Quick thoughts - Bengals
 

1. If you're not gonna fire Pagano at midseason, you gotta at least fire Chud. Holy shit. 4th-and-ballgame, you need 4 yards to keep the game alive, and you draw up a 20-yard downfield route to Hilton? That's laughably bad design. But that's Chud's offense in a nutshell. If Pagano won't go (he should), Chud should be a sacrificial lamb ... if nothing else as a message to Pagano that his hand-picked coordinator sucks.

2. I love Jacoby Brissett's arm and toughness. His field awareness is painfully bad though. I will say I don't put that pick-six on him or Haeg. That's just a great individual defensive play.

3. I feel really bad for Frank Gore. Every week, basically.

4. The Colts finally drew up a non-shit-obvious, well-designed screen to Marlon Mack. Look at the result. He should be more featured in that role going forward.

5. Kamar Aiken should be cut. I can't think of any reason he should be on the roster tomorrow. Really. I know teams don't just cut players at midseason willy-nilly, but what has he contributed to this team at all? And why is he stealing targets from Moncrief ... or even Rogers?

6. I'm hesitant to label that a bounceback game from Jack Doyle because we've seen Dwayne Allen have the exact same kinda game before. But it was a helluva game.

7. I don't know what to make of the OL, honestly. They're not good, but they're not awful. Le'Raven Clark is pretty awful, to the extent that some guy I'd never heard of before replaced him and looked totally solid in relief. I don't know what that says about Philbin or Pagano or Ballard.

I do know that Vujnovich single-blocking Atkins for most of the game says a lot of bad things about Philbin and Chud, though.

8. Honestly, it was worth watching this shitshow to see that performance from Henry Anderson. Swap his contract with Johnathan Hankins', please. Maybe the best Colts single defensive-lineman performance I've seen since prime Freeney/Mathis.

9. I noticed the Colts took Antonio Morrison out on passing downs for the most part today. Only took 8 weeks.

10. Vontae Davis played like a guy who heard he's probably going to be traded.

11. TJ Green is still so bad, it's almost entertaining.

12. I'll give some credit to Barkevious Mingo. He's not very good, but he busts his ass on every play. Sometimes, he makes plays by accident, or just because he surprises the defense by being there. I don't mind him as LB depth at all.

13. Has the special teams return unit ever set up a return in Pagano's time here? I know there have been return TDs, but I'm thinking outside of Deji Karim a few years ago, I've never actually seen blocking intentionally set up to spring a return. Even the return last year vs the Packers was mostly just solo effort. These guys have NOTHING to work with.

14. I honestly think Pagano just doesn't *get* significant chunks of the NFL game. I think there are rules he doesn't understand (seriously). I think he doesn't understand the nuances of challenges. I think he's just not very good at this, and I hadn't realized before last week that it's probably because he had one year of NFL experience -- as a coordinator -- before coming to the Colts.

15. So what direction do you go with that top-5 pick? I'd say best available between: LT (Castonzo is above average, but could move to RT at this stage in career) and EDGE, and just being smart about where the class' best coverage ILB sits on the board. But depending on how much this roster gets gutted, I can see a scenario where there are needs we don't even know about yet.

1. I'd thank this a million times if I could. Chud sucks. Just sucks. Horrible at reorganizing the team around him...... HEY CHUD! YOU ARE NOT CALLING PLAYS FOR THE 1999 RAMS MOTHER FUCKER!

5. Hate Dorsett all you want but at least he could catch he fucking ball! IF CHUD EVER RAN A PLAY FOR HIM!

PLEASE FIRE Chud today! Give Shotty a shot.....

I hate Chud!

Minkah Fitzpatrick for top 10 pick.

Remember the name.

But you hate chud just because you always wanted to be different. It doesn't come from a logical place with you. You wanted him to fail because it would somehow be a win for you

Is he a pass rusher or o lineman?

If not then he can fuck off

He's a DB from Alabama. Usually Saban/Bama defensive players have high floors, and Fitzpatrick has a very high floor. However, he doesn't fit what you want most.

You couldn't be more wrong.... I hate the fact that we have to change OC's HC's so often

You cannot deny that Chud does not think about the team he has and is trying to run an offense that he does not have the personnel to run. I gave him the benefit of the doubt because of not wanting a new OC AGAIN!

But his philosophy makes for a horrible coach! Square peg Round hole!

Fuck all of that shit.

Trade that lotto pick and pick up some fucking LB's.

How you can hate PAGGONE NOW and not think the same of Chud is beyond me

Chud as a HC = PAG GONE NOW now it's just OC but still horrible!

Stupid decisions JUST STUPID

How can you not see this????

My summary boils down to "we lost, anyone surprised? nope"

More troubling: "we lost, anyone care? nope."

I agree that’s where the bigger need is. Arden Key would be more along the lines of what you’re looking for in that regard.

That said, unless it’s QB/RB/WR, when you’re picking that high, I think you have to go BPA.

chud is bad for this team. yes. he sucks

but you were always going to say this. you took this stand at the beginning.

i care

Me too. Rationally I know higher draft pick better, but I hate losing and feel like the team is breeding a losing culture. The Browns have had a decade of high picks.

Yeah, but the Browns keep inexplicably passing on good quarterbacks to draft Johnny Manziel and Deshone Kizer.

What's so hilariously frustrating about this season is that even without Luck we could still very well be 5-3 if we had just a semi-competent head coach and coaching staff. The Cardinals, Titans, and Bengals losses were all VERY winnable with a competent head coach/coaching staff. Hell, even though the Seahawks beat us by 32, that game was close at halftime. If we had a coach who didn't just go into the halftime lockeroom and clap his hands a few dozen times before relaxing and catching up on his needlpoint the rest of halftime, we might have actually remained competitive the rest of the game.

However, at this point I'm actually ok with us losing games because it means we get a higher draft pick. Luck is obviously, probably, not coming back this season or any time soon, so we're probably better off losing as many games as possible. But it's still extremely frustrating to see us sitting at 2-6 when three or four of our six losses were VERY winnable games.

Yes. I knew it was a bad decision.

What it tells me is that the Colts can return to competence next season with some good coaching hires and a healthy Luck.

No

You loved pep, only to be like dam and pagano, and you wanted to see his predecessor fail. So you could beat your chest like you knew the outcome

No

And even with the ball at the 45 yard line and time to get in FG range, I still didn't think this team would win.

And with the ball deep in their own territory up by 6, my feeling was they were going to throw an INT.

Lets just face it about JB.......he is a back up and he plays like it. I don't blame him for the losses. He is basically a rookie. His coaches suck.

However, he can't handle a pass rush. He makes bad decisions with the ball. He has a rocket arm and can thread the needle with his passes, time after time have seen him do that. Its not the physical part of being a QB he needs to master. He is still just a LONG way from being a good, week to week starting QB.

Yes there are drops. Too many. But there are also far too many sacks that truly fall on him and bad decisions that fall on him. You can't take a sack in the last two minutes while driving for the win like we saw today.

And yes he had to learn a new playbook coming here, but we are halfway into the season by now, there really should not be that limited of a playbook at this point.

#5-- That's pissing me off more than anything he keeps throwing this bum the fucking ball

Had Pep been given a chance unhindered by Pags he would have succeeded

Had nothing to loving Pep. But it was the comfort zone thatnLuck enjoyed

Pep understood the need for double TE because the Oline was shit I know you all hated that but that was onnGrigs to not address the ol9nr

Pep didn't put Luck in position to fail like Chud does. And that's a fact




Best Luck hrs under Pep. Just saying.

BS.

Pep sucked balls as well and was not running a modern NFL offense.

I am not saying CHud has done much etiher, but just stop with this Pep being so great and it being so wrong to let him go.

See every other post I've made in the issue

Except when he needs to throw to the fucking end zone! That underthrown pass to TY Hilton drove me crazy.

It was late. Dude stood there and patted the ball. He needed to let it go before he did. Hilton smoked his dude at like 10 yards

Pep was so good where is he now?

Give it up dam jr.

Yes that was a bad throw.

And late, as mentioned. Modern QB would have had it there sooner, should have been 6.

Brissett reminds me of Jameis Winston

I think the defense played a good game today

Honestly, I'm not trying to be overly pessimistic guy, but I thought the Bengals played a bad game more than anyone besides Henry Anderson on the Colts really playing a good game.

I mean, Andy Dalton noodle armed some pretty pathetic incompletions in that game.

The bungles have a way of making pizz poor defenses look like the old Ravens

My favorite part of the game was when pagano challenged the fumble. The call was reversed and pags was giddy, then realized the ref didnt award us the ball because it was recovered out of bounds, and his face held utter confusion.

o


The Colts' offense has coughed up 5 touchdowns and a safety so far this season, even though all of those points are collectively attributed to the defense when totalling the points ceded by a team.



4 Pick-6's

1 Fumble Recovery for a TD

1 Safety


o

Sad but true.

I'm past caring about the results this season. Well past it.

The only thing I care about is a coaching clean-out.

A top-five draft pick will also be nice.

I'm done with this season. I'm beyond demoralized.

Totally agree on Chud; he's complete garbage. I had some decent expectations after Pep was fired, but somehow Chud has actually managed to be worse :eek:

This is true, but I'm still higher on Doyle and the significance of this game because, for him, it's a return to form that's consistent with his ball skills and level of effort over his career so far. When Allen put together a game like that, it was notable for its rarity. For Doyle, the couple of bad games was the aberration.


I've honestly been saying this for at least a year. I wasn't on here saying it, so it doesn't matter and I'm not trying to get points for being prophetic or seeing something sooner - just appreciating seeing my take on Pagano validated.

Every bad coach has been accused of not knowing what's going on in games, but in Pagano's case, it's literally what is happening. He spends significant portions of the game not really keeping up with the situation on the field. I have a pet theory on why that is.

Pagano does not have any instincts. With any competent coach, if you could pause the game at any point and climb into their heads, I think they'd have a very solid idea of what was going on - beyond down and distance, they'd have what you might call a working mental model of both teams, the officials, the field conditions, and what trends were emerging from plays on both sides of the ball and their outcomes. A competent coach walks out onto the field with a plan and then adapts to the changing circumstances throughout the game.

Pagano does none of this. I'll bet you anything that he's one of those people who describe themselves as "a processor;" the kind who can't give you a salient take on something in the moment when asked, but who wants to go back and "think on it for a while" so they can make up their minds about what they think. I don't have a problem with people like that, but it's a terrible trait for a head coach of a football team.

When a good coach calls a timeout, it's a tactical part of their strategy to win the game. It's to save clock, or get themselves out of a bad play, or cover for a miscommunication on the field, etc. I think Pagano understands the game well enough that he knows those are times you use a timeout as well, but I ALSO believe he uses timeouts reactively because he's become overwhelmed and confused, and he just straight up needs a moment to think about what to do.... because he does not instinctively know. The game outpaces his thinking in real time and he gets lost.

If you look for it, you see that happen at a bunch of different points throughout the game, but it's definitely his timeout and challenge management where it becomes the most obvious.