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is there. The Bengals pull off a monument and unlikely upset on the road in Jacksonville, and I'm going to start this show with an apology to Jake Browning. You are Locked On Bengals, your daily Cincinnati Bengals podcast, part of the Locked On podcast Network. Your team every Day well not Bengals fans, and welcome to another episode of the Locked On Bengals podcast. I'm your
host, Jake. Let's go. He's your host, James Rapeain coming to you late on Monday night or early on Tuesday morning, depending on where you are. The Bengals get a road win on Monday Night football for the first time in many tries, and Jake Browning shuts up his critics and I will step to the front of that line. You can find us if you're new to the show on YouTube where you get your podcasts, and we appreciate everybody who makes us their first listening this in every Day in James, I've got
an apology, I've got a prop I've written my apology letter. What do you think. Are you also apologizing to Jake Running or so just me? No, I'm not apologizing to Jake Browning. I think he played great on Monday Night. He was awesome. And whether it's numbers wise or eye test
wise, he passed all of that. Last week he passed the numbers test but not the actual eye test, but thirty two of thirty seven three point fifty four a touchdown, another rushing touchdown, finding Jamar Chase on third and one for a seventy six yard explosive play, going off script when needed. I mean everything you could ask for, multiple nice throws outside the numbers and
on bootlegs. This was a Jake browning that people inside the building said existed, but I think even they're pleasantly surprised with how he performed given the environment, given how fired up Jacksonville was. This is the first time they had a Monday night football game here, Jake, since Andy Dalton's rookie year.
Like this was a big and I've been in Jacksonville the past few days spoiler alert for those that haven't noticed my awful setup on YouTube, and it's been buzzing with man Monday night football, Monday night football and sort to come in here and to play like that heck of a performance. But go ahead. You have an apology you want to grant with Jake Brown, and go ahead. I've written by Rotter. Dear Jake, I'm sorry for those first quarter
tweets. I'm sorry I doted your ability to play on time and manage the offense. I'm sorry I do did your decision making great game, great throws, great calls, and great balls to stand in there and play in the clutch and under pressure. Looking forward to seeing you a week fourteen against the Colts. Here's truly Jake. Let's go ps. Sorry to the rest of the team too for the doubt, great effort, great w I was harsh on Jake Browning coming up into this game. I was hard seawan Jake Browning
in the first two drives of the game. I don't think he played very well in the first two drives of the game. I don't think the offense was in a rhythm for the first two drives of the game. Some of that certainly on play calling in the approach, trying to get the ball to Jamar Chase early and often behind the line of scrimmage, and trying to see if he could make guys Smith didn't work. The adjustments quickly happened. The third drive of the game might be one of the best call drives we've ever
seen from Zach Taylor. He found the rhythm, Browning found the rhythm, and so first and foremost, yeah, I agree with you. Browning played extremely well better than I thought he ever could, outside of a couple of very minor In retrospect, blemishes, mostly early in the game. And maybe more importantly, it seems like we saw a philosophy switch from a play design play calling offensive design perspective in a couple of important ways, and Eli Manning
was talking about this on the Manning Cast. He talked to Jake Browning before the game. It sounded like, you know, Brownie went into last week thinking like, Yeah, I'm comfortable in the offense. Let's run the offense. Let's run the offense. Let's not change things. Then he came out of that game and was like, Oh, actually, these things that I thought I liked, I don't actually like. So let's do some things a little bit differently. I know. He talked about that in his postgame press
conference as well, some of the things they changed on third downs. So we saw some adjustments and we saw Jake Browning play a much more comfortable brand of football, both in terms of staying on time, playing mostly very accurate quarterback. And if he can play like that, then you know, it's week to week, right, Jacksonville versus Pittsburgh very different defenses. So if he can play like that, this team can be competitive down the stretch,
no doubt. If he can play like that. It's still a problem. It's still a problem for the rest of the AFC. Now, I'm not sitting here going to say cram of angles as legitimate contenders or anything like that
after one win, but it's pretty wide open. And I know a lot of people probably laughed at me in our past couple of episodes, I've been like a broken record thinking playoffs and how the in the building they're talking playoffs, and how everything's still right there and all they have to do is start with a win on Monday night. Well, they got that win on Monday night, and so now where do they go from here? And can they bounce back on a certain leap and get another win against a winnable team,
a winnable game against the COLT. I think that's a big question. Yeah, that is the challenge they have to sustain the success. They are not in a position where there's much of a margin for error. Although the AFC continues to remain wide open and in many ways which kind of rough salt in the wound that they don't have Joe Burrow in a year where the AFC is just simply not as strong as I think I thought it would be. Certainly, and it's open. It's crazy how open it is. It is open.
But there's still matchup problems for this team that kind of would scare me, Kansas City being one of them, just because the Bengals defense has been and we'll talk about the defense at some point still a bit leaky, to put it lightly, Camp Taylor Bricos on ir before the game. Neither of
those are are great things for the future for the defense. And then on the offensive side of the ball, I worry about more consistent pressure and a better defense, a deeper defense than Jacksonville can put on the field, and the way Jake Brown will handle that. I think, you know there's a taste of that against Pittsburgh, but maybe you don't get that against the Colts, who are also winning a lot of games this year right in the thicket
things in the AFC South. So certainly will be very interesting down the stretch. But it's not like the schedule is getting a whole lot easier, right, And so if they're going to keep it going, they need to keep finding the right buttons to push on offense. The defense will need to play better in clutch spot, will need to get better with the explosive plays.
But for now, this is a very promising first step to go to a very difficult environment in primetime Monday night football with your backup quarterback and get the performance they got where he outplayed Trevor Lawrence and the offense. What they outgained by like one hundred and fifty yards or something over well over four hundred yards to Jacksonville around three fifty or something like that. So really positive stuff for
this team. Well, what Jake Browning showed and what they showed tonight is that their ceiling is still pretty hot. Now is it going to be consistent?
I don't know, but going on a road, hostile environment, huge game, biggest game primetime wise in thirteen years here in Jacksonville, and there was talk just of it being open here locally, like, man, the Jacks can get the one seed and they were looking in the fans talk and it's not like the Jacksonville Jaguars called me, but like fans are talking about it, like thinking about how open it was, especially after Kansas City lost. And so for the Bengals, they are flawed. They're still flawed.
Like that doesn't change, but I think now we know the quarterback can play at a high enough level where you can win thirty plus point shootouts or weird games where that go into overtime on the road, things that I didn't think were possible without Joe Burrow. And so I don't know if Jake Browning is
going to have another one of these games. Maybe this is the Brandon Allen Houston game from a couple of years ago, where he's just awesome in Houston and that's it, or maybe the outlier is going to be that Pittsburgh game when he was trying to figure things out in his first NFL start against a really good defense and he responded the right way. And this offense and these coaches were able to evolve and evolve and adjust to what Jake does well and
they can build on this. And so I think it's interesting. It's a huge, huge win. Obviously they snap a three game losing streak, and we got to get to it. The run game, Jake, the run game, Chase brown Joe Mixon, good and shortyarded situation on the goal line. I mean the run game. We got to talk about the run game.
Yeah, I think play calling in general run game a big part of that, and just looking at the very near future on the schedule before we shift gears and talk about some of that offensive play calling, including the trick plays which people are very upset about. The Bengals next two games or I guess three out of their two out of their next three games against the Colts and Steelers two seven and five teams that they directly are competing with for the
wild card. Let's get into play calling. Let's get into the offensive approach, the commitment to the run game. We'll do that coming up next. Today's episode of Lockdown Bengals is sponsored by game Time. If you are in the market for tickets for a Bengals game or any other event, you shouldn't
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know the Bengals strive for perfection and they handle business on Monday night. Shuld Strollers strives for perfection too, because when it has to be perfect, it has to be shuld Strollers. Let's talk offensive approach play calling on early downs in this game, James Cincinnati Bengals ran. Let me make sure I have this exactly rate. Twenty eight running plays and twenty nine passing plays. They
committed to the run game. They were balanced in the run game. You had Chase Chase Brown get an opportunity to show that he could be a viable change of pace back for this team, could make plays, could be the guy that could rip off the explosives and use his speed to his advantage. And on the other side, you had Joe Mixon, being the veteran back,
he didn't have as many negative plays. He was on a success rate basis, meaning plays that added positive EPA at a higher rate than Chase brown He was very good in the red zone where he punched to rushes in for touchdowns. So Zach Taylor redemption game, I mean, the offense has been under so much heat. And we'll talk about the trick play calls too, but the offense has been so much heat for their approach in recent weeks, especially with Jake Browning, and we saw a big swing in this game to
a very positive effect. We did, we did, and what an aid it was for Browning because as good as he was, he admitted how helpful, how beneficial it was to have a rushing attack. And he mentioned even on the third and one that they might not have gotten that look and he said, there's a chance that was busted coverage, but they might not have
gotten that look had they not been running the ball so effectively. And Joe Mixon, to me, being as good as he was in those short yardage situations like that first touchdown run was awesome because he was able to keep his body off the ground somehow and extend and be strong enough and have the strength and power and the just the discipline to stay off the ground enough to get that ball across the goal line. And then obviously Chase Brown. This is
what we're talking about. Change of pace, Jake. Chase Brown brought the change of tas nine attempts sixty one yards, had a thirty one yard rush, which is the longest that the Bengals have had all season long, had a fifteen yard run as well. Those plays are huge. One, it keeps it's a big play for the offense. Two, it keeps the defense at least having to worry about it. Now from moving forward, defensive coordinators are going to know that Chase Brown is capable of breaking off a big run
and they're going to look at that and now that's on film. They had much of that this year. And the other part of that, like I said, mixing was good and late in the game he had some nice runs as well, but good in tho short yard situations. Keeping him fresher is a heck of a way to is good for this offense. It's good for him so he can be successful in those situations. So I think it was
a heck of a job by Zach. They run the ball on the first play of the game, the first two plays of the game, and it it was like, oh, one for Joe Mixon, one for Chase Brown. By the way, Chase Brown had five of the first six carries of the game. In the first quarter, Mix only had one carry, and Brown was running the ball well, and then they got to Mixon and turned
to him. It was a good balance, and I think that has to be the blueprint moving forward, not that they're going to run it twenty eight times every week, but that you can hopefully get that kind of efficiency, some explosiveness out of the ground game because it was it was a heck of a show. I mean, I was entertained, and I thought Joe Mixon looked. I know, the average says three point six of carry. Some of that was because the late game runs of overtime, but overall, I
think both guys did really well. Yeah, both players I thought played well. I was I guess, if there's a way to guarantee you're going to get Chase Brown the carries, you do it in the first quarter. You know, I feel like, oh, man, we really want to get Chase Brown to carries. You make sure you do it early, because they did go away from him late, not entirely. He had to carry in
overtime. I think when I right after I tweet it, I think, like, man, I can't believe they've entirely gone away from Chase Brown here the way he's been running the ball, the way he's been pretty good. But he ends up with nine carries after starting the game with you said five. Five of the first six carries, we're Chase Brown. So I would
like to see them stick with that a little bit longer. But I also understand, you know, there's a huge trust element with Joe Mixon in terms of ball security, in terms of doing his job, in terms of being the veteran, And he did do his job, and he was a veteran on those plays, and so I kind of understand where the coaching staff is coming from there. In addition to that, I think, you know something that will dive into a little bit more when we've had time to digest and
review what the Bengals in this game. But obvious more boot stuff, more play action stuff, the RPOs that they were running in this game, were targeted pass the line of scrimmage much more than we saw We've seen from them for the most part this season. Jake Browning did still have I think ten passes behind the line of Scrimmage's average depth of target was very low, but he was very good throwing the ball downfield hitting I think nine of nine on
passes aim ten plus yards downfield, and that's generous. A couple of those might be nine nine and a half, but in that range and that intermediate to deep range, including the deep ball to Jamar Chase, he was very good in that part of the field. And some of that is the running game, the way the defenses are going to play Jake Browning differently than they're going to play Joe Burrow. But the trick plays nearly cost him this game.
There are a couple of things that this game kind of could have spun on had they lost this game, And I know there are fans out there that are probably thinking they just cost themselves draft position. We'll see. But
the Jaguars had three fumbles, they recovered all of them. They scored a touchdown off of a dropped interception by Dax Sill, and the Bengals gave up ten points on failed trick plays, one of them leading to a seven yard loss as Evan McPherson subsequently joining to field goal from fifty seven yards off the crossbar, and one of them led to a touchdown because Tyler Boyd threw a
pick in the red zone, which is insane. So on the one hand, people are really upset with the play calls because the offense is working and you take the ball out of the normal structure. I'm more upse up with the execution personally. I think he called trick plays and the worst case outcomes should being in complete pass and they got unfathomably bad outcomes out of those trick
plays. Yeah, the Boyd one, it's it's questionable. I get why you'd question the play call because the way the offense is rolling, the decision already failed to throw back earlier in the game. Yeah, but the decision for Boyd to throw it, you're still a receiver, run run, title run, Like he could have just turned upfield and ran and if you get a yard or you don't, who cares. It's no m you can't have
that disaster of a play on first down. And it really it felt like that was it like that was going to be where the game, you know, the reality check, the tires come to a screeching halt and that's it. Upset alert over And so the Bengals credit they rally. But I agree with there's that question that call. The other one, it was just it was just weird. I don't know, like you just want to throw it back to Jake Browning and have Jake Browning run Like I don't love that.
I don't love the decision and even though he can run, I just don't. I don't think it really makes much sense. But the BOYD when I agree, the execution part of it is something that you don't want to see. And Zach afterwards said they have ran that play before. They ran it against the Jets last year in the win, and they ran it against the Browns as well. So sometimes they work, sometimes they don't. The good news is is the Bengals had the ability to overcome that adversity and make it
through. So we do have to get to the defense, a defense that didn't force any turnovers but did get a stop in overtime. And so let's discuss the Bengals defense coming up next. I know we come to sports to escape from some of the crazy realities of real life. But can we talk a minute about preparing for real life. According to the FDA, pharmacies are running out of antibiotics like amoxicillin right in the middle of the worst flu season
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to go to the defense. Before discussing, Jamar Chase very unlike you. Twelve targets, eleven catches, one hundred and forty nine yards a touchdown on the seventy six yard catch from Jake Browning, and we talked about how this offense is going to have to go through Jamar Chase. He had the one drop made up for it immediately on the next play on a fourth down conversion.
And where the Bengals got big contributions from the running game. In the passing game, Jamar Chase by far by far led the way and a lot of that being his explosive ability, but had a few really clutch plays as well. Yeah, he's he's a free best player on the field and that's why coming into it, it was like, get him double digit targets. All let's talk about the run game. I get it. Double digit targets and that's exactly what he was able to do. Take advantage of it.
And third straight one thousand yard season for Jamar. Congrats on that. And like I stumbled through when I was talking about Shult Steelers, shout out the Schultz stewelers. He said he wanted to be an evil person coming into the state. He said he didn't know why, but that's what he wanted to do. And I saw how you wanted to be a villain. He was like yeah, and he feel it felt like a villain in the locker room
afterwards. And it makes a lot of sense because even the one drop, because he had a drop, he responds with the conversion on the fourth down and it just makes the play. In overtime, it looked like it was a second drop and he somehow brings that in. I really don't know how he caught that, but he was able to catch it. It was a heck of a play. Had some circus catches for sure. He's on pace for one hundred and twenty two catches, fifteen hundred yards, ten touchdowns,
just very basic extrapolation. The Bengals seasons single season record for receptions one hundred and twelve TJ. Houshman's out at two thousand and seven. Jamar is currently at eighty six catches, and if they feed him the way, feed them the ball the way they did tonight, that record is in severe danger. Let's talk defense, James. This will be a little bit quicker, Maybe there will be more time to dive into this with sans tomorrow. Linebackers I
think still a problem. Explosive play is still a bit of a problem. The run d better, at least on early downs they did get beat. They couldn't stop the late down runs where Jacksonville was able to convert quite frequently, some of that being QB sneaks for Trevor Lawrence, but the explosive play problem persists, and c J. Bethard really picked on the linebackers in that
two minute drive to force overtime. Yeah, I think, oh, it's a mixed back and there's a lot of a lot of bad just all of the or the inability to get off the field when you needed to, and like overtime, it probably shouldn't have got the overtime you're dealing with CJ. Bethard, He's just kind of thrown in there. The Jacks that just missed the field goal, you have the momentum, try to get off the field, and they didn't. But they did find a way to get off the
field in overtime and get the ball back to the offense. So I do think they deserve some credit for that. But you'd like to see more pressure. You'd like to see less breakdowns on the back end. Early in the game. The first play, Christian Kirk just wide open downfield and if it's a better ball, Kirk might not get hurt on that play. It was a weird growing injury, and those are the type of plays that just continue to happen. Evan Ingram just randomly being open. Obviously he had a touchdown
as well a lot and so you win. But there's a lot to improve on in things that this defense is going to have to be better at if they are going to continue to win. Because the defense isn't going to put up thirty four every week. You're going to have to do more on defense. A couple of shoutouts on the defensive side of the ball after we talked about the things that didn't go great, because it wasn't it wasn't great,
but Mike Hilton eye test stats looks great. Two tackles for loss. Had a clutch pass defense against Calvin Ridley in the end zone and that is a tough matchup. The best receiver for the Jacksonville Jaguars against Mike Hilton. There that was a clutch play for him. Josepo Sai showed up a little bit this week. Had a sack, technically, had a couple other QB hits. He popped a couple times pass rushing from the inside from the interior from
three tech like to see that. Trey Hendrickson had a couple of big plays of his own as we're used to from Trey, Sam Hubbard and bj Hill Cambine on a nice stunt to get a key sack to help get off the field. Hubbard also had a couple of nice plays in the run game, so shout out to those guys. Those guys just popped on first look, and we'll have to see on tape after that. I think Jordan Battle had
another had a couple of nice plays as well. Maybe got beat once as the flat player and cover two I want to say, unless it was either way. He was underneath and there was a whole shot completed over his outstretched hand. But nice game for Jordan Battle, filling up the stat sheet as well. For the rest of the guys, we'll have to see what's going on on tape. Didn't see a whole lot of Miles Murphy in this game, which was a little bit surprising after last week. And Dax hill Man.
This isn't a shout out, but got to catch that ball that that was an unfortunate play. That's a seven point swing right there, if not more, and the defense gave up thirty one in the end, but you know seven points that comes right after Tyler Boyd's picking the Bengal zone red zone, and you got another seven unless this was the same drive, and I'm just confused. You got another seven when Dax Hill doesn't come down with that interception. Yeah, that's it's a huge play, and that's the turnover.
That's the type of game changing plays. I think this defense is just going to have to need. Maybe not maybe they can become this defense that just doesn't give up as many yards and those type of opportunities depending on the opponent, but against these explosive offenses, these talented quarterbacks like Trevor Lawrence hopefully he's okay, by the way, I think they're just going to need to be this turnover forcing type team that is able to take advantage of their opponent's mistakes.
And so that is one Dax is probably kicking himself for, and rightfully so, because it was right in his hands and it perfectly bounds. It's not like he knocked it to the ground, ounce perfectly into Parker SAMs for the touchdown. Yea. And I just pointed all of that out to say that, yeah, the Jags also missed a field goal, but it didn't need to even be quite as close as it was. The Bengals did get a number of good third down stops. The Jags punted five times in this
game, the Bengals only one, which you love to see. Last little thing there is let's carry this aggressiveness over to Joe Burrow playing quarterback as well. Only one punt in this game, including going forward on fourth down a couple of times. We'll talk with SAMs coming up this week. Talk about some of the things that we saw from an offensive approach perspective that might be
translatable to Joe Burrow's return to the eventual offense in the future. What's sustainable this year, talk about the linebackers a little bit, talk about what's going on on the defense, so we'll have more to talk about for this game. Before we quickly switched gears. We're on a modified schedule with Monday Night Football and get into a first look at the Colts coming up after that. But until then, thanks for listening to this episode of the Lockdown Bengals podcast.
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