{"id":36043,"date":"2023-01-21T12:59:09","date_gmt":"2023-01-21T17:59:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/?p=36043"},"modified":"2023-01-21T12:59:09","modified_gmt":"2023-01-21T17:59:09","slug":"the-b-gap-the-bengals-are-back-and-better-than-ever","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/2023\/01\/21\/the-b-gap-the-bengals-are-back-and-better-than-ever\/","title":{"rendered":"The B-Gap: The Bengals are back and better than ever"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/span>By Sam Robb O\u2019Hagan<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

The 1,000-odd words you are about to read can be boiled down to just three.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you follow the NFL in any kind of exceptional capacity, you\u2019ve heard these three words before.<\/span><\/p>\n

Process over results.<\/span><\/p>\n

The derivative of that equation goes something like this \u2014 results vary, and they\u2019re dependent on a myriad of different factors, many out of a team\u2019s hands. But process? Process doesn\u2019t vary, it\u2019s completely in the control of the beholder, and \u2014 most importantly \u2014 it\u2019s sustainable.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

When you then consider that, for the most part, good process leads to good results, well, that\u2019s when an equation first becomes an old saying, then becomes ubiquitous in football philosophy.<\/span><\/p>\n

Bill Walsh, the legendary former head coach of the San Francisco 49ers and first ballot Hall of Famer, said it best: \u201cConcentrate on what will produce results rather than on the results, focus on the process not the prize.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Like Walsh himself, his convicted reminder of the necessity of establishing a sound working process has found an eternal home in the continued heritage of the sport.<\/span><\/p>\n

If you remember anything from the Cincinnati Bengals\u2019 Cinderella run to Super Bowl 56, even just one, lone moment, chances are it\u2019s <\/span>Tee Higgins\u2019 suspicious and bizarre 75-yard touchdown reception<\/span><\/a> to open the second half of the big game.<\/span><\/p>\n

Here\u2019s the scene: the Bengals are running a shot play off of play-action \u2014 which is about the extent of the flawless process on the play \u2014 before the pocket collapses around quarterback Joe Burrow the moment he hits the top of his drop. What follows borders on the reckless to the blindly fortuitous. Burrow unleashes a prayer across the field to Higgins, whose wheel route is smothered by All-Pro cornerback Jalen Ramsey. In order to work back to an underthrown ball, Higgins grabs Ramsey by the face mask \u2014 an explicit penalty \u2014 and hauls him out of the picture.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

That is <\/span>a lot <\/span><\/i>of bad process on what was a dead play almost as soon as the ball was snapped; bad process that would\u2019ve been lucky to escape with the painlessness of just an incompletion, but was really asking for something much, much worse.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Instead, the result was a 75-yard touchdown.<\/span><\/p>\n

That result was lucky, absolutely, but this was the exact dance that had carried an uber-talented yet deeply flawed and incomplete team to the Super Bowl in the first place.<\/span><\/p>\n

Last season\u2019s Bengals, with a remarkably accurate, confident sophomore quarterback and a pair of equally ambitious physical specimens for him to throw to, stared bad process in the face and held its hand all year long.<\/span><\/p>\n

Despite fielding one of the league\u2019s most energetic and hyped-up units \u2014 one that was just three points away from <\/span>winning the Super Bowl<\/span><\/i>, remember \u2014 the Bengals offense wasn\u2019t actually all that good. <\/span><\/p>\n

The 2021 Bengals were only<\/span> 11th in Expected Points Added (EPA) per play on offense<\/span><\/a>, sandwiched between the New England Patriots and the Philadelphia Eagles, both of whom were thoroughly dismantled in the Wild Card round. Head Coach Zac Taylor\u2019s offense was all the way down at <\/span>16th in success rate <\/span><\/a>\u2014 the percentage of plays that generated positive EPA \u2014 behind non-playoff teams like the Washington Commanders and the Denver Broncos.<\/span><\/p>\n

The offensive line, a necessity for any Super Bowl contender, was particularly unstable, finishing third-from-last in <\/span>ESPN\u2019s pass block win rate metric<\/span><\/a> at 49%. The fact an offensive line losing more reps in pass protection than it was winning was only minutes away from winning it all is beyond any conventionally accepted reason, but the Bengals had Burrow, Higgins and Ja\u2019Marr Chase. Bad process withstanding, the results kept on coming, all the way up to the penultimate rung of the NFL ladder.<\/span><\/p>\n

There was one problem. The Bengals\u2019 2021 formula \u2014 to outlast a leaky offensive line and an unreliable run game with contested \u2018go-ball\u2019 after contested go-ball \u2014 wasn\u2019t at all sustainable. The Bengals were enough of an outlier to briefly disprove Walsh\u2019s age-old theory, but what they couldn\u2019t do was keep the train moving. As is with every team that rides on good results despite suspicious process, the wheels eventually fell off.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Bengals started the 2022 season 4-4, with enigmatic losses to two backup quarterbacks and two hated division rivals. In those first eight games, Burrow took almost 30 sacks, and in the Bengals\u2019 four losses, he took five sacks on average. The cracks that Burrow and the offense had done so well to hide were announcing themselves with conviction. Defenses sold out to stop the explosive passes to Higgins and Chase, and Burrow, still behind a shaky line and still desperate to heave the ball down the field, ran himself into trouble over and over again.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, the Bengals\u2019 rickety process was catching up with them.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo Credit: Andy Lyons\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

But three months later, here Burrow and the Bengals are, with one of the best records in football, a Top 3 playoff seed, and only two steps away from returning right back to the Super Bowl, what once looked like the beginning of the end.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the Bengals are here because they’ve changed.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gone are the constant deep prayers down the field \u2014 after<\/span> ranking second in completions of 40 yards or more and sixth in completions of 20 yards or more in 2021<\/span><\/a>, Cincinnati is now down to 11th in both categories in 2022.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Gone is Burrow\u2019s unrelenting over-aggressiveness; in 2021, <\/span>he was second in the league in aggressiveness percentage<\/span><\/a>, which Next Gen Stats defines as the rate at which a quarterback attempts throws that are into tight coverage. In 2022? Burrow finished 14th.<\/span><\/p>\n

Gone with his over-aggressiveness are the subsequent negative plays, which plagued Burrow and the offense in that calamitous first half of the season. After taking 29 sacks in his first eight games, Burrow took just 12 in the next eight, <\/span>bringing his season total to 41 and 10 less than his league-leading mark in 2021<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

But the Bengals haven\u2019t just changed; they\u2019ve changed for the better. Cincinnati\u2019s offense finished 2022 fifth in EPA\/play and fourth in success rate, and is second behind only Kansas City in the latter since Week 8. <\/span>Football Outsiders\u2019 DVOA metric,<\/span><\/a> which measures efficiency based on situation and opponent, ranked the Bengals\u2019 offense fourth in 2022 after ranking them 18th and below league average in 2021.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

What was once an erratic offense that was as lucky as it was talented is now an unquestionably elite unit across the board. Having introduced several different facets to their attack through the overall improvement of their trio of stars \u2014 Burrow has learned to take what the defense gives him, Higgins has become reliable over the middle of the field and not just down the sidelines, Chase has turned into an excellent short field separator \u2014 the Bengals offense finally has a sustainable process that they can rely on.<\/span><\/p>\n

And wouldn\u2019t you know it; the results have followed.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"
Photo Credit: Rob Carr\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

That\u2019s what was so beautiful about their Wild Card win against the Ravens on Sunday night. Baltimore\u2019s defense kept everything in front of them \u2014 taking away the deep ball at all costs \u2014 forcing Burrow and the Bengals to prove that they could hold serve, play sound offensive football, and take what was given to them. The Bengals offense was certainly outplayed, but they didn\u2019t panic, and they stayed true to their process to complete a resilient win against a divisional rival.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

As Zac Taylor\u2019s team prepares to travel to Orchard Park for a highly-anticipated Divisional Round bout with the Buffalo Bills \u2014 whose offense looks as chaotic and unstable as ever \u2014 the best thing the Bengals have going for them is their ability, and their willingness, to change their stripes.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0By Sam Robb O\u2019Hagan The 1,000-odd words you are about to read can be boiled down to just three. If you follow the NFL in any kind of exceptional capacity, you\u2019ve heard these three words before. Process over results. The derivative of that equation goes something like this \u2014 results vary, and they\u2019re dependent on […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21477,"featured_media":36046,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1024,1050,1035,19],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36043"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21477"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36043"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36043\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36049,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36043\/revisions\/36049"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/wtbu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}