Cincinnati @ Green Bay: 3 Things To Watch For
By Henry Payne
Will Andy Dalton Continue To Struggle?
At this point, NFL fans know exactly who Andy Dalton is as a quarterback. He’s capable of guiding a team to the playoffs with the right pieces around him. If he’s relied upon to be the guy, he struggles. Dalton is a good QB, but he’s not elite. This is why he has never won a playoff game in his NFL career.
Brett Kollmann is someone that every NFL and NFL Draft fan should follow. His analysis of Andy Dalton’s opening game against Baltimore – which you can see below – is simply fantastic.
As Kollmann notes early in the video, the Bengals offensive line lost two premier lineman in Andrew Whitworth and Kevin Zeitler. The Bengals drafted Cedric Ogbuehi back in 2015 as an insurance policy on the blindside, but he has struggled. Jared Goff is loving life with Sean McVay and the Los Angeles Rams right now in part because he now has an elite left tackle protecting him, not Greg Robinson.
Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu have also left Cincinnati in recent years, and while the Bengals still possess some young and talented receivers, their current crop of receivers isn’t as good as it has been in years past. Jones and Sanu were able to take advantage of A.J. Green’s dominant play on the outside. With only Green left from that trio, there is, even more, pressure on Dalton.
You’d presume that Dalton would need to be at his best to beat Aaron Rodgers and the Packers, but move forward – and I know this may be a tad dramatic – the Bengals may need to re-evaluate the quarterback position if ‘The Red Rifle’ continues to misfire.