For now, the Rams offense from last year is still the best source for educated speculation on the 2019 Bengals offense. One key predictor for success in that offense is 100% in Cincinnati’s control this year.
No offense in the NFL is ever an exact copy of another. Still, new Bengals head coach Zac Taylor will no doubt bring some concepts from last year’s Rams to Cincinnati. Taylor was quarterbacks coach for the Super Bowl runner ups.
Everyone who is curious about the Bengals has been dissecting the Rams offense all offseason long, myself included. Pulling out the calculator led to the discovery of a less than obvious statistic that determined outcomes for Los Angeles and will likely do the same for the Bengals.
Including playoff games, the Rams went 15-4 last year. In the 15 wins, Jared Goff attempted just shy of 33 passes per game. In the four losses, Goff threw almost 44 passes per game. Some of this can be attributed to the obvious fact that a team is going to pass more when they are behind. Even so, roughly 11 passes per game is too significant a difference to be entirely explained away using this logic.
What it tells you is the ground game was and is the core of the Rams offense. You can expect a basic foundation like that to carry over to Cincinnati, especially given the offseason moves the team made. This is by no means an indictment on Goff. The system just works better when the quarterback isn’t stuffing the attempts column.
Similarly, the following statement is not necessarily an indictment on Andy Dalton, but it is the truth. The 2019 Cincinnati Bengals will go as far as Joe Mixon and a hopefully improved offensive line take them.