lack of professionalism. He basically admits that either he or other players on their team didn't do their job.  I will take an admission of "we gave it our all but they just had a better plan" over top of not focused every day of the week.

I will agree with you on that but I’ve heard quite a few managers/coaches in all 3 major sports down through the years say we just weren’t focused today.  When I was coaching I’d tell my players all the time “don’t describe the storm, just bring in the ship”

10 hours ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

I will agree with you on that but I’ve heard quite a few managers/coaches in all 3 major sports down through the years say we just weren’t focused today.  When I was coaching I’d tell my players all the time “don’t describe the storm, just bring in the ship”

I can see this happening more with basketball and baseball, where gameday loses some of its luster, just due to the quantity played.  It'd be much easier to get into a Groundhog Day mentality where you're just going thru the motions.  Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat.

But with football, when you've looked forward the entire week to where you can actually go play, I'd think it'd be different.  Now, if you knew going into the game that you were prohibitive underdogs, maybe you're not looking forward to it and just want to put in your time and get out of there.  But, even at the other end of the spectrum, if you were the favorite, I'd think you'd still want to (for lack of a better term) "show off".

17 hours ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

Direct quote from Tee Higgins, “I just felt there was no energy at the beginning of the game.”  Maybe the lack of focus I talked about was right after all.

Taylor, Burrow, and mostly every player that heard Higgins comment and was asked about it came out and disagree with Higgins on that, and even said they thought the energy level was fine. They simply made a few mistakes that led to the Chargers getting off to a fast start.
 

The strip sack Burrow got hurt on had nothing to do with focus or energy. The pass Chase dropped can’t be contributed to focus, because drops have now been an issue with him for awhile, so not like it was a one time lack of focus thing. If anything the drops are probably because of him thinking about it to much now. The deep shots to Mike Williams when he literally just out jumped guys to make unbelievable plays really has nothing to do with lack of focus or energy. The holding calls on the rookie center that killed a few drives in the first half had nothing to do with lack of focus or energy. Those were the plays that were the big reason for why the Chargers jumped out to a 24 to 0 lead and none of those plays had to do with lack of energy or focus. 
 

People always want to try to say a team doesn’t have energy or lacks focus when they don’t play well. When that simply isn’t true. A team could be playing hard and as focused as can be and simply be making mistakes, or other team simply making plays over them. 
 

Especially with the game being as big of a game as it was. I don’t think energy or lack of focus was an issue at all. The only game that energy or focus may have been an issue was the Jets game, and even that I contribute more to lack of adjustments on the defensive side by the coaches to take away the short passing game that killed them all game. 

4 hours ago, futurecoach said:

Taylor, Burrow, and mostly every player that heard Higgins comment and was asked about it came out and disagree with Higgins on that, and even said they thought the energy level was fine. They simply made a few mistakes that led to the Chargers getting off to a fast start.
 

The strip sack Burrow got hurt on had nothing to do with focus or energy. The pass Chase dropped can’t be contributed to focus, because drops have now been an issue with him for awhile, so not like it was a one time lack of focus thing. If anything the drops are probably because of him thinking about it to much now. The deep shots to Mike Williams when he literally just out jumped guys to make unbelievable plays really has nothing to do with lack of focus or energy. The holding calls on the rookie center that killed a few drives in the first half had nothing to do with lack of focus or energy. Those were the plays that were the big reason for why the Chargers jumped out to a 24 to 0 lead and none of those plays had to do with lack of energy or focus. 
 

People always want to try to say a team doesn’t have energy or lacks focus when they don’t play well. When that simply isn’t true. A team could be playing hard and as focused as can be and simply be making mistakes, or other team simply making plays over them. 
 

Especially with the game being as big of a game as it was. I don’t think energy or lack of focus was an issue at all. The only game that energy or focus may have been an issue was the Jets game, and even that I contribute more to lack of adjustments on the defensive side by the coaches to take away the short passing game that killed them all game. 

Preach on brother!

Good stuff in this thread.