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NFL Week 6 – The Cincinnati Bengals fell to the Baltimore Ravens last Sunday night to drop to 2-3 on the season. It isn’t even Halloween yet, but the defending AFC champions have been facing a lot of questions about what is wrong with the team. After dropping their first two, then winning their next two, the loss in a prime-time game has people wondering if last year was a bit of a fluke.
It seems most Bengals fans are wanting to point the finger at either the offensive line or coaching staff for the sub-.500 start. I know that’s what I have been seeing online. Since this column focuses on line play, however, let’s start with what we saw up front for Cincinnati and take it from there.
The Bengals protection is actually set up well to handle this stunt. Left guard Cordell Volson (67) is sliding right into it and should be able to see the whole thing unfold. He does a decent enough job on the looper. The issue is that center Ted Karras (64) just gets ragdolled.
Seriously, I wish I had something more constructive to say, but from a technique standpoint Karras isn’t that bad. He takes a decisive first step to try to make the defender declare his rush lane early. He’s sliding with the protection but feeling and hanging back on the nose enough to sense that the nose is trying to set him up for a game. He really is in a decent spot. He would have been helped if Volson had given that nose tackle a harder punch to knock him all the way across Karras’ face, but at the end of the day, the center can’t get thrown around like this. I thought at first he might have been stepped on, but I think he just got ragdolled.
La’el Collins was a big offseason acquisition, but he hasn’t played up to that level of hype. I know it’s tough pass-blocking in clear passing situations when you have zero help as an offensive tackle, but that’s why even guys that have been league-average for their careers can command $21 million over three years like Collins got this offseason.
I don’t hate Collins’ (71) initial set here, except for the fact that it looks like the running back (Samaje Perine, 34) is ready and willing to help him with a chip block if he gets beat anywhere but straight inside. If Collins knows that the back is a possible chipper, it’s always better to under-set and force the rusher into your help and give the back a decent angle to chip before releasing. The issue comes when Collins punches; both his feet die on contact and he just looks flat-out stiff. Frankenstein’s Monster was the immediate comp that came to my mind. So he can’t redirect and gives up the bad sack.
That was the frustrating part for me re-watching this game. There were a lot of times where guys were in decent positions but just couldn’t execute, and I couldn’t tell you why. A lot has been made about the Bengals’ offensive struggles this year, particularly against two-high defenses. I won’t get into all that, but it’s clear that the Bengals offensive line is leaving some yards on the field by not playing like an above-average unit. They weren’t awful, and certainly not as awful as they seemed earlier in the year. Plus, the plays I highlighted here were obviously the worst of the bunch to make a point. It was more of a case of no individual across the line playing good or terrible, but a different guy messing up every four or five plays to stall a potential drive. Just five guys playing right at or a little below league average adding up to a unit that looks worse than the sum of its parts.
The Cincinnati front five has to find a way to be a little bit better across the board (or a lot better at three of the five positions), particularly in the running game where they get a lot of favorable six-blocker-on-six-defender looks from the defense. We didn’t touch on the run game this week, but the Bengals had some success with their running backs (17 carries for 95 yards), and even there it still felt like they left yards on the field. If Cincy can keep up that efficiency and add some explosive plays in the run game, they should be able to get defenses out of those two-high shells and help their downfield passing game.
Before we go, I did want to take a look at one more play that caused a bit of outcry on twitter: the Bengals’ fourth-down shovel pass on the goal line.
This was the much maligned play call from Zac Taylor. It’s tough. Every fourh-down goal-line call that fails stinks according to every fan watching the game. It’s always going to either be too cute, or too unimaginative, or doesn’t involve this guy, or that guy, or something else when it doesn’t work. That being said, this play seems to ask a lot of your right guard.
I’m not sure what the coaching point is for right guard Alex Cappa (65), but he seems to be in a tough spot as the puller. I imagine the idea is that he pulls around and leads up into the hole for touchdown. But the most dangerous defender is going to come from two different areas most likely. If it’s a zone coverage, the most dangerous unblocked defender would probably be the play-side safety (Geno Stone, 26). If it’s man, as is the case here, the most dangerous defender would be whomever is guarding the intended receiver 1-on-1, coming from the back side of the formation. So either you have to coach the guard to read man vs. zone, which seems insane to ask a pulling offensive lineman to do, or you essentially have to tell him to guess whether to get his eyes inside or outside when he turns the corner. Neither is the best way to set someone up for a block inside the 3-yard line.
It’s not surprising that Cappa doesn’t do much aside from kind of block a guy who is already getting blocked. And even if Cappa did make a great block on the perfect guy, Karras at center gets beat across his face by a nose guard that made the play anyway. Just not much of a chance for this play to succeed.
That wraps up this week. If nothing else I’m glad I finally got a chance to watch Cincinnati play. Next time I write about them I’m looking forward to diving more into their run game if they continue to get light boxes—so long as they don’t give up, like, eight sacks that demand to be written about.
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