(08-08-2025, 04:33 PM)Synric Wrote: Shemar Stewart was as expected disruptive but balance and body control showed up was on he's knees a few times. Lack of hand experience cost him a sack on a club move.

Dylan Fairchild and Ted Karras are rhe only OL two that play with physicality. Fairchild probably had the 3rd best night behind Chase and Burrow. (I'd guess Chase, Burrow, Fairchild, Brown, then Brooks are your top 5 for the day with a shout out to Hudson for being Hudson.)

Tahj Brooks with a couple nice runs and even more important at least two really good pass pro reps

DBs lived in alot of man coverage and the Eagles took advantage of how slow DJ Ivey looked.

Kris Jenkisn looked solid

McKinnley Jackson had a nice night against the 3s after making a mistake vs the 2s.

Jalen Rivers struggled badly at both tackle spots vs Antwan Powell-Ryland.




Edit: As for rhe defense as a whole you could tell they weren't ready for expanded rush offense compared to the Bengals (no game plan and no pre-scouting). The C gap runs really gashed them.

(08-08-2025, 05:53 PM)jj22 Wrote: Easy conversions of 3rd and long. I even seen a couple of easy 3rd and 20 conversions.. It was merciful they kicked FG's and didn't go for it on all of the 4th downs... 

(08-08-2025, 05:56 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I know you have me on ignore so you won't see this, but as mentioned earlier, 4 top starters weren't playing (Trey, BJ Hill, Dax, CTB) and guys that will potentially start (Stewart) were kept to 2nd string.

So it was absolutely not, 95% of the starters, more like 63% and they played prevent the entire time, with Newton actually getting in great position to pick the ball off, among other nice flashes we saw.

(08-08-2025, 06:02 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: When did they convert a 3rd and 20?

https://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay/_/gameId/401773005

They converted:

3rd and 5 in the 2nd Q (starters out at this point)
3rd and goal in the 2nd Q
3rd and 11 in the 3rd Q

And that's it. Pray tell how you saw, "a couple of 3rd and 20 conversions?"

We were 3-12 on 3rd downs, they were 3-15 FFS.

(08-08-2025, 05:33 PM)PhilHos Wrote: Pretty much everyone drafted on defense under Lou and Zac. Sure, Murphy might be a bad pick, but ALL the picks on defense are mediocre or worse?

I mean, can you even name 1 guy on defense that got better under Lou? Not just stayed the same, but got better? Only one I can think of is MAYBE Dax Hill. But even with Dax, he was drafted to be a safety.

Don't get me wrong, I liked Lou. His defenses were a big part of why we made the AFCCG twice and the Super Bowl once. But, when we lost the free agents we signed and had to rely more on draft picks, well, we see what has happened.

(08-08-2025, 05:36 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: I believe the 1s just served up a bunch of 3 and outs that year on defense. I know that was the year Ossai got hurt against Tampa and I know we looked good against them. I also remember that was the camp Chase couldn't catch so the offense was hyper focused on that. 

(08-08-2025, 05:43 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: This is why I love Burrow. He threw 2 TD's in 1 Quarter on 2 drives, and was not happy because he missed throw 1 to Tee and did not throw the ball as crisply as he should have.

https://www.bengals.com/news/bengals-quotes-preseason-week-1-2025-eagles
"Today was average. Today was average. But overall I'm happy with where I'm at. Next week I'd like to be a little better."

On the fact that he doesn't seem overly impressed with how he played or the whole situation tonight and what he did not like:

"I wouldn't say I didn't like anything. I think for myself I could have been better. I missed the first throw. I put all the other ones where I wanted to put them. I would've liked to have spun it a little better consistently today. But we had scored two touchdowns, so go learn from a couple reps and get better."

On how he said today was average and had one incompletion:

"It was a bad throw. It's a bad throw."

On after he left the game and whether anything stood out about the rest of the team:

"We got to be better. Too many procedural penalties, too many errors. Things like that are going to happen, but I think it just wasn't clean enough across the board."

(08-08-2025, 05:56 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I know you have me on ignore so you won't see this, but as mentioned earlier, 4 top starters weren't playing (Trey, BJ Hill, Dax, CTB) and guys that will potentially start (Stewart) were kept to 2nd string.

So it was absolutely not, 95% of the starters, more like 63% and they played prevent the entire time, with Newton actually getting in great position to pick the ball off, among other nice flashes we saw.

(08-08-2025, 06:00 PM)bfine32 Wrote: You can see he's strong. I saw him move grown men against their will, unfortunately, he sometimes moves against his own will.

(08-08-2025, 05:46 PM)Truck_1_0_1_ Wrote: I counted:

Ojulari
Trotter (only due to injury, otherwise he's first off the bench)
Campbell
Brown
Jackson

As the starters who played last night, so one EDGE, 2 LBs and 2 DBs

(08-08-2025, 06:26 PM)Timanky12 Wrote: If Washington plays their 1st team offense with Daniels at QB next week, we will see how good our 1st team defense actually is.
If they can play toe to toe with Washington, I think we have a chance for a playoff spot.  If we get humiliated again, all bets are off.

(08-08-2025, 06:26 PM)Timanky12 Wrote: If Washington plays their 1st team offense with Daniels at QB next week, we will see how good our 1st team defense actually is.
If they can play toe to toe with Washington, I think we have a chance for a playoff spot.  If we get humiliated again, all bets are off.

(08-08-2025, 06:52 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: It looks like the Bengals have decided to keep other teams in the dark on Al's play calling and will stay vanilla. Any great defensive performances will probably be limited to great 1 on 1 results. The problem with playing vanilla and keeping everything in front last night is it is easy to find the weakness and keep exploiting it. To me that weakness last night was Turner, then Ivey and any safety on the field.

It looked like he played all man coverage and no zone, will that happen week 1 or will he mix it up?

(08-08-2025, 06:59 PM)Brownshoe Wrote: Even if we look bad on defense it's still pre-season. We don't know what Golden has up his sleeves for the season. Rookies will improve, and Trey will be back. I very much doubt we'll have a legit defense this year, but even if we get our asses kicked all pre-season that doesn't mean we couldn't have a mediocre defense (which is all we need with our offense).

(08-08-2025, 07:04 PM)NUGDUKWE Wrote: Yeah the defense is gonna give up points. But can we make a few more stops that we couldn't last year and give the offense more chances to win the game. Hopefully as the season goes they can continue to grow and maybe turn into a top half of the league defense. The depth is what scares the crap out of me we need OL, S and CB in my opinion as an injury in any of these spots could be catastrophic.

(08-08-2025, 06:56 PM)Joelist Wrote: I know coaches like to play vanilla in preseason but it has downsides also. One is not getting your players sufficient reps in the system at game speed before it counts.

(08-08-2025, 07:05 PM)Timanky12 Wrote: How many games did we lose because we couldn’t make a stop to end the game? A lot

(08-08-2025, 05:28 PM)007BengalsFan Wrote: What players was Lou not getting more out of that you think should be a lot better right now?  Everyone points to Murphy but maybe he was just a bad draft pick.  The Bengals scouting department isnt the best at identifying talent.  Sometimes your talent level is what it is and you can only do so much with what you are given.  Im not going to blame Golden if the defense isnt that good this year.  I think Golden has more talent to work with than Lou had last year so we should be better but I still think Golden was given mostly mediocre talent to work with.  Im not going to be too hard on him anymore than I was Lou last year.  The hands they were dealt are not good.  The defense needs more talent.

(08-08-2025, 07:14 PM)Timanky12 Wrote: I counted 8 games last year, where we had the lead or needed to get the ball back and score to win the game, and we failed every time.