Bear Hands

Bengals just lost Trent Brown for the year so Mims is being thrown in the ringer sooner than expected. Hope we can take advantage of that.

I want to end the Bengals season this week. 0-4 is a mighty impossible hill to climb. Let’s go

I wonder if Hunt knowing Wilkins' tendencies during their 2+ years together in Miami helped as well. That's a lot of practice time where they squared up on the line. Awesome to see Icky doing better. He looked very confident in the run game again, much more like what we were sold on. These young LTs can go through ebs and flows.. I.E. Cross is starting to crush it it, Andrew Thomas is finally playing a bit better.

Before he made the decision to return to LSU last year: @Tepper get at me lol

It’s just a tough scenario. We drafted a guy for the new 2023 staff, thought he could excel, be this rare undersized phenom, regardless of his shortcomings. Ended up being the furthest thing from the truth. A new staff comes in this year to check him out, and it probably looked just as bad to them. It had to of been noticeable but you can’t go into year two with the benching of 1OA. They waited to see how it really looked and noped out for now — I imagine because Tepper is probably more open to it after last season’s trainwreck where he probably made Reich and then Brown start Bryce. He’s open to seeing what the staff wants to do. I’m willing to buy he’s softened his leash and is indeed more backseat with the occasional driver shouting.

Yeah I mean what Bryce ended up doing in games should have been without a doubt noticeable at practice for coaches and players alike. They know what a good or at least average QB looks like, much like Reich, Campbell and McNown did.

Rhule’s wife has been our best scout in the past 10 years.

Great interview

I have no clue. Would love to see Andy keep this up. People are still disrespecting us so I hope they’re still taking that seriously. Time to bully the crap out of the Bengals. Andy’s revenge game. If he can make noise, let’s see what shakes out the rest of the season - maybe we land a new rookie or young backup behind him. Bryce is out IMO. We’ll continue to be cordial and nice to him from a PR perspective, but he’s out

Not defending him but Fitterer thought he did and he claimed as so much in the presser post-trade up. They brought in defense under Rhule initially, then built up the offense (terribly)… He thought Icky, Brady, Bozeman, Corbett, & Moton were the line, and that they performed well down the stretch for Wilks. He thought poorly though, but that was the assumption and why going into the 2023 draft, talking heads thought we were the better situation than Houston. But our lovely trade up gave away DJ, Bozeman fell apart, Brady got injured, Icky regressed. Plenty thought our OL going into Reich’s year was in a good spot and had been built.

Too early? Corral is out the league and Willis was gone when we picked.

What we did with the run game was awesome and what Miami is now missing in a big way. You need more than just speed and play design, you need the trench warriors and these guys looked sharp as hell. I am STOKED to see what this looks like with Brooks.

We’ll be on ignore until either we fall back to reality or Andy has himself a run too much fun to look away from. Good publications and ex-QBs have been honest like Breer, The Athletic, Chase Daniel, Chris Simms and Kurt Warner to name a few. I imagine those dudes/places will have good continued conversations. But the obnoxious ones will find new obnoxious stuff to blabber about.

Yep. That’s why I said a ton instead of all. Steve w/George had a few monsters, Jake 2003-2006 was great QB play, especially for that era. Jake had a cannon in his prime that is overlooked. And Cam 2012-2017 was chef’s kiss. But seriously, that first half was something else today

Okay then...is there a chance this is actually more true than not? I mean, Canales and these coaches DEFINITELY should have been able to recognize the disparity we all saw against LV on a daily basis at practice. They are professionals and have eyes. I mean, I'm sure Tepper got to him first soon after game 2 and said to figure it TF out...and Canales agreed to go "look at the tape" and get his response ready. But if DC wasn't a pushover and learned enough from Pete Carroll, maybe he did say, "listen, I know what I'm installing and it can work just fine, but yeah, it's simply not working with Bryce right now. If we want to win, we can do it with Dalton". And Canales is also clearly a locker room guy. He seems tight with these guys in a way Rhule and Reich weren't. Maybe he had the gall to say that upfront, and Tepper, being his reactive self was more just in agreement like, "yeah, we suck, if you're saying you know it will be better, I'll trust you with this, we'll deal with Bryce one way or another"

Bengals could be tough and a hard dose of reality, but if not, and we're 2-2, this could get interesting. Broncos, Giants, Bears & Commies are all winnable. We could grab a few more division games. And then maybe an upset or two from the rest. Best case, 8-9/9-8, I think likely 6-11/7-10, won't be super pissed with 5-12, but after today we should be able to win more than 3 out of this schedule.

Interesting to bring up. There was a lot wrong with last year. Reich's offenses have performed alright under the right circumstances with guys like Rivers, Wentz, Ryan, Dalton for a game. He was however slipping a bit behind the times and became predictable. But his hot streak in the early to mid 2010s ended and he became a bit dated as a HC. Got lucky with good coordinators and having a good network of guys post-Luck. And he was at a point where he didn't need to try anything new, rather just consult or retire, but alas, then he did. What he was installing just didn't work with the supporting cast of coaches and personnel. He went out of his comfort zone (whether forced or not) and it blew up in crazy fashion. I have a hard time casting him in a poor light even though it was pretty damn bad. Wrong coach at the wrong time with a GM and org that made the wrong moves at important positions. Just a calamity of commotion with a mix of traditionalists and newer minds, players not fitting schemes. It was just chaos.

When Canales said throwing "over" guys lol

Stats and eye test both back that up. I mean, it is absolutely insane what we were able to do today, and against a solid defense. Very similar pockets, play calls, and attempted offensive cadence. YPA is the worst in modern history (and we're in a passing oriented era) The success rate is historically bad And the size. Just have to be honest. I thought he could overcome it pre-draft with his intangibles, but accept I was wrong. Historically the smallest QB frame wise in the history of the league and a bottom-5 starter arm. It's hard to lose sight of how bad he's been even in the win today. I hate to pile on, but it's super hard to ignore after this offense's output. Just...damn.

but yes, that felt freaking great. Some real emotion in this team again.

Winning cures all. Canales is getting some dudes bought in. Now, it's just 1 - we're onto Dalton's revenge game against the Bengals. Should be interesting.

Also this...

A handful of those were also claiming the former Penn State FB in Levis was some magician and Stroud was the one to be nervous about. We’re all wrong at times but they acted that way in such a proud wannabe-analyst mode like they knew better and then rushed off to that discord thing. It’s pretty funny. Not to dwell over the fact this is about a young dude not cutting the mustard. Just kinda funny hehe

WE F*CKING WON A GAME!!!!!!!

Minshew has always been meh but with meme-ish marketability that makes him more popular than other journeymen. He wasn't that good for the Eagles or Colts. Still, better than we're used to, but yeah, people think he's a bit better than he really is.