Duke Tobin spoke to the press today and addressed questions about a roster that most believe is nowhere near being a contender.
The de facto GM disagreed.
“We still have a championship team in my mind,” he said. “We have elite world-class players.”
So then what went wrong?
“We had a lot of challenges this year,” Tobin explained. “We navigated some of them as effectively as you could, and then we had challenges elsewhere.”
Tobin then went on to say that the offense was built for Joe Burrow, implying that losing him to injury was a big reason the team finished with a losing record. “When you lose your quarterback… we have a quarterback that we have taken great pains in building an offense around and for,” Tobin said.
He then pivoted to talking about the great strides that the offense took without Burrow, from the running game to Joe Flacco’s ability to play effectively on short notice. Of course, Tobin took the blame for the defense’s failures. “Other parts of the team then decided it wasn’t going to give us a chance, and that’s on me,” Tobin said.
Overall, Tobin sees the Flacco run as something that shows the Bengals have the right coaches. “But there are things that worked and things that show me, hey, we’ve got the right people in this building, because [Flacco’s success in the offense] doesn’t happen,” Tobin said. “That is a rare, rare thing that you can create something out of nothing and then have the success that that had. So I’m proud of that. I really am.”
Flacco had a 13 to 4 TD to INT ratio and completed over 61% of his passes but only went 1-5 as a starter in Cincinnati.
You can watch the clip of Tobin below:
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