The Cincinnati Bengals have struggled
early and often this season and have dealt with numerous injuries but then
again who hasn’t had the injury bug this year.
Joe Burrow has been playing lights out all year, though they just haven’t
found ways to win, losing five games by six or less points while three of which
came by a margin of three or less points.
That sure puts the Wild in Wild Card if you ask me. It isn’t quite panic mode for the Bengals,
but a loss on Sunday Night Football would palpably change things. Zac Taylor is all too familiar with slow
starts to the season as Cincy’s Head Coach, starting 0-2 in five of his six
seasons. Coach Taylor also ended two consecutive
seasons with no less than an AFC Championship appearance (20-21,21-22). I previously stated how losing at Los Angeles
tonight could unequivocally raise a major level of concern falling four games
back to the Chargers. In this scenario they
would seemingly not have a prayer in their own division, being able to catch either
Baltimore or Pittsburgh plus it would also possibly put them two games back
behind the Broncos assuming they beat the Falcons today.
The
Chargers obviously have a cushion to descend by a few games without affecting
their playoff chances. Don’t get me
wrong, they clearly don’t want to put more notches in the right-hand column. I’m merely saying that they more than likely won’t
be able to catch the Chiefs for the top spot in the AFC West and don’t look plausible
to move up to the five seed as that pretty much appears to be set in stone for whoever
ends up the number two team in the AFC North.
When everyone spoke highly of this Los Angeles Chargers team in the
offseason I kind of blocked that noise out.
Yes, I know how great coach Jim Harbaugh is, I also realize how talented
quarterback Justin Herbert is. My
thoughts were that for this team to make a playoff run in Harbaugh’s inaugural
season they would need to have more talent around Herbert especially within his
receiver core. When you look at his
career thus far, the Chargers offense has been a difficult team to reckon with
to say the least with guys like Keenan Allen and Mike Williams. Going into this season the Chargers had moved
on from both of those players thus only toting younger less experienced
wideouts that didn’t exactly look like game changers. I know how special Ladd McConkey is from his
time with the Georgia Bulldogs, though even he didn’t seem like he was clicking
with Herbert until the past few weeks.
Up to this point, week 11, the Chargers are not within the top 18 teams
in any offensive statistics. However,
what they lack offensively, their defense has more than made up for with what
they’ve been able to do on that side of the ball.
Los
Angeles has been a top ten defense in all major categories across the
board. We all know how great a defensive-minded
coach Harbaugh is but let’s also give credit where credit is due. Chargers DC Jesse Minter came over from
Michigan after serving as Harbaugh’s DC there as well (2022-2023). Minter’s defensive is very parsimonious in
the number of points they are allowing to their opponents this season, only
ceding 13.1 points a game (1st).
Their rush defense is no different, allowing on average just 110.6 yards
(9th), while they also boast one of the most ungenerous pass defenses
in the league permitting offenses roughly 191.6 yards through the air (9th). Overall LA sanctions a total of 302.1 yards
weekly, ranking just outside the top 5 amongst all NFL defensive units this year. While I have already mentioned how much more
of importance this win is for a 4-6 Cincinnati Bengals team it doesn’t mean the
Chargers aren’t going to make it any easier on them with their stingy defense.
Cincinnati
needs to come out and channel their offense from week 8 when they opened the game
against the Philadelphia Eagles by going on a ten-minute drive to start. Though, with that in mind you also don’t want
to have the same result as that game.
Dan Pitcher, Cincy’s OC needs to cook up a balanced game plan that can
help open the passing game, which is figured to be better than previous weeks
with Tee Higgins finally able to suit up after missing the last handful of
games with an injury. Having to defend
two Pro-Bowl-like wideouts possesses a threat that I don’t believe the Chargers
have had to face to this point in the year.
Los Angeles on the other hand should look to exploit the Bengals defense
through the passing game as they are quite generous allowing 220.2 yards (23rd)
on a weekly basis. Chargers will also
look to do a fair amount of damage on the ground against this porous rush that
gives up 127.3 yards a game. Last week Los
Angels welcomed back running back Gus “the bus” Edwards who was traded along
with his other running back mate J.K. Dobbins from Jim’s brother John Harbaugh
in the offseason. Upon Edwards return
last week he averaged over 5 yards per carry and will undoubtedly churn out a
lot of ground and pound yards sharing the back field duties with the quick and
speedy Dobbins.
I
like an upset tonight in Los Angeles and will be counting on Bengals
quarterback Joe Burrow to show up and show out.
Burrow has been playing some of the best football of his career this
season and leads the NFL in both passing yards (2,672 yds) along with touchdowns
(T-1st-24 tds) and has arguably the best starting receiver tandem in
the league. Bengals also has had a huge
bump in running back play in second year runner Chase Brown (took over for Zack
Moss) who came into the season as their number two back but took over the
starting role after seemingly out- playing Moss week after week. Brown is now the cow bell in this backfield,
excelling both on passing downs as well as getting all the early work with Zack
Moss going down to injury. Though the
better defense goes to the Chargers, the better Offense has mainly been the
Bengals, especially in the passing game.
Harbaugh’s team is currently favored at home (-1.5) though that could
change between now and kickoff at 8:20PM.
In my own personal opinion this game may not wind up being the best of
the day but I do still think it will be a very good one.
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