futurecoach

Much better effort in the second half to give themselves a chance. However, this will happen when they continually keep getting down double digits to teams. It’s great that they keep fighting, but it’s hard to overcome those deficits.

Your last sentence is the biggest mystery to me with this team. Pope brought in three players that were defensive players of the years in their previous conferences. So he brought in guys who are good at defense. So where are they going wrong on defense? While Pope has done an amazing job teaching offense with this group, is how he is teaching defense not good? This ain’t like with Cal when he had brand new teams with a bunch of freshman who were not use to playing defense. We have players that are older and been good defensive players elsewhere. So it is very curious how this team has been so bad defensively.

Yep. There was basically nothing positive about that first half. Offense looked bad, and defense been the same as it has all year. The only positive thing I think from that first half was Noah gave some good minutes. On a positive note this team has been in this position many times before being down double digits. The bad side is they have had so many games down double digits. Hopefully they can find away to overcome another double digit deficit to come back to win.

Well that Bengals actually still have players that contributed to those playoff wins, and key players at that. So makes it still relevant, not to mention the QB that has also got them those playoff wins. The current Steeler players besides two I believe, don’t even know what it is like to win a playoff game as the Steelers. The Steelers since 2016, have been very Marvin Lewis Bengal like. Good enough to make playoffs, but can’t win while there. Basically just floating around that middle ground, where can’t even get a top QB either.

You have to love thinking back on the good old days, since no current Steeler was on the team the last time they won a Super Bowl. I think maybe only two current Steelers players were even on the team the last time they won a playoff game. I must admit though it is nice though that you do have those memories of Super Bowls. Since it doesn’t seem like that will be happening again anytime soon.

Former UK offensive coordinator Liam Coen is the new Head Coach for the Jacksonville Jaguars. Hopefully one of these days Mark Stoops will be more hands off with the offense, and let his OC call the offense that the OC wants to call. As it always seem like Stoops kind of handcuffs his OC IMO and limits what they may want to do.

Agreed. Salas would have been a big splash type of hire that probably would have got more fans excited. However, I think this hire is actually better for the team than Salas would have been. Only because Salas is probably getting a HC job again sooner rather than later, and if he comes and does good then he probably would be gone in one year. That could happen with Golden too, if he does a good job. However, I think it would take a few years of him doing a good job before he becomes a true candidate for a NFL HC job. So Golden allows them at least have the same coach in a place for a few years.

I like the hire. He has ties both in college and the NFL. He was part of the team when the defense was really good and made those great halftime adjustments. Plus we are starting to more coaches with college coaching experience be successful in the NFL. Since a lot of college schemes are now making its way to the NFL. The Bengals under Lou the last few years have struggled to develop young talent, which is a must once you pay your QB. So getting a guy like Golden who has been successful developing players in college, and running a defense. Plus he has some NFL experience too, so I think this is a very good hire.

Once again big difference between being a head coach and a coordinator. Plenty of very good and even great coordinators have failed as head coaches, but were great as coordinators.

This is so sad. Prayers are with him, his family, and the whole community!!

This tweet was sent out by Warren Sharp because of all the discussion of how the Chiefs seem to get the benefit of doubt in regards to calls in the playoffs. Most of it stems from how Mahomes gets a lot of calls to go in his favor, that other QBs don’t.

My thoughts on that last play. Could the throw have technically been better? Yes. Should the ball have still been caught? Absolutely yes!

Warren Sharp posted this graphic today on Twitter. It’s the amount of playoff games over the last 4 years where teams had more or less penalties called against them. Interesting to see the Chiefs only had one game where they had more penalties called on them. The Bengals on the other hand only had one game where they had the least amount of penalties called on them. What is really interesting is during the regular season the Bengals are usually one of the least penalized every year, while the Chiefs are one of the most penalized during the regular season. Yet come playoff time they completely flips.

Notre Dame mixed up zone and man to man a lot tonight in both half’s. OSU offense in these playoffs has just been on another level. OSU all year was the most talented team in the country, and they finally started to play like it in these playoffs. To me the Bengals hiring Golden is not much different than Mike Macdonald. He was a position coach for the Ravens. Went to college to be the DC for Michigan, and his last game as the DC for Michigan was in the semifinals and his defense gave up 500 yards of offense and 34 points to Georgia in a blowout loss. Yet he takes over a Ravens defense the next year in his first year being a NFL DC and makes them a top 5 defense after they were 18th the year before he took over. He was one of the best DCs in the NFL in his first two years as an NFL DC before getting the Seahawks head coach job.

Someone being a bad head coach, doesn’t mean they are a bad coordinator. It’s not rare at all for someone to be a great coordinator and not a good Head coach.