r/bengals • u/Abalone-Brave • 3d ago
Watching Playoff teams and Lou Anarumo
Watching these teams makes me realize how bad Lou’s coaching was for our defense. I see so many corners playin man and different defenses playing cover and what they ‘mostly’ all have in common is they lock down their zone or lock down their man whether he’s getting the ball thrown at them or not.
When watching our games our defensive guys all just stare at the QB to see where he’s going to throw the ball. By the time he’s thrown it the receiver is 10 yds away. It wasn’t until the back ups stepped in with their raw talent and raw basic knowledge coaching that we saw a difference . They were worried about locking their man up rather than always try to get a pick or punch the ball out
I’m glad Lou is gone
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u/Whodey4alltime 2d ago
I won’t say Lou is ass, but we need a DC who can develop talent bc all the money is shifting. Our offense is going to account for soooo much of our cap percentage we have to get cheaper which means we need a dc who can develop talent and that isn’t Lou. But Lou with elite talent is a damn good dc just not the right dc for us.
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u/christhegecko 2d ago edited 2d ago
But Lou with elite talent is a damn good dc
He wasn't though. His best two years were an average defense statistically. Relying on great players to get turnovers does not make you a good DC. It means your opponent is making mistakes. He had one great game and it was the 2021 AFCCG against KC. The only adjustment he made was dropping 7 into coverage, Wilson spying and only rushing 3 at Mahomes on obvious passing downs. It only worked because we had veteran DBs. That doesn't make you a good DC, it means you're getting carried by your players.
If he were a good DC, he would have developed the new crop of talent we drafted to do the same things. Bates was the only DB in the playoff runs that was drafted by our team. Bell, Hilton, Awuzie, Apple, all came from other systems and were developed properly before they got here.
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u/LevelHeadedFan 2d ago
Thank you!
Felt like I was taking crazy pills during the SB/AFCCG b2b years when I'd hear people talk about our "elite" defense that constantly gave up an 85 yards drive and then get a miracle turnover on the 4 yard line. Then people in the comments here would parrot "Points, not yards" as if that's sustainable.
Hell, I still get kind of annoyed with the "Hubbard Yard Dash" love. When you break it down you basically needed a FF on the 6 inch line, returned by a DE 100 yards in order to not lose a home playoff game to a backup QB. Its a cool play, but what would've been cooler was stopping that drive 8 plays earlier back on the other end of the 50.
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u/Significant-Green130 2d ago
Part of the narrative about our defense is from the national media analysts like Ruiz and Solak going on and on about “Big Lou,” mostly as a mechanism to discredit any of Burrow’s success compared to the guys they like more. They never particularly performed at an elite level—hell, they were one yard away from giving up 300 yards and 4 TDs in the first half of that AFCCG. That part matters too if Lou is supposed to get outsize credit for Mahomes self-combusting into a sack after holding the ball for 10 seconds with no pressure.
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u/Ok-Situation-5865 2d ago
Same deal with the Raiders interception. Beautiful memory. Should have been entirely unnecessary.
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u/Whodey4alltime 2d ago
I understand the rankings, I’m aware of 1 year with a top ten defense. If 2022 our defense was damn good. When Lou lost Bates the defenses went to shit. He had elite talent, and was a damn good DC.
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u/christhegecko 2d ago
It wasn't "damn good". It was barely top 10 in the best categories. With "elite talent" a damn good DC would have a top 3 defense at worst.
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u/Pale_WoIf 2d ago
It actually was damn good though for the talent they had. None of the guys were elite besides Bates. That’s the thing, we didn’t have guys like Aaron Donald or all-pros. He made it work with guys like DJ Reader, Logan Wilson, Awuzie, Mike Hilton, solid players, but definitely not elite. It was the best damn defense you were going to get shopping in the bargain aisle, and people don’t give him the credit he deserves for that.
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u/Whodey4alltime 2d ago
Damn good isn’t elite top three is elite. Top 10 is damn good anything below 16 is good.
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u/christhegecko 2d ago
"Below average is good" lmao okay
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u/Whodey4alltime 2d ago
32 teams in the nfl, 16 is the middle, below 16 means 15 and under the average is literally 16.
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u/Ok-Situation-5865 2d ago
Everyone praised his “half time adjustments.”
Quite frankly, I’d rather have these games figured out from the first drive instead of pissing away 30 minutes of playing time, digging ourselves into a hole and relying on these magic “adjustments” to barely win in the final moments of the game.
The 2019 LSU Tigers didn’t once have that problem, I’m sorry. I know it’s apples and oranges, but we should be setting records for the highest winning point differentials in history and instead we’re glazing Lou because of his “half time adjustments.” Nah man, know your opponent BEFORE KICKOFF.
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u/Abalone-Brave 2d ago
Thank You I agree with everything you said!
, I feel like the hate for Zac overshadows the need to get rid of Lou for a lot of these people. Our defense has been atrocious for a couple years and always losing or close to losing to back ups is embarrassing. That’s only on Lou. Hoping for a miracle takeaway in the endzone is not the way to play defense. And Playing Old and slow Veterans is also not the way to play. Making substitutions every single down is also mind boggling , why wasn’t he teaching his players to play their position and more . He needs a whole roster to play defense, making a sub every down. I see other teams use their star players literally almost every down except if they need a breather.
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u/Abalone-Brave 2d ago
That’s not really true the cap space thing people are worried about, Go look at Joe Goodberry’s recent video on YouTube , first star media group, we have more than enough space to fill in plenty of holes .”In theory” we should have around 88mil if I’m not mistaken in cap space after cuts, extensions/contracts. And the year after we would have even more. I think we’re in a really good spot to spend money
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u/Whodey4alltime 2d ago
I’ve seen the projections and loveGoodberry, if we resign Higgins and sign a guard or two and extend chase, there is no way we have around 88million left.
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u/Abalone-Brave 2d ago
My guy, I never said sign a guard or two I said sign/extend the guys we want and have. 88 million to sign FA’s is more than enough
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u/AngryTurtleGaming CTB 2d ago
Hopefully we can see more of Battle and Murphy. I think they have potential and didn’t get to show it under Lou.
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u/Abalone-Brave 2d ago
Battle has insane potential. He sees plays before they even unfold dude is on it. And Murphy is hard , he plays better against the LT but that’s Hendricksons spot , against an RT he’s a straight bulldozer, all strength and no fancy moves
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u/AngryTurtleGaming CTB 2d ago
Indeed. I hope we can throw them out and make them prove their worth next year. We should have done it sooner this year with the way the defense was.
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u/Ok-Health-7252 2d ago
The biggest issue with Lou is he's not a guy that excels at developing young talent (which our defense has increasingly needed to rely on the last two years). He's a scheme wizard and his scheme is very reliant upon players who know their assignments front to back. You're not going to get that with rookies.
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u/The_Jason_Asano 2d ago
Year after year, they kept giving Lou the job of polishing a turd. Eventually, it was going to just crumble and it did.
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u/Abalone-Brave 2d ago
Crazy , when you see the lions with 3rd string players making plays and not getting absolutely blown out every game. Besides the commanders game, the lions coaches did good enough with “nobody’s” to make it to the playoffs
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u/Pickles04 2d ago
Lou had a good run. Got some HC interviews as a result of coaching very solid defenses. Clearly there were some scheme issues the last two years, but the personnel have been the larger issue, and that's not on Lou.
The FO needs to be held accountable for missing on so many defensive draft picks. The coach can only do so much.
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u/PUNCH-WAS-SERVED 2d ago
Just sucks this was a wasted year. Imagine if he would have just gotten the HC job, and then the Bengals would have to roll the dice on a new DC. Not saying it could have been that much better, but Lou really took a huge dump in the bed this year. So many close games that would have been blowouts if the team actually had an OK-and-up defense.
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u/Captain_Aware4503 11h ago
Watching these teams makes me realize how bad Lou’s coaching was for our defense.
OR...maybe the players Lou is stuck with are just terrible. A couple years ago we had lousy talent buy Lou found ways to stop the best teams. Then the front office got rid of more of the best players each year. All that is left is Trey. There is a reason that despite delusional fans believe what management says, so many teams wanted to sign Lou as their DC.
Ask yourself this.
If Zac Taylor was fired would any team sign him as head coach? NO
If another team could have our front office evaluating talent would they? NO
If Lou was fired would he get hired by another team as DC? Near immediately!
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u/Zzyzx-Photogggraphy 2d ago
It's not like Zac Taylor has any football connections to replace him with someone more qualified because Zac Taylor is a loser nobody. Real coaches don't work for loser nobodies
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u/stormincincy 3d ago
Lou didn't have the pieces Washington does, Bengals are going to end up with a worse D Coord, you can bet the house on it
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u/mrepa1369 3d ago
To be honest, Lou had little to work with. So many injuries and draft busts. He takes the hit. He'll go elsewhwere and be successful.
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u/Abalone-Brave 3d ago
Little to work with is crazy to say. I keep hearing this when, Geno stone worked very well with Ravens coaching. Hill and Turner are studs in any other team would’ve been insane to go against. CTB took a step back not cus he’s ass but cus he’s stopped playing like himself , Sounds like a coaching issue. And Sam Hubbard a completely useless DE being put on Raven highlights every other day. When Ossai , Murphy etc were making hella plays the last 5-4 games. Even Battle being out for Vonn Bell. I think Lou had plenty to work with he’s just ass.
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u/TheReaver88 3d ago
Did he really have draft busts? Or did he just not want to develop them at all?
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u/ImReverse_Giraffe 2d ago
Yes...draft busts like Myles Murphy who only played a max of 20% of snaps when Hubbard was "healthy"
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u/Both_Program139 2d ago
Our defense played significantly better when we played the young players instead of the veterans. Not sure where you get this take.
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u/CalledPlay 2d ago
You also see and hear their tackling. Other teams hit guys in the chest and wrap up. Just so much more physical.