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Film Room: An In-Depth Review of the Bengals' Loss to the Dolphins

Miami beat Cincinnati 29-26 in the preseason finale.

The Bengals hosted the Miami Dolphins in their preseason finale on Sunday. 

All the storylines and position battles paled in comparison to it being Joe Burrow's 2021 debut. For the first time since November of 2020, the Bengals quarterback played in an NFL game. While he only played three snaps, the crowd fully embraced his return with a standing ovation. Then, there were about 100 more snaps of football and in classic Bengals vs Dolphins fashion, this game was insane.

Let's take a look at the tape.

Joe Burrow’s Return

Let's take a look at all three plays that Burrow was on the field for, starting with the jet sweep to wide receiver Tyler Boyd. 

This jet sweep is right out of the Sean McVay playbook. The Bengals are in a bunch formation with the X on the backside in a nasty split [further inside than usual]. Boyd shifts over to around the wing and gets set. Then they jet motion Boyd to the right, with a run to the left. 

Burrow hands the ball off to Boyd who looks like he may have misread the defender’s leverage on this play. He still gains positive yardage, but Uzomah sealed his man to the inside for Boyd to get the edge. Boyd chooses to cut upfield instead and that defender is able to get a hand on him and make a play.

The interesting parts of this play are overshadowed by another drop from Ja’Marr Chase. The Bengals come out in a 12 personnel pistol formation, which I did not expect to see. Joe Mixon is directly behind Burrow, a double wing to the right, and twins left. 

It’s play action to start with C.J. Uzomah working across the formation to pick up the end so Jonah Williams can block on the screen. Burrow may have audible into this play because the guy overtop of Boyd looks to be a linebacker who would need to get into the run fit. Contrary to what some wrote, this is not a bubble screen. A bubble screen has the slot wide receiver working out with the perimeter receiver blocking. This is the exact opposite with the slot receiver blocking and the perimeter wide-out working inside. 

I like the design. Chase works vertically to get the corner to give him room. It looks to me like the timing is slightly off here with Burrow and Boyd. You want that ball out of Burrow’s hand quicker so Boyd is not called for an illegal block. 

No excuses on this drop. This ball is placed right at Chase’s eyes and he gets both hands on it. He might have heard the defender crashing down on him and if that’s why he dropped it, that would be the second time he dropped a pass because he was scared of the hit. At this point, I think Chase’s hands have become a mild concern. It is not the actual hands that have been the problem, but his ability to focus and concentrate on the ball during the catch. He's had one of the worst preseason performances on the roster. He has four drops on five targets. The only pass he caught was a screen. If you made me bet right now I would still say his hands will be good for his career, but I am no longer as confident in that statement as I was a month ago. I do not personally believe there is a “switch” that he can just turn on and be good for the regular season. I hope he can work through this issue during this bye week and be ready to go for the opener.

The Bengals are not going to have Burrow take a five step drop and throw the ball to try to convert on 3rd-and-23 in a meaningless preseason game. Zac Taylor said the plan was to always hand the ball off on third down. With Chase dropping that last pass, he had no choice. The Bengals come out in the same double wing twins formation as earlier, but with Burrow under center rather than in the pistol. Riley Reiff gets absolutely lit up by a linebacker and pushed into Mixon on the play. Despite this, he does Mixon things and bounces off that tackle and cuts it back for a positive gain.

That ends Burrow's anticlimactic return. Other than the drop and penalty on Reiff, it was not a bad series, but one catastrophic play ruined the drive. I am hoping that Burrow’s regular season return in Week 1 is more exciting.

Offensive Line Check In

I’m not sure if there was truly a standout player along the offensive line this week, but I think at this point in the preseason the unit as a whole is playing both better and with more nastiness/aggression. The impact of Frank Pollack has been talked about endlessly this offseason, but it really showed up in the preseason. Here are some quick hitters.

Fred Johnson is at right tackle for this wide zone play. He makes a great play to clear out the linebacker on the block but then shows the nastiness to finish him as well. He drives the defender into the grass with a thunderous slam that was fit for a WWE match.

This rep from Trey Hill is nicer than it seems at first glance. It is very hard to both snap and then pass set against a head up nose tackle. Hill does a great job on this play to do just that as he gets his hands on the defender quickly. He’s dying a slow death against the bigger defender but leaves the quarterback plenty of room to make this throw.

This combo from Billy Price and D'Ante Smith would have been one of the best combo blocks of last year for the Bengals. Price sets Smith up on a tee to drive this defender and then gets to the second level. Smith takes advantage of the nice setup by pushing the defender five yards downfield.

Speaking of combos here is another nice one. This time from Johnson and Michael Jordan. They do a nice job of displacing the defender back to the second level. This creates a little hole that can be taken advantage of by the running back.

Here is one more look at a double team. This time it comes from Jackson Carman and Isaiah Prince. They drive their defender about 5 yards downfield before tossing him onto his back. Beautiful pancake from the two of them.

Here are a pair of good plays from the offensive line working in essentially empty sets. No help on either play and on the second play they are facing some difficult stunts with a weird front they will not see that often. They do an admirable job to pick everything up. It’s a twist to the bottom of the screen with the LB crashing out and the end looping in. Carman and Johnson handle that well. 

To the top, we have a three-man game with both of the interior guys crashing out and the end looping all the way around. This is really difficult for an offensive lineman to handle with just three guys (the other two offensive linemen are occupied by the other twist). The left tackle does not maintain his proper level so the left guard has to handle the crasher. Because the guard is handling his guy the center cannot pass off his guy to take the looper. Still, they give Allen enough time to make the throw. All of these examples really show the difference a coach can make along the offensive line.

Pass Rush

Lastly, we will take a look at the pass rush from this preseason game which was also pretty impressive.

I think this was Noah Spence’s best play of the day. He gives the right tackle a three step shimmy before working back outside and around him. This gets the right tackle to shorten his set because he is nervous about the inside move. With the shortened pass set Spence is able to win around the outside. Just has to finish the play.

Cam Sample showed that you cannot cut block him as he stays on his feet with great balance. I assume this ball needs to come out quick if the offensive line is cut blocking, but Reid Sinnett doesn’t throw it. Sample makes him pay by taking him down for a sack.

Here is the first of Darius Hodge’s impressive pass rush reps. He has a nice get off and knows it, so he uses that to his advantage. The left tackle cannot keep up, so he is selling out to stop the speed rush. In this play, he sets just a little too far outside and Hodge works back inside with a rip move. He remains like water working with what the offensive lineman gives him, rather than forcing a move because that was his plan. Really nice recognition and reaction to beat the left tackles pass set.

Here is an example of Hodge winning outside with his get off. It also helps that the tackle appears to be very slow out of his stance. He gets the quarterback off of his spot, but dives and whiffs on the sack attempt allowing Sinnett to reset and launch this ball downfield. Still, it’s another pressure and hopefully someone will be there to clean it up next time.

One last play from Hodge as he and Spence combine for pressure on this play. Spence just runs right around his guy with Sinnett dropping pretty deep on this one. Hodge sees his man overset again and hits him with another rip inside. Sinnett turns into prime John Elway as he spins away from Spence. Hodge shows a great motor to chase him down and get a huge hit, but not before Sinnett uncorks the ball downfield for a touchdown. What a game winning throw from Sinnett and another wild ending to a Bengals-Dolphins matchup.

Overall the Bengals had a quality preseason. The offensive line looks better and the new wide zone offense looks to be ready to go. They've added some more creativity to generate a pass rush on defense, and Burrow is ready for Week 1. To me all of these things work together to create a successful preseason with the regular season opener just 12 days away. 

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