CINCINNATI (AP) — Marvin Lewis went to sit in his chair and realized someone had lowered it. The chair didn’t cooperate as he struggled to
get it to a comfortable level.“I guess that’s what happens when you get beat
up
Shaq Mason Jerseys 2019 ,” the Bengals coach joked.Beat up, and then some.The Bengals unraveled in prime time yet again, playing their worst game on the
Sunday night stage. A 45-10 loss at Kansas City was the second-most-lopsided
during Lewis’ 16 seasons in Cincinnati, surpassed only by a game in which they
rested starters to get ready for the playoffs.There was a lot at stake in this
one: national recognition and first place in the AFC North. The game was flexed
from an afternoon slot to Sunday night so fans nationwide could see a pair of
up-and-coming teams in an offensive showdown.Instead, the Bengals (4-3) were
dominated in every respect as millions watched.“That’s when your pride gets
affected,” receiver Tyler Boyd said Monday. “That hurts more than anything.”For
the first time this season, the Bengals are looking up in the standings.
Pittsburgh (3-2-1) leads the division by percentage points. Much of the Bengals’
momentum from a 4-1 start has been wasted by another last-second home loss to
the Steelers and a blowout at Kansas City in consecutive weeks.Cincinnati has
lost nine straight on Sunday night, when it’s 3-16 overall. The Bengals’ last
such win was over the Dolphins in 2004. They’re 6-15 in prime-time games since
2011, when Andy Dalton and A.J. Green arrived — 0-6 on Sunday night, 2-5 on
Monday night, 4-3 on Thursday night and 0-1 on Saturday night.Back on the big
stage, they missed tackles , botched coverages, missed blocks, messed up a fake
punt and had an interception returned for a touchdown . They struggled to get
even the simple things done right.“This one’s going to be hard to swallow just
because it was in front of everyone
White Chris Hogan Jerseys ,” safety Jessie Bates said. “Everyone was watching.”The Bengals are trying to escape their history of meltdowns in big
games. They haven’t won a playoff game since the 1990 season, the sixth-longest
streak of futility in NFL history. Lewis is 0-7 in the playoffs, the worst mark
for a head coach.They had a chance to end that Sunday night streak. Instead,
they gave viewers reason to tune out early in the third quarter.For one night,
it was a Bengals rerun.“It’s a bad look for the whole team to see this happen,”
linebacker Preston Brown said. “It’s such a big score difference. You never want
to go out there and get blown out on a Sunday night, (especially) when it’s been
something we’ve been waiting to show the whole league what we can do.”It was
their sixth loss of at least 30 points during Lewis’ 16-year tenure. Their worst
loss over that time was a 37-0 defeat against the Jets in 2009, when they rested
regulars for the final regular-season game knowing they’d play the Jets again in
the playoffs the following week. They lost that one, too.They lost 37-3 at
Kansas City in the final game of the 2005 season, when they had wrapped up the
division title and were getting ready to play the Steelers in the first
round.The Bengals lost 35-3 at Indianapolis in 2008. They’ve had a pair of
31-point losses: 44-13 at Baltimore in the 2012 season opener and 34-3 against
Baltimore in 2008.They host Tampa Bay (3-3) on Sunday before heading into their
bye week. Four of their next five games are at home. Brady took advantage when
his pass catchers gave him a chance."The 2018 season was a quite successful one
for the New England Patriots. After all, the team capped it by winning its
record-tying sixth Super Bowl. For quarterback Tom Brady, however, it was more
of an up-and-down campaign: while he did make the plays when he needed to and
was outstanding in the postseason, he started the year comparatively
inconsistently — in parts because of the state of his receiving corps.New
England opened the season without Julian Edelman and Josh Gordon, and the entire
rhythm of the Patriots’ passing attack developed rather slowly because of it.
When Edelman and Gordon were added to the mix one quarter into the
year
Chris Hogan Jerseys 2019 , however, Brady and the downfield aerial attack improved again. The chemistry, especially with Edelman, played a huge role in
that — but so did the ability of both wideouts to get open quickly.Edelman and
Gordon were consistently able to find soft spots in zone coverage, and also
routinely beat their opponents in man concepts. This, in turn, changed the
complexity of the Patriots’ entire passing game: quick throws developed more
easily, while other players such as Rob Gronkowski and rotational wide receivers
Chris Hogan, Phillip Dorsett, and Cordarrelle Patterson benefitted from the
attention drawn by Edelman and Gordon.And when his receivers were able to get
free — whether that be the aforementioned pass catchers, running back James
White, or somebody else — Brady was outstanding in 2018. Advanced analytics
website Pro Football Focus tracked accuracy by receiver separation all year
long, and New England’s quarterback completed 78.0% of his pass attempts when
his intended targets were classified as being open (i.e. having “two-plus steps
of separation”).His success rate on such pass attempts tied Brady for the
third-best in the NFL last year behind only the Los Angeles Chargers’ Philip
Rivers (78.7%) and Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger (78.2%).
Furthermore, a league-leading 17.6% of Brady’s pass attempts to open receivers
were rated in the ‘accuracy plus’-category: passes straight into the hands of
the targets and not just their general frame.Speaking of ‘accuracy plus,’ the
six-time world champion was terrific all year at placing the football: in total
— no matter as how open his pass catchers were evaluated by PFF — 24.4% of his
passes landed right in the targets’ hands
White Eric Rowe Jerseys , again the best in the NFL. Brady’s ball-placement also ranked first among all qualifying quarterbacks last season when the receivers
were open “up to two steps of separation:” 33.3% of Brady’s attempts in such
situations earned the ‘accuracy plus’ label.In total, the 41-year-old was able
to complete 67.4% of his attempts when receivers were either up to two steps
from their defenders, or they were closing in. Brady ranked fourth league-wide
in this category: only the New Orleans Saints’ Drew Brees and the Miami
Dolphins’ Ryan Tannehill (both at 71.2%) as well as Oakland Raiders passer Derek
Carr (67.5%) were more successful in this evaluation category.In both ‘open’ and
‘step/closing’ situations, Brady ranked clearly above the league average and
among the best in the game. The same cannot be said for ‘tight’ coverage: the
greatest quarterback of all time completed fewer than 40% of his attempts when
defenders were “within an arm’s length of the receiver, or in the right spot in
a passing window so as to discourage the throw” — the fourteenth best number in
the NFL. For comparison, the Kansas City Chiefs’ Patrick Mahomes led the league
with a 56.7% success rate when his weapons were covered.What does this all tell
us about Brady and the Patriots’ passing game? First, that the veteran
quarterback was terrific when his receivers were able to get open in 2018 —
something that improved with Edelman back from suspension and a physical
X-receiver like Josh Gordon also in the lineup. And moving forward, the role
Gordon played could be a key to the Patriots’ aerial success: New England added
a similar receiver in round one of the draft in N’Keal Harry, and generally went
for taller wideouts this offseason.When it comes to ball placement, Brady is
still among the NFL’s elite, and adding Harry and company could help improve his
game even further: don’t be surprised if his success in the ‘tight’ category
goes up in 2019 — and if his other rates stay the same, the league better look
out.
