For the first time since the first moon landing, the Bengals start a rookie quarterback in a home NFL opener Sunday at Paul Brown Stadium (4:05 p.m.-Cincinnati's Local 12) when Joe Burrow's helmet headset starts cackling back and forth with head coach Zac Taylor's Mission Control.
The Bengals.com Media Roundtable believes a Bengals win won't be nearly as miraculous as landing a man on the moon by the end of the decade, but it still sees Burrow orbiting around a victory until he gets his feet on the ground early in his career.
Two long-time Bengals beat reporters, Local 12 columnist Richard Skinner and The Athletic's Paul Dehner, Jr., are wistfully hoping for a finish featuring Burrow engineering a two-minute drill. Skinner, the TV guy, sees a Hollywood finish. Dehner, still a hard-boiled scribe when it comes to predictions, can see it but won't believe it until he sees it.
Alex Marvez, a command module commander on NFL Radio on Sirius, thinks Burrow is going to splash down the Bengals into the good times on re-entry into contention, but not Sunday. Chargers beat man Jeff Miller of The Los Angeles Times sees a tight win for L.A. as its vets have just enough experience to outlast the Bengals youth.
Let's go around The Table. As always, visitors first.
The Chargers are kind of reeling with the loss of safety Derwin James for the second year in a row, on top of how good he is, he's literally one of those guys who makes everyone better because he can play all over. They just put him where they need him and I think when he went down, especially those guys on defense, man, there's no chance they're going to be as good as they could have been. People say heart and soul, but he literally is. This guy was already a leader as a rookie. He'd make a play in the backfield and the next play he's 30 yards downfield. You just don't replace a player like that and the spirit he brings.
Between that and center Mike Pouncey not playing, James played just at the end last year and Pouncey missed the last 11 games, those are just huge losses.
I think these teams know more than they let on. There are only so many secrets you have, right? I think they probably have a pretty good sense what the Bengals are going to try and do. But you know how football is. You never really know until you get out there and start running around and how everyone matches up and all that. I don't think anyone knows for sure how these two teams are going to look.
You see the Chargers running things they have never done with Philip Rivers the last 14 years, like running speed options. I think it's going to be a lot of quick stuff, a lot of stuff on the ground. They'll throw when they have to, but I think they'll try and win with a lot of the running game with Taylor moving around a bunch. Their offense is going to look way different than what Chargers fans are used to, that's for sure. When Taylor was in Buffalo they ran the ball a lot and they didn't throw very much and I suspect they'll try to do the same thing here.
THE EDGE: I don't know that I'll be saying the Chargers are going to win before a lot of games this year. But the Bengals had two wins last year, a rookie quarterback and the left tackle situation and they've got their own injuries. It will probably be close, most of the Chargers games seem to come down to the very end. CHARGERS, 24-20.
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September 13, 2020 at 06:22PM
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Media Roundtable: Bengals Blast Off Into New Era - Bengals.com
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