Tag: Ryan Finley

Watch: Bengals’ Ryan Finley surprises Steelers on 23-yard TD run

Ryan Finley isn’t threatening the Steelers with his arm. His legs are a different story, though.

Ryan Finley is having the game of his life. And in the fourth quarter, the Bengals’ quarterback — from deep in the depth chart — stunned the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday with a clever touchdown run.

The 23-yard run gave Cincinnati a 24-10 lead in the fourth quarter. Finley has not thrown for much but after the run he did have 43 yards rushing and the score.

Steelers vs. Bengals: Cincinnati’s starting QB out for Monday’s matchup

Quarterback Ryan Finley will start in place of injured Brandon Allen versus Steelers on Monday.

The Cincinnati Bengals announced on Saturday that quarterback Brandon Allen (knee) is ruled out and Ryan Finley will start in the Steelers-Bengals Monday Night Football showdown. 

It won’t be Finley’s first rodeo versus Pittsburgh. Starting in place of Andy Dalton, Finley completed less than half of his passes, fumbled twice and was sacked four times en route to a 16-10 loss last season.

In seven total games, Finley has thrown two touchdowns and four interceptions.

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Bengals announce Ryan Finley will start vs. Steelers

The Cincinnati Bengals had to make a change at QB.

The Cincinnati Bengals will start Ryan Finley against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football in Week 15.

Bengals coach Zac Taylor announced the news Saturday, meaning a third starting quarterback for the Bengals this season. Primary backup Brandon Allen continues to deal with a minor injury and won’t be available.

Finley, of course, was a player Taylor and Co. traded up to get in the fourth round of the 2019 draft and he proceeded to go 0-3 with brutal stats during three starts in place of Andy Dalton. He struggled so much this year during the game Joe Burrow suffered his injury that Allen took over as starter the very next week.

Coincidentally, Finley’s last start also came against the Steelers, a loss before the team turned back to Dalton in search of a spark.

The Bengals will likely promote Kevin Hogan from the practice squad to serve as primary backup as the Bengals finish out this season.

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Bengals announce Ryan Finley will start vs. Steelers

The Cincinnati Bengals had to make a change at QB.

The Cincinnati Bengals will start Ryan Finley against the Pittsburgh Steelers on Monday Night Football in Week 15.

Bengals coach Zac Taylor announced the news Saturday, meaning a third starting quarterback for the Bengals this season. Primary backup Brandon Allen continues to deal with a minor injury and won’t be available.

Finley, of course, was a player Taylor and Co. traded up to get in the fourth round of the 2019 draft and he proceeded to go 0-3 with brutal stats during three starts in place of Andy Dalton. He struggled so much this year during the game Joe Burrow suffered his injury that Allen took over as starter the very next week.

Coincidentally, Finley’s last start also came against the Steelers, a loss before the team turned back to Dalton in search of a spark.

The Bengals will likely promote Kevin Hogan from the practice squad to serve as primary backup as the Bengals finish out this season.

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Zac Taylor won’t name Brandon Allen or Ryan Finley starter vs. Giants

Zac Taylor won’t name a Cincinnati Bengals starting QB.

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Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor doesn’t plan on naming a starting quarterback for this weekend’s game against the New York Giants.

Taylor and Co. promoted Brandon Allen from the practice squad this week, making it seem obvious he’d be the pick over Ryan Finley, which a report seemed to confirm.

But according to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com, Taylor isn’t naming a starter, only providing an outline of what the eventual starter must do:

“Which one gives us the best chance to win. That’s the bottom line. We always do what’s best for the team and you know not every decision is easy but again we’re always going to try to put our team in the best position.”

But at this point, it’s pretty clear the starter won’t be Finley, who entered last weekend’s loss after the Joe Burrow injury and completed just three of his 10 attempts with an interception. A year ago, he completed just 47.1 percent of his 87 attempts with two touchdowns and interceptions over three starts.

Allen’s career resume isn’t much better, but it’s clear Taylor wants to go with the veteran who has experience in his system via their days in Los Angeles.

Viewed through a long-term lens, it’s a knock on Taylor after he traded up in the 2019 draft to take Finley, who has been on the roster all year as the primary backup — now he’s likely being replaced after just 10 pass attempts.

For now though, Taylor will keep trying to be unpredictable to give his team what little edge he can.

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Logan Ryan wants to know what kind of bubble gum Brandon Allen chews

Giants safety Logan Ryan is so invested in winning that he needs to know every detail Bengals QB Brandon Allen, including gum preference.

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Zac Taylor isn’t ready to name his starting quarterback for Week 12 just yet, but media reports suggest it will be Brandon Allen, who was elevated from the practice squad earlier this week.

For now, the Giants are preparing for Allen with an eye on both he and Ryan Finley. And for some, that means a whole lot of sleuthing.

Veteran Giants defensive back Logan Ryan is one of those guys. He wants to know literally everything about his opponents and that now includes Allen.

“I want to know what type of bubble gum he likes, you know? I’m just one of those guys. Tell me something to go out there to trash talk with that day,” Ryan told reporters, adding that he’s aware of the Bret Bielema-Arkansas connection.

“I definitely want to know as much as I can about the opponent, it’s kind of how I am as a player. It might let me know how he handles pressure, how he handles adversity, is he a fighter, how does he handle when things are going well or when they’re not going well. That might help the game plan a little bit.”

Ultimately, Ryan says, he needs to know what makes Allen tick — he needs to know how to get into his head and conversely, what not to do that might fire the young quarterback up.

“Some information some players can’t handle, some can. I like to get it all and see what works,” Ryan added. “There’s some players I don’t talk trash to because I know it turns them up – like don’t talk trash to that guy, that’s going to get him going to the next level, you know? I’m going to take everything I can from it and try and give us the best game plan and the best opportunity to win.”

With all the focus and effort being put into Allen, both Ryan and the Giants had better hope that’s who Zac Taylor starts on Sunday bubble gum or not.

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Report: Bengals to start QB Brandon Allen vs. Giants

The Cincinnati Bengals will start Brandon Allen at quarterback against the New York Giants as opposed to Ryan Finley.

The Cincinnati Bengals lost rookie quarterback Joe Burrow to a severe knee injury a week ago and it was Ryan Finley who initially stepped in to replace him. However, that’s not who the New York Giants will see under center in Week 12.

Mike Garafolo of NFL Network reports that the Bengals have decided to start the 28-yer-old Brandon Allen, who was signed off the practice squad on Tuesday, instead.

Allen, a 2016 fourth-round pick of the Jacksonville Jaguars, has appeared in just three career games, completing 46.4% of his passes for 515 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.

Each of those starts came in 2019 as a member of the Denver Broncos when Drew Lock was on injured reserve. The team went 1-2 over that span.

The Giants will have an inside scouting report on Allen thanks to Bret Bielema, who was the quarterback’s head coach at Arkansas from 2013-2016.

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Report: Bengals will start Brandon Allen over Ryan Finley vs. Giants

The Cincinnati Bengals are making a change at quarterback.

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The Cincinnati Bengals are apparently throwing in the towel early on the Ryan Finley experiment.

According to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, the Bengals will start Brandon Allen over the weekend against the New York Giants while Finley slides into the backup role.

It’s a bit of a shocker on a Wednesday morning for the Bengals. Taylor, after all, traded up for Finley in the fourth round of the 2019 draft. But he’s gone 0-3 as a starter and has a career 45.4 competition percentage.

Taylor went out and signed Allen in late July to roster a fourth quarterback as an insurance policy amid the unknowns of the pandemic and the protocols necessary to play a season.

Allen is a 27-year-old veteran with experience in Taylor’s system after their time together with the Los Angeles Rams.

The Bengals also hosted two quarterbacks on workouts this week after sending Joe Burrow to injured reserve.

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The worst NFL quarterback for every type of throw

The best NFL quarterbacks give their coaches all the confidence in the world, no matter the situation. Here are the quarterbacks who don’t.

While it’s true that the smartest coaches and player personnel people will try to tailor their schemes to their quarterbacks, they’ll also look at which things those quarterbacks do best. That was the subject of my recent piece on the quarterbacks who are best as making several different types of throws — everything from different drop lengths, to play action and not, to under pressure and not, to broken plays and all kinds of other situational excellence.

With that bit of good feeling out of the way, it’s time to turn that concept on its head and reveal the quarterbacks who, throughout the 2019 season, couldn’t seem to hit the broad side of a barn in those same instances. Some were scuttled by inexperience, or by being thrown into starters’ jobs they weren’t ready to take, or by mysterious physical and mental gaffes that happened over and over.

For these quarterbacks, there’s nowhere to go but up.

The three-step drop: The Bengals in general

(David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports)

If you want to know why the Bengals selected Joe Burrow with the first overall pick, this is a good place to start. The three-step drop is the epicenter of the modern quick-passing game, and neither Andy Dalton nor Ryan Finley were very good with it. Dalton posted a three-step passer rating of 66.6, completing just 53.8% of his quick passes, while Finley had the league’s worst three-step rating at 64.0, completing just 47.2% of his. Finley was the only NFL quarterback to complete less than 50% of his three-step throws last season. Clearly, it’s time for a new franchise quarterback in the Queen City.

The five-step drop: Daniel Jones, New York Giants

(Robert Deutsch-USA TODAY Sports)

Jones was fairly decent in his rookie season on quick passes — he threw 11 touchdowns to six interceptions on three-step drops, and he was the league’s most efficient RPO thrower last season… but as the drops got deeper and the demand was for more vertical throws, things got more complicated. Jones had a league-worst passer rating of 54.9 on five-step throws, and 65.8 on seven-step throws. Which wasn’t nearly the worst on seven-step throws. Let’s get to that next.

The seven-step drop: The Steelers in general

(David Kohl-USA TODAY Sports)

This would probably not be the case had Ben Roethlisberger played the entire season as opposed to 95 snaps before he was lost for the remainder of 2019 due to injury. In 2018, Big Ben completed 15 of 30 seven-step drop throws for 323 yards, two touchdowns, and one interception, which is decent enough on what is a dwindling play in today’s NFL. But the 2019 Steelers, between Roethlisberger, Mason Rudolph, and Devlin “Duck” Hodges, had three of the five worst seven-step passer ratings in the NFL (Ryan Fitzpatrick and Tom Brady were the others) for a total of four completions on 17 attempts for 52 yards, one touchdown, and one interception. Let’s assume Roethlisberger is able to set this right in 2020.

The designed rollout: Kyle Allen, Carolina Panthers

(Chuck Cook-USA TODAY Sports)

Allen is now Dwayne Haskins’ backup in the nation’s capital, but he put up some really bad numbers on 24 designed rollouts as Cam Newton’s injury replacement for the Panthers last season. Then, he completed 10 of those 24 passes for just 59 yards, just 21 air yards, two touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 59.7. Haskins completed four of seven passes on designed rollouts, so it’s entirely possible you’re not going to see a lot of this from the Redskins in 2020.

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