Bengals Seek Missing Groove

Finding the flow is more important than a W Sunday

Which guys we get this Sunday?

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You have to think there will be no Sam Hubbard Miracle to save them this Sunday.

Recall: The Bengals beat Baltimore in the highly-wild card game last January because Logan Wilson forced Tyler Huntley to fumble at the Cincinnati goal line. The ball bounced perfectly into the hands of Sam Hubbard, who ran 98 yards like he was being chased by the entire Michigan band.

What by most rights should have become a 24-17 Ravens lead with 12 minutes to play flipped to a 24-17 Bengals edge. That was the final and The Men advanced.

Important Fact: B-More played without Lamar Jackson.

Important Hunch: Sam Hubbard won’t be running 98 yards with the football between 1 and 4 this Sunday afternoon.

Conclusion: None.

Track record suggests massive benefit-of-the-doubt points for the Zac Taylors. We love to paint the NFL in blacks and whites week after week, when in truth it’s mostly gray. The absolutists look foolish every Monday morning. The talent is too evenly spread for anything to be certain.

Did you think the Bengals would lose by 21 in Cleveland?

At least they understand why they did. And they’re healthy, something the Ravens decidedly are not.

To win Sunday, all Burrow and Friends have to do is rediscover the rhythm and flow they enjoyed starting about five games into last season. The only problem with that is, this is only Game 2.

There’s a thin line between Reasons and Excuses in the NF of L. It’s very easy to cross their invisible plane. No one wants to hear about Weather. It’s an excuse, the biggest. It’s football, man, not flower planting.

Everyone wants to hear about The Calf. I’m in the smallest of minorities, in that I didn’t see Saint Joe’s calf strain as a major issue in Mistakeville. Unless his calf had something to do with receivers not getting open and Burrow missing them when they were. If the man’s leg were that big an issue, he shouldn’t have been out there.

The L happened for two reasons. One is immediately fixable, the other is an open-ended dilemma. Fixable: Call offensive plays like you’re the By-God Bengals, not some club paying respect to the other team’s defense. Take what you want. Do not ask permission. The ‘85 Bears are not on the schedule.

The play selection in Cleveland suggested that either (1) The team knew Burrow was not close to being Burrow or (2) The team figured it could go North and win while being passive. Regardless, the lack of aggression is not who this offense is, even if Burrow is not 100 percent.

When this offense is ready to roll on ramming speed is anybody’s guess. Timing and familiarity are everything to an offense, both along the line and between QB and receivers. You’d like to assume that this group knows each other well enough that the break-in period will be short. We’ll find out Sunday.

That’s what this game is about. Timing and familiarity and flow. If those intangibles are back or close to it, another loss wouldn’t be dire, or even especially problematic. Track record suggests things will be fine, soon.

If the Men resemble the timid, man-this-weather-sucks crew that showed up last week. . .

The Bengals were lucky to beat a Lamar-less Ravens last January. Lamar is back, but without J.K. Dobbins and, possibly, C Tyler Linderbaum and Pro Bowl LT Ronnie Stanley. The Ravens want to run. They’ll likely want to blitz Burrow’s leg, until he shows them that’s a bad move.

The Bengals need more from their running game. They need to stay away from 3rd-and-obvious-pass. They need a cocky game plan, well executed. Please no more of the illegals, formation and shift. No delays of game, no false starts, no receivers on Venus when Burrow’s on Mars.

Yes?

No. Not this week. Not yet. Rome wasn’t rebuilt in a day and Cincinnati isn’t playing the Texans.

Ravens 20, Men 16.

Of course, as always, if this doesn’t happen I will disavow all knowledge of having typed the previous thoughts.

Now, then. . .

Capt. Needlepoint

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THE REDS BULLPEN IS A MIRACLE OF MODERN SCIENCE. Years from now, all budding orthopedists, arm surgeons and anyone planning a career involving 98 mph fastballs will be asked to take a course called The 2023 Cincinnati Reds Bullpen. It will feature guest lecturers Ian Gibaut, Alexis Diaz and top brass from the biggest rubber companies from around the world.

Syllabus Topic: How I pitched an entire big-league season without my arm falling off.

You know the numbers, you watch the games. By now, you’ve seen so much of Buckfarmer (typo intentional, I love running his names together, just sounds sublime off the tongue. Sayitwithme: Buckfarmer.) you’re considering inviting him over for dinner in the early innings.

As for the “Captain Hook’’ thing: David Bell makes Sparky Anderson look like Captain Needlepoint.

There’s a decent chance that by the end of the Big 162, the Reds will have three relievers make 70-plus appearances and six make 60-plus. Compare that to the heyday of the Machinists:

1975: One reliever (Wil McEnaney) threw exactly 70 games. Pedro Borbon threw 67.

1976: One guy threw 70-plus (Rawley Eastwick, 71). Borbon threw 69.

Nobody threw more than 67 in 1970.

If David Bell gets decent MOY consideration, it will owe to the deft way he has handled his perpetually ailing pitching staff. At the moment, the medical miracles in the bullpen haven’t been scored on in 19 innings.

I cannot explain this. Can you?

PROGRAMMING NOTE: Deciding to charge for some of TML kept me up nights. It did. I appreciate all of youse, without whom I’d be writing blog posts to myself. Deciding what to charge was mostly a matter of listening to the high-ups at Substack, who obviously do this for a living.

Determining who-gets-what in terms of content will be a collaborative call between me and the folks running things. I can pick one day a week and make it free for all. I can keep parts of it free every day, while choosing what goes behind the paywall. I can tease to the day’s hottest topics, then make you pay to access the full TML.

I dunno yet. It’s very much a work in progress. To those who’ve signed up, thank you. I am humbled and grateful. To those who have not, hang out for the free stuff. You’re all still Mobsters to me. I owe you my success. I won’t forget that.

Patience, please, during the transition.

And lo, Aaron rose from the cave and. . .

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AARON RODGERS, TRULY A MASTER OF HUMILITY, declared in his first press appearance after he ripped an Achilles, “I shall rise yet again.’’

Cool.

I wish I’d been at the presser. I’d have had a few questions:

Will it be on the third day?

How do you plan on moving that boulder from the tomb?

Did you bring any loaves and fishes? It’s lunch time and there’s 5,000 of us here.

WISDOM FROM MY GUY DAN WETZEL, Yahoo’s best writer and thinker. Here, he lays waste to the opinion that NIL and the transfer portal will ruin college sports:

To the surprise of no one capable of critical thinking, college football hasn't grown less popular because players can make a few bucks and have gained a measure of control over their careers. If anything, it's more popular. Stadiums are packed. Television ratings are up.

• What about competitive balance? Recall that even if you could stomach the idea that Caleb Williams might appear in a Dr. Pepper commercial... then all NIL would mean is that the rich would get richer?

• Well, you can't get much richer than the SEC, which is 3-6 against Power Five teams. ... The once-forgotten Pac-12, meanwhile, is 21-4 overall and has eight ranked teams. A big reason: It starts 10 transfer quarterbacks. That is talent dispersing.

Leveling the playing field: If anything, the era of NIL and the transfer portal are leveling the playing field a little — at least at the top of the sport. It even extends to high school recruiting, where non-traditional powers can focus their NIL dollars and attention on a single player.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Music debates are as great as sports debates.

Beatles or Stones? (no opinion, Beatles were pop, Stones were blues-based rock)

Mathis or Sinatra? (Presley. That one courtesy of Bobby “Boogie’’ Sheftell, played by Mickey Rourke, inveterate gambler/loser and star of my favorite movie, Diner.)

And. . . James Brown or Otis Redding. I say Otis. Wider array of tunes, better voice. Far less reliant on other musicians for his groove.

What say you, soul people?

Here’s James.