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Armchair Scouting Report, Prediction, & Poll, Week 13: Cincinnati Bengals

So we saw our guys beat the Jets in a fashion that was, if not overwhelmingly satisfying, then at least fairly businesslike. No great surprises, good or bad, really. Just an oh-so-mildly stressful road win over a bad team, but also a long-hated division rival. It put that joke of a franchise further in its place, and put us at 7-4 and sitting in a Wildcard spot for the moment.

Next up is the final "cupcake" opponent of the season, the 2-8-1 Cincinnati Bengals. Nobody was mistaking this squad for any sort of decent team, but they were working on becoming one of those "don't sleep on them" opponents, if only because Joe Burrow was living up to a fair bit of his #1 overall pick hype. Then tragedy struck two Sundays ago, when Burrow sustained an awful, season-ending injury that may keep him out of the game well into next season. It sucks for everyone, really. But the games go on, and the Bengals will make the trip down to Miami this Sunday. What might we be in store for?

The Tale of the Tape

The two team's key stats, per game, according to pro-football-reference.com and espn.com (as of Tuesday, before the Steelers/Ravens Wednesday matinee):

Dolphins"}">Dolphins Bengals
OFFENSE
Passing Yards 216.6 (25th) 235.2 (18th)
Rushing Yards 95.3 (30th) 96.3 (29th)
Points Scored 25.8 (15th) 20.9 (26th)
DEFENSE
Pass Yards Allowed 239.7 (17th) 253.7 (22nd)
Run Yards Allowed 129.9 (25th) 136.7 (30th)
Points Allowed 18.6 (2nd) 26.3 (22nd)
OTHER
Net Turnovers 6 (5th) -6 (tied, 27th)
Penalty Yards 37.3 (2nd) 46.2 (11th)


Those aside, we're looking at stats that definitely fit a 2-8-1 team. They're in the bottom quarter of the NFL in several key areas, and the only area where they don't rank in the bottom half is penalty yards per game. These look very much like the numbers of a team that really isn't good at any key phase of the game.


Obviously, the one stat that we can completely throw out is the Bengals' passing yards. Up until last week, those were all compiled by Joe Burrow. The passing game, overall, was pretty pedestrian, even with him, and I think we can all assume that the Bengals' 3rd-stringer-turned-starter Brandon Allen isn't going to look much like Joe Burrow.

But the Broncos numbers didn't look so hot two weeks ago, and how did that turn out for us?

I actually did a little pre-scouting on this one and watched the Bengals' Week 11 loss to Washington (this was the game where Burrow got injured). My general takeaways were that the Bengals' defense wasn't awful, but they wore down as the game went on. Burrow looked like you'd heard - sharp and skilled, which he needed to be because his offensive line didn't seem to be helping him all that much. Once Burrow was out and backup Ryan Finley came in, it got really ugly, really quickly. It didn't help that their place kicker was shanking kicks all over the place, either.

So that was two games ago. What about this past Sunday's game against the Giants?

New York Giants at Cincinnati Bengals

If you're looking for some top-notch football, look elsewhere, my friends. This game wasn't very pretty, especially offensively.

The Giants actually looked OK at first, drawing first blood on a competent, five-minute TD drive to start the game. That 7-point lead lasted for all of three seconds, after the ensuing kickoff was returned 103 yards for a TD by Bengals return man Brandon Wilson. Then both offenses decided to jam it back into first gear, getting very little going for the next three or so quarters. The Bengals went up by a field goal a few minutes before halftime, with the Giants responding with four unanswered field goals, spread across the next two quarters of the game. Down 19-10 with a handful of minutes left in the game, the Bengals put together a solid TD drive, cutting the game to 19-17. They actually managed to hold the Giants' offense on the next possession, giving themselves a very real chance to win after another solid punt return put them exactly at midfield, with 57 second left to get within game-winning field goal range. What did they do with this opportunity? On their very first play, Bengals QB Brandon Allen got fumble-sacked, allowing the Giants to recover the loose ball and ultimately kneel it out for the win.

What I Saw from the Bengals

Oh brother, was this not a fun game to watch. In the Giants and Bengals, you have two teams with below-average defenses playing against well below-average offenses. It wasn't "strength versus weakness" as much as it was "weakness versus crippling weakness." I'll offer this further caveat: much of the "success" that the Bengals' defense had against the Giants was as much because the Giants offense had absolutely nothing scary about it. From QB play to an utter lack of skill position players, to uninspired play-calling, it's a wonder that they managed to score the 19 points that they did (an even more hilariously depressing fact is that the 4-7 Giants are now the NFC East Division leaders). All that said, the Bengals themselves:

Without Joe Burrow, this offense was just really, really bad. Giovanni Bernard still occasionally looked like the guy who's torn up the Dolphins once or twice in the past, but not nearly enough. Before this game, I honestly had no idea who quarterback Brandon Allen was. Now I know why. He showed accuracy only rarely, and almost no ability to create anything when plays broke down. There was a copious amount of checking down, even when running the ball himself would have been a better option. The Bengals O line was pretty poor most of the day, with the ultimate result being 115 net passing yards. And lest you think they might be better at run blocking, the Bengals mustered a paltry 40 yards on 15 carries on the day. The Kansas City Chiefs offense, this ain't.

The Bengals defense looked a little bit better, but not by much. Their pass rush was almost non-existent, allowing Giants' QB Daniel Jones a solid three seconds for much of the game. They were actually fairly decent stopping the run early on, but as the Giants kept pounding away (New York ran the ball 42 times), the Bengals front seven wore down a bit. Cincinnati's DBs seemed alright, but still gave up a few big play passes to Jones.

Other aspects of Cincinnati:

  • Their punter is really good, and their return guy Brandon Wilson is legitimately dangerous.
  • Their play-calling wasn't very inspired. I guess that's not super surprising, given that their head coach Zac Taylor was the QB coach under Smokin' Joe Philbin, between 2012 and 2015.
  • They are actually a pretty disciplined team, not committing dumb penalties.

Summary and Prediction

As of now, we don't know if Tua will be healthy enough to play. But I don't think it matters much. The Bengals defense, while showing a touch of ability to stop the run, just doesn't have any clear strength to it. Whether it's Tua or Fitz guiding the offense, moving the ball and putting up a decent amount of points shouldn't be an issue. I know our offense is...shall we say, "challenged," but they should be OK against the Bengals. Especially if they get a few of their starters like Kindley and Gaskin back.

The other side of the ball is where the Bengals need to be really worried. Aside from Drew Lock weirdly having a nice day against them, our defense has shown exceptional ability to mess with the minds of middling and bad QBs. And Brandon Allen is very much a third-string-caliber quarterback. If the Bengals aren't really careful, it could be a turnover and sack fiesta for the Dolphins' defense. Hell, even if they are careful, it might still be a turnover and sack fiesta.

Prediction: Dolphins 27, Bengals 10

Part of me really wants to predict an even larger margin of victory here, but the Broncos game taught me my lesson (I predicted a 34-13 blowout win in that one). While our team is obviously the better one in pretty much every way, blowout victories are really hard to predict for all but the very best teams playing against the very worst teams. It's not crazy to think that a few more lights go on with our offense and they really run up the score, but I don't have the guts to predict it.

My predictions so far this season (I didn't predict the Pats, Bills, or Niners games):

Game # Opponent Prediction Outcome
1 @Patriots none L, 23-11
2 Bills none L, 31-28
3 @Jaguars W, 34-24 W, 31-13
4 Seahawks L, 24-31 L, 23-31
5 @49ers none W, 43-17
6 @Jets W, 37-17 W, 24-0
7 Rams W, 27-24 W, 28-17
8 @Cardinals W, 24-21 W, 34-31
9 Chargers W, 31-17 W, 29-21
10 @Broncos W, 34-13 L, 13-20
11 @Jets W, 21-17 W, 20-3
12 Bengals W, 27-10 ???

Still doing well, that Broncos clunker aside.

Tell me what you think below. Have you seen the Bengals much and have any thoughts? Think we get sniped here, or maybe drop a beatdown on them? Comment away!

This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of The Phinsider's writers or editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of The Phinsider writers or editors.