LostInDaJungle

Because you have big egos, and guys who are signed to a longer term deal than their boss. It creates a situation where players think the coach needs to make them happy instead of the other way around. So Marvin gets out there and yells "work harder", and a guy like AJ Green says "Bitch, I'm signed until 2023, and you're 6 months away from bagging groceries. You better hope I don't tell Mike Brown that I'd rather play for someone else." You see it some in football, but you really see it in basketball. Ask Dave Blatt about it. I think he's coaching in the Turkish leagues right now.

And when teams are running out the clock because you're losing, your pass D looks better. "Hey, we lost by 31 points, but we only gave up 121 passing yards!" (Hobson, 1999) Now, this is per snap, but if you're giving up a lot of cushion and trying to keep the play in front of you, an offense is going to take what you give them. A 5 yard pass play is still a success. So, you have a good yards per snap, but a high rate of passes completed against your Defense. Heck, a 2 yard pass is a success on 3rd and 1. While the DVOA metric isn't gospel, it does try to measure how many times an offense was successful against a defense. Even if it's a 2 yard pass on 3rd and 1. Denver's pass D? -32.9 (negative is good) The Bengals? Passing +5.7, rushing -4.4. That ranks us 15th in passing D. Against short passes, we drop to 19th. Pittsburgh was 9th against short passes, and 18th against the long ball. Denver was 1st in both categories. And don't forget - both the Stealers and Bengals got to play the Browns twice. The worst passing offense in the league.

Exactly. It also wasn't a choice to start Dalton as a rookie or have Rex Burkehead manning the slot for the last 4 games of his rookie year. As said, I don't disagree. But at this point when Hobson starts talking a guy up in camp, I get nervous. Heck, even earlier this year he slobbed all over Nick Vigil... right before the Bengals went out and got his replacement in FA and drafted a traditional SLB. (Who is now getting some Hobson slob...) Offseason reports of players are like campaign promises, I don't believe them.

I don't disagree, but it's common for Hobson to publish these puff pieces on these guys and then they never see the field. Weirdly, it's usually the late rounders that get the starts... Russell Bodine is a part of that group.

Except they say that stuff every year. "Coaches and Teammates are really impressed with Nick Vigil, or Will Clarke, or Margus Hunt..." Every year some guy feeding the bottom of the roster comes in and gets a good Hobknobbing... And then sees 50 snaps.

I met him a few times... That's pretty accurate with what I saw, and about half of them were public events where he should have been pretty chill. Dude didn't just seem to be unhappy to be there... Parents would come up to get their kid's stuff signed and CD is just glaring at them like they just ran over his mom. You'd go get a burger with the guy and you could almost feel the undercurrent of rage emanating off of him. CD smiled like a guy thinking "Ya, that's right, walk away you little b****". His SMILES were hostile. Steve Foley was a HOSTILE MF'er who looked like skin wrapped around a pile of old rebar and rocks, and he found CD scary.

Reality of the situation is that he was considered too stiff to play DE much less line up against TE's in coverage. That's from the NFL.com draft profile.... If he's a DE who can stand up, MJ93 could stand up well enough, how often did we drop him in coverage? MJ93 is pretty agile. I believe it was "rare athleticism" used to describe him on draft day. So, where does Lawson play? SLB? Is he on the field before Vigil? DE? Does he get to see grass before Willis, Hardison and Clarke? https://www.cincyjungle.com/2015/8/4/9094679/will-clarke-stepping-bengals-depleted-de Because 2 years ago, Will Clarke looked awesome and was really ready to make a contribution. He could play both sides of the line and even line up at DT if we needed him to. He put on good weight without losing any of his speed... Clarke barely saw the field that year. You know three years ago Margus Hunt spent the offseason with Kevin Greene and really looked awesome. So strong and quick. Really developed that nasty streak he needed. It was going to be a breakout 2014 for him...

Lawson has been the talking point of this off-season, but last year it was a different guy who saw ~100 total snaps for the year. The success rate for moving College DE's to LB is practically non-existent. Lawson, at best, takes the SLB role that has been a non-producer even for former pro-bowl players. If he's the 3rd linebacker, we don't use him very much. If he's a situational pass rush guy, is he any better than Clarke? Can he play in space well enough to use him on 3rd and long without giving away that he's the blitzer? These little off-season man-crushes rarely amount to much. Get excited if you want, but don't be surprised if he's nowhere to be found on Sunday's next fall.

Hey, can we sign Terrel Owens? Yeah buddy! Put your money where your mouth is.

https://www.facebook.com/NFL/videos/10155072982396263/?hc_ref=NEWSFEED Snoop Dogg's message to John Ross.

Thanks for the thread that inspired so many thoughtful comments. I thought I'd have nothing to read today.