Back Together Again Eh?

Let's Play.

Here we are again in September with our backs against the wall. 

The stats are always flying around this time of year. 0-2 teams have only made the playoffs blah blah blah. It feels a we are Antonio Banderas  standing in the desert town getting ready to take on the gangsters with machine gun rocket launcher guitar cases. 

The Bengals spit in the face of 0-2 last year. Get ready for an encore.

Pundits are already throwing up caution signs. 

Warning: this is not the same as last year.  What the Bengals did Monday night is not sustainable. 

Okay, but that is obvious. Burrow’s time to throw clock is notably accelerated. His downfield accuracy is gone.  Anyone with more defensive playmakers is going to put the clamps down on the quick passing game. Anyone with more offensive fire power is going to surpass what Cincy’s offense can generate trying to desperately  squeeze as many field goals out as they can.  

The team had two choices after the re-aggravated calf strain. The most obvious as voiced by Ja’marr Chase: put the $270 million man on the shelf until he’s healthy. 

But they already tried that between the July 27 injury and the Sept. 10 opening game and it didn’t buy them much. He came back too rusty to play effectively and reinjured it in less than two weeks.

So what are we talking, six weeks minimum? Probably 8-10? Can Jake Browning or anyone else available win three or four games to leave room for the possibility of Burrow coming back in week 10 to rip off six or seven wins to get in the wild card hunt? Probably not and even if they could, Burrow has already proven he needs a few weeks to settle in off a long break.

Option two? Strip the offense down to bare bones and focus everything on protecting Burrow. Quick action. Quick throws. Fight, scratch, claw for every point and hope the defense holds up.  Put as little strain on that calf as possible and try to buy rehab time. 

I said it in the last post. This is it. This is their best chance. They are going to live by Burrow’s personality and die by it. If he wants to play and there’s no obvious additional risk of major injury like an Achilles tear, i think they have to go down swinging with option 2.

The little tricks they’re using to move the ball are on tape now. Effectiveness is going to wane. They just have to try to get to the bye week 3-3 without an injury setback.  Then hopefully they can come back from the bye and open up the offense a little against San Francisco.

They could also consider option three: Hybrid. Do both. Don’t put him on IR. Let him play, but pick your spots. Honestly Jeffrey Simmons terrifies me more than facing Aaron Donald did heading into Monday night. It’s a short week on the road. Placing the season on Jake Browning’s shoulders for 6 weeks feels daunting if not apocalyptic.  What if they give him one crack at it? Let Tennessee prep for gimpy Burrow. Leave him home to rehab and send Browning out with every rollout / bootleg in the playbook that Tennessee might not be expecting. 

It doesn’t sound bad, but then it’s pretty easy to talk yourself into shelving him.. well if Browning stands a chance this weekend, why not let him play in Arizona too? Then it is Seattle home before the bye so why not just sit him through the bye??

Because Joe is Joe. They chose grit so the choice is grit. He has determined that it’s the team’s best chance to try to nurse the injury for a few weeks and gut out a couple wins. They should roll with it. Some think the team has to protect him from himself, but if they force him out and it doesn’t gain them anything that could be worse to the psyche of the team than anything. Sitting out four weeks doesn’t help him that much so just go for it. (Assuming that’s what he wants to do, which seems pretty clear is the case)

We've Got Them Right Where We Want Them!

For all the belly aching about 0-2, are we sure it isn't better this way?  It's a long season and the margins on success in this league are razor thin and difficult to sustain.  Obviously, it would be great to start out 3-0, but what good does it do to come out of the gates firing on all cylinders if there isn't much hope of sustaining that edge into January?  Offensive explosion in September is great but teams have all year to figure out how to throw curve balls at you. 14-3?  There's a target on your back.  You start to believe you're better than everyone else and the second you don't think you have to earn every yard, somebody is going to come at you with a chip on their shoulder and knock you out.  the NFL playoffs don't leave the leeway that is provided by a 7 game series.  The cream doesn't have a chance to rise to the top.  It's one game at a time.  Win or go home.  What's right for Joe Burrow?  What's right for Cincinnati?  One of these years maybe we'll get to be the rabbit the whole league has to chase.  For now, we'll be the dog. For now this feels right.

No Context Quote of the Day:  

One of my favorite games to play watching game clips of NFL prospects or condensed games is to listen to the commentators when the clips cut from one play to another.  Often the guys will be saying something off the beaten path that makes no sense without out any context.  Some of them probably don't make any sense with context.  Either way, a few of these made me laugh so much i started jotting them down.  I figured it would be a good way to end a post every now and then.  Without  further ado the no context quote of the day for today is (this is an actual quote from an actual announcer of a football game): 

"She's invited to all my Parties Kenny.  HAheheheha"

Okay, since this is the inaugural No Context Quote of the day, i'll give you a bonus quote for this week.  Enjoy! Again, this is something that came up while these guys were trying to describe what was happening in a football game...

"Yeah then I saw he let one of his Dobermans off the leash.  Heh, so I'm not signing up."