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Bengals Film Breakdown: How Joe Mixon Got His Groove Back on Sunday Against Ravens

Mixon was a bright spot for the Bengals in Sunday's loss to the Ravens.

Mike Santagata

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The rushing attack was one of the bright spots for the Cincinnati Bengals in Sunday's loss to the Ravens. Joe Mixon finally got going, finishing with 78 yards on 14 carries. 

He averaged a season-high 5.6 yards per carry. Samaje Perine had a good day running the ball as well, managing 17 yards on three carries (5.7 yards per carry). 

There are a few root causes for this newfound effective run game. 

The Ravens were selling out to stop explosive plays through the air, Mixon got extra rest from the mini bye week, and most importantly, a schematic shift for the Bengals.

The Schematic Shift

Prior to this game, the Bengals primarily utilized a zone blocking scheme. I have gone over wide zone in depth before, but the basic idea of these plays are that the offensive line will move the front of the defense horizontally to create lanes for the running back. This run scheme maximizes good athletes along the offensive line.

The Bengals would dabble in some other runs, but they mainly tried to get to wide zone under center as their bread and butter. The issue is that the horses up front had issues blocking it because of their lack of athleticism, and they were unable to reap the rewards of the related under center play action as well. Knowing this run scheme was an issue, the Bengals have slowly added more gap runs into their game plan and it finally reached a tipping point this past week.

On their 18 runs (not including Joe Burrow runs), the Bengals ran 13 gap plays and 5 zone plays. This wholesale change is the first time that gap running has been a clear emphasis for the Bengals' offense. Against the Dolphins in the week prior, the Bengals had more gap runs (14) than zone runs (11), but overall it was a near 50/50 split prior to Sunday.

Before the game against the Ravens, the Bengals ran zone run plays about 52% of the time and that number was decreasing every week. This nearly 50/50 split seemed to be somewhat of an identity crisis and hampered the run game. It seemed as if they only ran zone under center and only ran gap from the gun. Because of the identity issues along with the lack of production from the zone portion of the run game, the switch to more gap run plays this past week is something that has needed to occur for weeks now.

This is just scratching the surface of these concepts, but in general gap run plays are designed to attack downhill quickly and to push the defensive front vertically. This type of run scheme is better utilized when the offensive line is full of power but may lack some athleticism.

Against the Ravens, the gap run plays went for about 5.6 yards per carry which is good, but that includes a few plays that were designed to reach the perimeter of the defense. When only considering the run plays that were designed to attack downhill, the Bengals reached 6.8 yards per carry. For comparison, the Bengals' zone run plays were only at 4.4 yards per carry and the wide zone concepts from under center were run at an abysmal 2.5 yards per carry. That 2.5 yards per carry is similar to what Mixon was running at prior to this week (2.7), which caused the dynamic shift in scheme. 

To get into more of the advanced statistics of how successful this run game was last week, the EPA/play (expected points added per play) on all Bengals' runs this week was a staggering 0.15 EPA per play. Mixon in particular was at a blistering 0.24 EPA per play on the ground. To add context to these numbers, the Cleveland Browns No. 1 rushing attack averages 0.157 EPA per play, and the Buffalo Bills and Kansas City Chiefs are the only passing offenses to average more EPA per play than Mixon did on the ground this past week.

If the Bengals can keep up this level of dominance on the ground, then they will complement their aerial assault well with one of the league’s best shotgun run games. Let’s dig a little deeper into just exactly what the Bengals are doing on the ground and how it works.

The Bengals Gun Run Attack

One of the primary benefits of running from the gun are the light boxes that you will naturally face. For the Bengals, there were only four instances of running into a one high shell out of 15 gun runs. That means that on 11 runs from the gun this week, the Ravens had one less defender than the Bengals had gaps. This isn’t something new though, because the Bengals have been getting these light boxes the entire year from the gun. The issue until now has been punishing these boxes, but now the Bengals have found a way to attack these light defenses on the ground.

There were three gap concepts that the Bengals utilized this week to attack the Ravens downhill from the gun: duo, iso, and trap. Let’s dig into each one of these concepts.

The duo concept is essentially power without a puller.

Duo

The Bengals almost always run their gun duo as a “same side” concept, meaning that it is designed to attack the same side as the offset running back. The offensive line is going to get a pair of double teams against this even over front. One on the 2i and one on the 3 technique. Those double teams are going to work back to the two linebackers with Mixon reading the play side or “MIKE” linebacker. If the MIKE fills, then Mixon should bounce, but if the MIKE stays or works outside, then Mixon should hit this up the middle. There is a seldom-used third read (for most teams) being a cutback toward the opposite side, but that’s exactly what Mixon uses on this play.

The MIKE’s first steps are to the outside so Mixon responds by pressing vertical and looking to hit this right down broadway. The issue is that the tight end gets pushed into the hole and despite a good bump from the left tackle, the left guard has lost leverage against the 3 technique. Mixon then makes a decisive jumpcut to the backside of the play where Alex Cappa has just blasted the 2i about 5 yards backward before dumping him on his head. This incredible block combined with some good work from Tyler Boyd and a good initial drive from La’el Collins gives Mixon the room he needs to churn out positive yardage.

Duo2

This is another example of the Bengals running duo against an even over front. The result is also the same with a cut to the backside of the run for a nice gain. Mixon started to cut this play to the backside this week after weeks of trying to force it to the play side. It could be because of the team meeting he had with his offensive line or because he feels healthy enough to use his burst to cut to that side, but either way, it’s working. Watch as Mixon first presses vertically, but then can feel how bunched up everything has become leading to a cut backside.

To show a different read, here is Mixon making a bounce read from duo:

Check out the difference in the blocking and how he is able to gain the edge. It’s topped off with a vintage finish from Mixon as he makes the corner miss and plows forward for additional yardage.

As evident from the film, this concept is an effective way for the Bengals to attack defenses from the gun, but let's look at it statistically a little bit. The Bengals churned out 6.2 yards per play when they ran duo against the Ravens, which is spectacular for a run play. They ran duo six separate times for 37 yards with a long run of 10 yards. Overall, this play looks to be their future bread and butter.

Duo maximizes the offensive line's strength on double teams while hiding some of their limitations. Mixon contributes to the run with decisive cuts and power behind his pads. These downhill concepts are great for allowing Mixon to plow downfield into defenders with a full head of steam. It’s also a gap concept that really allows Mixon to use his great vision to set up his blocks and work to the front or backside of the play. The only issue with this concept for the Bengals seems to be that the tight end has some issues taking on those defensive ends one on one.

The next most common concept that the Bengals used from shotgun is the insert iso concept.

H Insert Iso

Similar to duo, the insert iso play is another way that the Bengals can get to a same side run play. This one is more of a defined read for the running back as he should follow the H-back unless something goes haywire. Iso is a fast, downhill run that allows for the offense to add an extra gap. The H back will always iso the play side linebacker while the center and backside guard will work a double team on the nose towards the backside linebacker.

This example is not blocked all that well from the offensive line, but it still gains three yards on 2nd-and-1 which makes it a successful play. If the left guard can maintain his leverage or if the ACE double team between the center and guard can create more movement on the nose tackle, this could have been an explosive play. Still, the fast, downhill nature of the play allows for Mixon to hit this with authority and he picks up the first down.

The Bengals also ran this concept with the tight end coming from the opposite side of the formation. This is a great tendency breaker so that the Bengals did not only get to these gap run plays from “gun strong” looks where the running back is offset to the same side as the tight end.

This play doesn't hit where it’s designed to go because the left guard has his face crossed by the nose tackle, but it's still a 12-yard gain. The idea is gap blocking with the tight end coming all the way across to make the iso block. It’s a long developing play and a tall task, but Hayden Hurst does a pretty good job of making it work on his end and Mixon gives it time to develop. When Mixon sees the nose tackle get into the designed running lane, he quickly bounces this to the outside and attacks the defense down the field.

The Bengals ran the iso concept four times on Sunday for 29 yards. That puts them at about 7.3 yards per play which makes it a very efficient run for them. The longest run for this concept was 12 yards.

Lastly, the Bengals utilized a trap concept that was pretty unique.

trap

The common trap play is to use the backside guard to pull across and kick out the 3 technique, but the Bengals instead pull the tackle to kick out the nose. This gives the play a slightly more downhill attack while also giving the play side of the offensive line better angles. On the backside of this run, the Bengals execute a difficult trade with the tackle climbing to the linebacker and the guard working around him to kick out the end. However, they execute this trade flawlessly. This is the easiest read for Mixon as he just has to wait and then hit this around the trap block from Collins.

The result here is one of the most beautiful run plays that I have seen the Bengals execute in years. Everyone gets to their assignments and Mixon isn't touched until about nine yards down the field. The Bengals only got to this play once, but it’s a really nice concept that I wouldn’t mind seeing in their rotation of run plays more often.

Despite all this talk about gap run plays, the Bengals still utilized some zone running from the gun as well. While a majority of these gap plays hit to the same side, the zone run plays are designed to go to the opposite side which is important so that defenses cannot key in on stopping offset gun runs by cheating to or away from the running back.

On inside zone or tight zone concepts from the gun, the Bengals averaged about 5.7 yards per carry. These concepts work better for the Bengals' offensive line because they are allowing for them to push vertically rather than the difficult outside track of wide zone. Just like it does with the gap run plays, this works towards the offensive line’s strengths and limits their weaknesses some. This is also possibly the best run for Mixon as he is able to work his pre-line of scrimmage abilities to their fullest extent, while still working downhill to punish the defense physically.

With the propensity of packaged plays/RPOs that the Bengals ran on Sunday, inside zone and tight zone should still be a big part of the playbook. It’s one of the more common concepts that is used for these plays because of the amount of time it takes the offensive line to work down the field. Allowing for plays like this:

All of this is to say that the Bengals seem to be on the right track when it comes to fixing their offense. They are finally getting to more of the run schemes that maximize the strengths of this offensive line. These plays should only become more effective as they continue to add more RPOs and play action off of these concepts. If they can keep up some of the efficiency of Sunday, then just maybe they can get the defense to creep up the field opening up some shots to Ja’Marr Chase.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

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