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How are you feeling so far? Thoughts on where the team is at the bye...?

I feel like the bye comes at a good time, and I think they finish strong and playoff bound

I have mixed feelings about the season so far.

Our defense has noticeably improved but not as far as i had hoped before the season began. I think most of us felt we might jump from where we finished last season in the high 20s to the high teens. Instead, we've only moved up incrementally to the high 20s.

Now, the season is still young, we're only five games in, so the defense has plenty of room to improve as the season goes along and the players gel and become more accustomed to playing together. I do think many of us expected greater improvement in our Linebackers than we're seeing so far.

I also think a lot of us felt that with our starting offensive line returning intact for the second straight year our offense would be more reliable than it has been. OBJ is still phoning it in too often at LT and Burrow is still holding on to the ball far too long. Burrow still forces the ball into double and even triple coverage trusting Chase and Higgens to beat any coverage their getting far too often. You'd think as a veteran QB now he'd be past these kinds of trends but he still makes the same mistakes he's been making for years now.

Zac remains a liability as Head Coach. Even the local beat writers are touching on his inadequacies more and more as the season goes along. Everybody sees it but like the weather, everybody talks about it but nobody seems willing to do anything about it. We'll see what his record is at the end of the season and barring a deep playoff run, I suspect his job will be debated in the offices at Paycor when all is said and done.

We're 3-2 with plenty of room to improve. That's how I'd sum it up right now.

I'd say this game against the Ravens this week is pretty critical. We need to take a bite out of the AFCN quickly. I simply cannot believe CLE has staying power and Aaron Rodgers will get hurt soon. He always does. So now is our chance to keep pace instead of climbing out of the cellar for the next 10 weeks.

My take at the bye....this team lacks the confidence and swagger (identity) to make a run. I truly hope that changes this weekend and we dominate all 3 phases for once.

I’ll sum it up this way:

Same ol bengals

Infinite regress