Think about our offensive weaponry so far in 2016 vs. what we had in 2015

[RuthlessBurgher]

Last season, many pundits claimed that Ben had the best offensive weaponry around him. Our best formation was 11 personnel (1 RB, 1 TE, 3 WR) to get the best possible 5 offensive weapons on the field at the same time. Le'Veon Bell, Heath Miller, Antonio Brown, Martavis Bryant, Markus Wheaton. Impressive group, eh?

Fast forward to this year. Our offense has scored 8 TD's in 2 games (compared to 2 late garbage time TD's given up by our defense). We've done this with Bell and Bryant both suspended, Wheaton injured, and Miller retired. Four out of our five best offense weapons last season have not played a single down this season...we're missing our 2015 RB1, TE1, WR2, and WR3. Plus consider that Heath's backup Matt Spaeth also retired, and the guy we spent most of our free agent dollars on to help replace Heath, Ladarius Green, hasn't played yet either.

That's a really significant amount of talent missing, and we are still averaging an offensive TD per quarter of play so far this year (including a game in which took place in weather alternating between a Niagara Falls "Maid of the Mist" boat ride and an utter downpour...and with elite wideout Antonio Brown contributing about as much on the stat sheet for that game as he did during the Mike Vick/Landry Jones games last year).

The offense has been rolling even though we are counting on the oldest RB in the league in DeAngelo Williams, a 5th round TE in Jesse James who caught a grand total of 8 passes as a rookie, an undrafted journeyman TE in Xavier Grimble who had been on 3 teams' practice squads and never played in an actual NFL game before this season, a 3rd round WR with questionable hands in Sammie Coates who caught 1 pass for 11 yards in the regular season as a rookie (was deactived on gameday as a healthy scratch for 10 out of 16 games), an undrafted wideout in Eli Rogers who spent his first NFL season on injured reserve, and a 1st round bust WR in Darrius Heyward-Bey who had to resurrect his career as a core special teams player in order to remain in the league.

[Oviedo]

Don't forget we have a "golf coach" for an Offensive Coordinator who only got his job because of his daddy and has no idea how to coordinate an NFL offense.

[Shawn]

This team I believe is the real deal. The D has been surprisingly good. The O missing major weapons is terrific. If we stay healthy, this team is going to be the real deal.

[flippy]

This is why I'm on record for this being a SuperBowl season. As I mentioned in the SuperBowl or Bust thread, Ben and this offense could carry this team with Richardson, Johnson, Grimble, Rogers, and Coates starting at the skill positions. Brown, Bell, Williams, etc. are just the icing on the cake.

[feltdizz]

i really think its due to the running game with the OL and Williams.

Of course Ben and Brown as well but the ability to run opens up the passing game so much.

I also have to wave the towel for Jesse James. I had a feeling he would pan out and thus far he has been killing it in the passing game.

edit: yeah, all those things i posted are true but its Ben. Dude is all in with this offense and even ugly Ben is capable of tossing 3 TDs. Ugly Ben used to throw 3INTs

[RuthlessBurgher]

DeAngelo didn't really have a great game running the ball against Cincy. He gained 94 yards on the ground, sure, but it took him a whopping 32 carries to get there (2.9 yards per carry, which is a big difference from his 5.5 YPC in week 1). Ben also wasn't terribly efficient either. He missed Antonio badly on some short throws and missed Sammie badly on some long throws...his completion percentage was just barely over 50% and he was intercepted twice. Plus Antonio had easily his worst stat line in a game that he played with Ben since probably 2012 or so.

It's almost magical that this team scored 3 TD's and 1 FG during this rainstorm with neither the run game nor the pass game being terribly efficient.

[feltdizz]

DeAngelo didn't really have a great game running the ball against Cincy. He gained 94 yards on the ground, sure, but it took him a whopping 32 carries to get there (2.9 yards per carry, which is a big difference from his 5.5 YPC in week 1). Ben also wasn't terribly efficient either. He missed Antonio badly on some short throws and missed Sammie badly on some long throws...his completion percentage was just barely over 50% and he was intercepted twice. Plus Antonio had easily his worst stat line in a game that he played with Ben since probably 2012 or so.

It's almost magical that this team scored 3 TD's and 1 FG during this rainstorm with neither the run game nor the pass game being terribly efficient.

I only caught the second half and I barely watched that because it was my daughters 1st birthday. This football watching at 1PM is going to be a challenge the next few years.

[BradshawsHairdresser]

I only caught the second half and I barely watched that because it was my daughters 1st birthday. This football watching at 1PM is going to be a challenge the next few years.

DVR, my friend ... can't imagine going back to living without it.

[RobinCole]

I suspect that the rainstorm had something to do with the running and passing games not being terribly efficient. The Bengals weren't so efficient either. The time of possession was 33 minutes us, 27 minutes them. Precisely because we could run in the slop and they gave up trying.

[SanAntonioSteelerFan]

We can only play the people in front of us ... but evaluating our O production has to also take into account the quality of the defenses we've faced.

Understanding that with only two games played no one really knows how good anyone is yet, how good do people think the Redskins and Bungles defenses are?