Unsurprisingly, there were some standout performances from the Bengals’ Week 1 win. Unfortunately, some of those standouts were not positive.
Not unlike us at Stripe Hype, PFF gave out grades to the Bengals following their Week 1 win versus Indianapolis. Although theirs are numerical and are based on advanced analytics, the concept is similar. PFF CIN Bengals highlighted a few players on the team who stood out, both in a good and bad way. The grades assessed by PFF show the strengths and flaws of the offense and defense from Week 1.
With the Bengals, it’s almost impossible not to start with the offensive line. The right side of the line played far worse than the left, although that was to be expected. Alex Redmond in particular is an interesting case – he graded out worse on PFF than I thought he played. He earned a 56.5 grade, which is mediocre. His companion Bobby Hart flopped, earning a dismal 34.7 grade, which is poor.
The two of them also combined to allow 10 pressures on the day, which is not good for Andy Dalton. If Dalton is flushed out of the pocket consistently, the Bengals simply won’t get yards through the air. The running game was also far more successful away from Redmond than behind him. The team averaged 1.6 yards per carry behind Redmond, instead of 6.5 yards per carry away from him. This paints a suboptimal picture for Redmond, which surprised me a little bit.
On defense, two players had very solid games. Most prominently, Clayton Fejedelem was a star for the team. He earned a 91.7 grade, which was the highest on the defense and constitutes an elite performance. Fejedelem made several crucial tackles and forced the game-winning fumble when the Colts were in the red zone.
Another sterling performance came from Dre Kirkpatrick, who availed himself nicely in this game. He earned an 85.7 grade, which is really good. He also allowed only a 50% completion rate on 10 targets, and gave up only 49 yards. Kirkpatrick also tallied three passes broken up, including a near interception on the Colts’ final drive. If Kirkpatrick is playing this well, the Bengals’ secondary will be great.
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