Joe Goodberry on Cincinnati Bengals' Pass Rush and Defensive Line

That's going to be the story of the defense. If they can sustain this, this can be a good defense because the pressure and sacks create chaos. It puts the ball in harm's way for the offense, and you can capitalize and be a high variance defense that gets sacks and turnovers. We would take that all day long, right? If I said beginning of the season, I think I said this, if they were 15th in the league and had a lot of turnovers and sacks, would you take that? Yes, all day long. And I think that's what they're heading down. Now, if they can sustain it, as much love as Dexter Lawrence, and he's been fantastic through five weeks, he's going to be any happier with the level of production, even though he had some bad penalties last week that probably cost him some points. Overall, been fantastic. The other guy here that we haven't talked about enough, and we've talked about him, but not enough because he is so good. I'm going to do a film review dedicated on Boye Mafe this week because over five weeks, he has been everything they had hoped he would be as a signing, and they had to overpay to get Boye Mafe. edge rushers get paid right and they all did in the offseason people were thinking ah 15 million for Mafe he got way more than that right and it was kind of like all right Bengals you're making a bet on a guy who's hasn't had the sack production with the Seahawks but you want when you watch the film you can see this is a very good player i understood it from a film perspective data wise uh he didn't didn't have the production it wasn't like a Trey Hendrickson signing where you're getting him for cheap for whatever reason that offseason probably because teams were strung up against the salary cap coming off the COVID year, but you were getting a 15 sack guy that you were hoping would be more consistent. And that wasn't just a flash. The Bengals bet that Boye Mafe was this, was who he was on film and that he would create chaos, create sacks for others and be a high pass rush win rate guy. He is, he's leading the team in pass rush win rate close to where Trey Hendrickson was for them for the majority of the five years he was here. plus last week a 37 win rate led the league amongst defensive ends he has been fantastic he is a very good player it does not work without him even with Dexter Lawrence it does not work without Boye Mafe