SlantNGo

PFF classifies 3-4 DEs like JJ Watt as Defensive Interior (DI) along with 4-3 DTs. 3-4 OLBs and 4-3 DEs are classified as Edge Defenders (EDs). I know PFF uses their own numbers, but I don't know where the NFL numbers come from. The NFL stats tackle counts used to be tabulated by home team scorers, and some scorers were very generous with counting assists. The end result was that their team's tackle numbers were inflated.

Billings is now starting at 1-tech. He seems to be alternating between good and terrible (e.g. Bears) games, while Sims is now the backup 1-tech getting ~10 snaps. Glasgow is still the backup 3-tech and seems to be doing a decent job. I don't think he'll ever be a dominant pass rusher, and there doesn't seem to be much of a market for starting 3-tech DTs that can't rush the passer (like Brandon Thompson) so his best bet to turn into a starter might be to put on some weight in the offseason and try to play as a hybrid tackle who can play both at 1-tech and 3-tech so that he's in on almost every down where we play 2 DTs. Overall I sense some growing pains with these 2 young tackles, but hopefully we can get at least 1 solid starter out of them. I think Glasgow is looking better than Billings thus far, but Billings probably has the higher ceiling (to potentially be a dominant 1-tech).

Yeah the Patriots really exploited the crap out of the rule so it's been enforced a bit more in past years, but teams are now using it more too. One trick is for the receiver to see the defender's path then not actually try to cut him off but encourage him to go over the top of you (thus leaving the shallow crossing route open) by turning back to the QB and pretending like you're settling in a zone. I think this is one of the reasons why the Bengals switched from a primarily man coverage scheme to primarily zone. Part of it might also be Zimmer's preferences compared to Guenther.

Last time our O-line was this bad was 2008. Palmer was getting beat up like crazy in preseason, and Chris Perry was getting 3 yards/carry and couldn't stop fumbling so we signed Benson mid-season. Our O-line actually ended up decent in 2009 with the Livings-Mathis platoon at LG, Cook replacing Bluto at C, and the Anthony Collins-Dennis Roland platoon at RT. The main difference is that we don't have 2 solid pieces like we did before in Whit and Bobbie Williams. Boling looks to be our best, and he is only good, not great. Bodine looked like he turned the corner towards the end of last year, and then WTF happened this year? Andre Smith is still mediocre, and yet I feel reassured with him in there rather than Fisher. Maybe with a few new pieces in both the draft and FA, we can improve 2 or 3 positions, but 4 is asking a lot.

PFF hates Dre because of their grading system. They grade each play as either very bad, bad, neutral, good, or very good, and then add them all up and convert it into a numeric score from 0 to 100. Dre is a terrible tackler so he gets lots of bad and very bad grades for missing tackles. He also gets flagged a lot when he's beaten. For comparison, Football Outsiders has charting stats, and Dre has usually ranked quite highly there, especially against the deep ball. I'd say Dre is probably something like the 30th best corner in the league. Unfortunately, right now he's paid like the 15th best.

That might not be a bad strategy. Jacksonville has the best overall, best pass, and worst run defense in the league: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamdef Whereas we have the 26th best pass O and 27th best run O: http://www.footballoutsiders.com/stats/teamoff Maybe the strategy should be to run as much as possible, and if we go 3 & out and punt, Bortles might just give us the ball back on their half of the field. I expect Huber will punt at least 5 times if not 7.

This rumor actually makes sense. The Bengals FO often lets other teams set the market, and then they move. This often works out in their favor, such as Dalton's contract, which basically had him as the lowest paid non-rookie starting QB until Glennon's contract with the Bears. The Pats set the market with a 2nd rounder for Garroppolo. Probably negotiations only got serious after that point. It's unfortunate--a 2nd and a 3rd given where the Browns will be picking is an absolute steal. Not as much of a steal as the Palmer trade was, but still an amazing deal.

PFF weighs each play equally. For example, Muhsin Mohammad often ended up being one of their highest rated WRs because he dominated so much better than other WRs at run blocking. They have separate splits for run blocking and pass receiving for WRs, for example, but they usually just end up looking at the overall score. Dre has got to be one of the worst tackling starting CBs in the league, and CBs make tackles (5+ times a game) way more often than they deflect passes (maybe 1 or 2 a game). My main criticism of PFF is not in their play-by-play scoring, but their poor aggregation. They are well behind FBO in this regard. PFF's new scoring system (0 to 100) is even worse. I think they're just transforming the old grades into a scaled sigmoid function (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sigmoid_function) so that they end up between 0 and 100.

He was beaten badly a few times in the Bills game and committed PIs to save touchdowns. It's good that he's committing the PI to save the TD, but it would be better if he could avoid getting beaten so badly to begin with. I think the PIs are something we coach. Adam Jones and Dre both commit a lot of PIs in situations where they're badly beaten with no safety help. FBO and PFF are polar opposites on Dre. His FBO charting stats are awesome, but PFF rates him as a terrible corner (mostly due to his tackling I think). Again, I think WJIII has the highest potential of any corner we've draft since Leon Hall. He's probably outplaying both Adam Jones and Dre so far this year, and I'm happy to see him getting lots of snaps.

WJIII has been awesome against the Packers and Stealers, but not so great against the Browns and Bills. He's up and down, but the highs are certainly very high, and higher than any corner we've had since Leon Hall. I think his play will probably lead us to decline the option on Adam Jones' 3rd year. I think Kirkpatrick has been struggling a bit this year. His tackling is normally awful, but it seems even worse this year. I wonder how much his injury is factoring in. He's Tory James v2. Not 3rd and Tory, but earlier career Tory who was physical in coverage and could jam receivers at the line really well. Dennard, on the other hand has looked really good, which is great to see because he sucked last year. His tackling is really solid too. If he can stay healthy and keep this up, he's a bargain for $8 million next year on his 5th year option.

Part of it just positional. Billings is being rotated in for Sims at the 1-tech. We don't play a 1-tech much this year in the nickel, so the 1-tech DTs might get 20-30 snaps combined. Sims is probably good for about 20-25 snaps per game, so Billings only gets the remaining 5 or so. Glasgow is being rotated for Atkins at the 3-tech. We always have a 3-tech on the field (all ~60 snaps), and we always want Atkins in on 3rd down passing situations. Last year Atkins was in on about 80% of the snaps. If that hasn't changed, that ends up being about 45-50 snaps, so Glasgow gets 10-15 snaps every game just as the backup 3-tech. He hasn't looked bad at all in those snaps though. He played mostly 1-tech at Michigan, but he's currently undersized for a 1-tech in the NFL. I don't know if he's enough of a threat as a pass rusher to be a full-time 3-tech if Atkins is injured, but it's great to see him contributing right away. I don't think Billings has really "fallen behind" Glasgow. Really, Billings is competing with Sims for snaps. If Billings is doing well, he should be getting more snaps as the season goes on, and Sims probably won't be re-signed next year.

On a positive note, Nick Vigil is looking pretty sweet out there! He and Burfict make a nice tandem.

I didn't see any major mistakes by Ced. It seemed like we were on a platoon system. Smith - Fisher, Ced - Smith, Ced - Fisher, alternating every drive. I think Adam Jones and WJ III are alternating also, along with JR Redmond and TJ Johnson at RG. One sack was a clear miscommunication between Bodine and Redmond. Another was Fisher getting his ass whooped.

I saw Andre rotating with both Fisher at RT and Ogbuehi at LT throughout the game. I think it was just part of the game plan. Will Jackson III also seemed to be rotating with Adam Jones as part of the game plan. I don't remember Andre and Ogbuehi looking too bad. The worst I remember from Ogbuehi was a mental error failing to pick up Boling's man on a stunt which led to a free rusher on Dalton. On that same play, Fisher got his ass whooped so bad that his man sacked Dalton before the free rusher looping around on the stunt. Ahmad Brooks kicked Fisher's ass all day.

The most important thing from this article is "Another notable development on the day was Trey Hopkins working on the rehab field. Hopkins is dealing with a knee injury that was thought to be significant, perhaps season-ending." Hopkins has looked pretty solid in preseason and until he went down in week 1. If he can turn into a solid starter, then we've actually got at least a pretty good interior line to go along with two projects at tackle. I haven't given up hope on either Ogbuehi or Fisher--remember that it took Bodine 2.5 seasons as a terrible starter before he actually turned into a pretty good center.