I have said it the last few years. Taylor and his staff do a very good job, once they have a lot of film on teams. It seems like Taylor’s scheme is not an aggressive attacking scheme, but a reactive take what they give you scheme. So the offense always struggles early, because he doesn’t have all the film on how teams are doing things. So his reactive play off what a defense gives you type scheme, struggles when he doesn’t know exactly what a team may do. That is why you never see defensive coordinators rank him as one of the better play callers, when they do those anonymous surveys. As Taylor scheme wise isn’t creative, to where it scares teams. It just based off taking what a defense gives them. 
 

Which I know drives me crazy every year watching our offense struggles early. However, he has shown he does a very good job once there is a few games on film of teams. So as long as they find ways to win these games to start this year, the offense eventually will get going. 

I was surprised that Iosivas did not get targets.  It seemed that the Bengals were forcing it too much to Gesicki (especially when covered by the better of the Browns cornerbacks).  I guess it does come down to Burrow getting enough time to go through his progressions.  He sure didn't have as much time as Flacco did.

I did not realize on this play how hard Burrow got hit by Garrett. 
 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1157631896387021/

1 hour ago, Mustang said:

I'm guessing that we improved on our 2.4% chance of making the playoffs coming into this game.

Yes we did.

10 minutes ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

I did not realize on this play how hard Burrow got hit by Garrett. 
 

https://www.facebook.com/reel/1157631896387021/

That Oline is terrible. 

10 minutes ago, MaddenCurse44 said:

That Oline is terrible. 

I don't know how much you watched the Bengals game today but Burrow was sacked 3 times and definitely 2 if not all 3 was due to Burrow not throwing the ball away and holding it to long. I thought the O-line was not bad today that was imo the only real positive of the offense today after the first drive of the game.

Only the Browns could do this. Sheesh.

2 hours ago, futurecoach said:

I have said it the last few years. Taylor and his staff do a very good job, once they have a lot of film on teams. It seems like Taylor’s scheme is not an aggressive attacking scheme, but a reactive take what they give you scheme. So the offense always struggles early, because he doesn’t have all the film on how teams are doing things. So his reactive play off what a defense gives you type scheme, struggles when he doesn’t know exactly what a team may do. That is why you never see defensive coordinators rank him as one of the better play callers, when they do those anonymous surveys. As Taylor scheme wise isn’t creative, to where it scares teams. It just based off taking what a defense gives them. 
 

Which I know drives me crazy every year watching our offense struggles early. However, he has shown he does a very good job once there is a few games on film of teams. So as long as they find ways to win these games to start this year, the offense eventually will get going. 

Two challenges to this.

1. What are the Browns doing different on defense from the past few years? I believe they have the same defensive coordinator and a lot of the same personnel. The Bengals know what they are going to do and had a whole off season to design something to attack them.

2. One of the hallmarks of Zac Taylor teams is their ability to make adjustments at halftime. The Bengals score points a high percentage of the time historically under Taylor coming out on their first drive after halftime. That confirms your point that Taylor is very good at figuring out what a defense is giving him and adjusting. What happened today?

1 hour ago, Voice of Reason said:

Two challenges to this.

1. What are the Browns doing different on defense from the past few years? I believe they have the same defensive coordinator and a lot of the same personnel. The Bengals know what they are going to do and had a whole off season to design something to attack them.

2. One of the hallmarks of Zac Taylor teams is their ability to make adjustments at halftime. The Bengals score points a high percentage of the time historically under Taylor coming out on their first drive after halftime. That confirms your point that Taylor is very good at figuring out what a defense is giving him and adjusting. What happened today?

My reasoning behind it, is because the offense always seems lost early in the season under Taylor. In years past some thinking for it, was cause Burrow not having a training camp. Or not playing players in pre season games. Yet none of that was a factor this year and yet we besides had the lowest offensive output in terms of yards in the Taylor era. 
 

At the end of the day Taylor isn’t looked at as a good play caller around the league. More so because his schemes are more taking what the defense gives him. Which I do think is unfair, as I think Taylor is a better play caller than he gets credit for, and has gotten better each year. While he may not have like great innovative schemes. He does make good adjustments as the year goes on, which I attribute to him being really good once he has more film for that season on teams. 
 

Which to be fair I could say maybe the issue is Burrow instead. As maybe he struggles early on knowing where to go with the ball, until he has more film on teams. Either way there is something there for why consistently the offense which gets paid tons of money, struggles every year at the beginning. 

1 hour ago, futurecoach said:

My reasoning behind it, is because the offense always seems lost early in the season under Taylor. In years past some thinking for it, was cause Burrow not having a training camp. Or not playing players in pre season games. Yet none of that was a factor this year and yet we besides had the lowest offensive output in terms of yards in the Taylor era. 
 

At the end of the day Taylor isn’t looked at as a good play caller around the league. More so because his schemes are more taking what the defense gives him. Which I do think is unfair, as I think Taylor is a better play caller than he gets credit for, and has gotten better each year. While he may not have like great innovative schemes. He does make good adjustments as the year goes on, which I attribute to him being really good once he has more film for that season on teams. 
 

Which to be fair I could say maybe the issue is Burrow instead. As maybe he struggles early on knowing where to go with the ball, until he has more film on teams. Either way there is something there for why consistently the offense which gets paid tons of money, struggles every year at the beginning. 

RE: Taylor Offensive scheme and play design

Watching the Ravens throw crossing patterns to Zay Flowers. Why don't the Bengals do that with JaMar? He cannot be covered in a crossing pattern. That is failure by Zac Taylor. 

JaMar needs at least 8 touches a game. Jet sweep, screen pass, wildcat, whatever it takes...

That should be part of every game plan - 8 touches for JaMar.

1 hour ago, Voice of Reason said:

RE: Taylor Offensive scheme and play design

Watching the Ravens throw crossing patterns to Zay Flowers. Why don't the Bengals do that with JaMar? He cannot be covered in a crossing pattern. That is failure by Zac Taylor. 

JaMar needs at least 8 touches a game. Jet sweep, screen pass, wildcat, whatever it takes...

That should be part of every game plan - 8 touches for JaMar.

Completely agree!

First thing.  Admittedly I am the most pessimistic Bengals fan in my group.  With that being said I couldn’t be happier this morning.  Yesterday’s game is a game we have lost in the early part of the season in past years.  Call it luck, or what ever you want — I will take it!  Just win, baby!

Winning the turnover battle is key every week and it proved to be the difference yesterday.

D isn’t great but honestly performed better than I expected.   Anyone see the snap count for Stewart?

O-line was bad and the offense on a whole wasn’t good.   Browns D will give plenty of teams problems this year.

Have you ever heard the saying:  who is the only person that can stop Michael Jordan from averaging 20ppg?   Dean Smith.

I have a new one:  who is the only person that can stop Joe from throwing 2 TDs per game?  Zac Taylor.

Bengals lose that game last year. Also, not a great sign when the HC is an offensive mind and you have 7 yards in a half with arguably the best offense in the league. 

I did not realize until looking at the stats a little deeper tonight that our rookie LB Demetrius Knight Jr. recorded 10 tackles 8 of them solo. 

21 minutes ago, 16thBBall Fan said:

I did not realize until looking at the stats a little deeper tonight that our rookie LB Demetrius Knight Jr. recorded 10 tackles 8 of them solo. 

He made some nice plays in coverage also. Much improved from the preseason version.