A Monday in the NFL is centered around the film, and this particular one was “brutal” for the Cincinnati Bengals, according to veteran center Ted Karras.
Coaches watch tape from the previous game and grade it before players get to the facility. The film and grades are shared with players, and the team has a slew of meetings: Position group, offense and defense, and a team meeting.
There’s no shortage of truth-telling the days after games.
“It was a very honest and brutal Monday, which we deserve,” Karras said. “... We need to get ourselves back, wake up.”
The Bengals on Oct. 4 lost their second consecutive game (22-17 to Jacksonville), and in each of the losses the offense had a chance to win the game on the final drive. Cincinnati has let two games
slip through its hands on offense, and Karras knows how dangerous that can be.
The Bengals are 2-2. Disappointment from players, coaches and fans stems from the way the Bengals lost both games. Prior to the start of the season, Karras and the rest of the offensive players made their expectations for the upcoming season clear: Be one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses and contend for a Super Bowl.
If the season ended today, the Bengals would not make the playoffs for a fourth consecutive season.
Cincinnati’s offense has struggled to run the ball effectively. It was an area the team spent significant time working on in the offseason and through training camp. May, June and August were full of conversations about how adding more plays that begin from the under-center formation would help the Bengals be a more explosive offense.
When quarterback Joe Burrow lines up directly behind the center and takes the snap directly in his hands, the ball is hidden. In the shotgun formation, Burrow stands a few yards behind the line of scrimmage and takes the snap through the air.
The under-center formation allows an offense to mask what it is trying to do. Defenses can’t diagnose what’s coming as quickly as when a quarterback lines up in shotgun because they can see everything that’s coming in front of them.
Burrow’s preference is to be in the shotgun because his best trait as a quarterback is his ability to read the defense pre-snap and make changes at the line of scrimmage. It also allows for more mobility and scrambling options and gives the Bengals’ offensive line more time to protect Burrow. Defensive linemen have further to go when the ball is snapped from shot gun. When a quarterback takes a snap under-center, he must immediately look up, scan the defense and step back into the pocket.
Simply put: The under-center formation favors more running plays and quick passes. Shotgun is used more for offenses that want to spread out and need more time for routes to develop down the field.
The foundation of the Bengals’ offense will always be out of the shotgun because of Burrow's strengths and the wide receivers the team has. But the coaching staff realized it needed to be more versatile and sprinkle in some plays from under-center to keep defenses off balance and to help the run game.
If a defense doesn’t know if Burrow is going to keep the ball out of under-center or hand it off to running back Chase Brown, it makes it more challenging for the defense. The goal is to be more varied on offense, and right now, the Bengals have been too one-dimensional.
Burrow has completed 64 of 89 attempts (72%) for 701 yards, five touchdowns and one interception out of the shotgun formation. Conversely, Burrow has completed 48 of 68 attempts (71%) for 470 yards, two touchdowns and two interceptions from under-center.
Of the team's 258 offensive plays, only 83 have been rushing plays (32%). Of the team's 1,407 total offensive yards, just 297 have come on the ground (21%).
The balance just isn’t there right now for the Bengals offense. The Bengals can’t get their run game going because it’s too predictable. It all works together. For Cincinnati to be able to run the ball better, it has to actually prove it is willing to stick with it.
For Bengals coach Zac Taylor to confidently call run plays, he needs to know all 11 players will execute it at a high level. Right now, defensive coordinators don’t respect the Bengals’ run game as much as they do the pass game, and the only way to fix that is to hit on the runs when they’re called.
Cincinnati is coming off a disappointing performance on the ground. The Bengals rushed for a season-low 23 yards against the Jaguars. They rank No. 31 out of 32 in rushing offense through four weeks.
Everyone involved acknowledged it wasn’t good enough.
“It just wasn’t good enough in any area,” Taylor said. “A lot of different things play into it, but it was not a good enough performance. We got to be better.”
The Bengals hope to run the ball better against the Miami Dolphins and can use their bye week to make tweaks to their scheme as needed. To ensure Burrow starts taking fewer hits and the Bengals become a harder offense to game plan, they must improve in this area.
“Yesterday wasn't good enough in the run game,” offensive coordinator Dan Pitcher said. “But I feel like history shows us that we'll get there, and we'll develop our offense exactly how we need it to be to hit the ground running and win some games.”
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Ted Karras says Bengals need to 'wake up' on offense
