Why the offense struggled

Nice piece breaking down failures by the TEs and WRs

Wayne is being pressed by a corner and has a safety sitting about 15 yards on top of him, the idea being to disrupt the exactness of Wayne/Manning’s timing routes and prevent Wayne from getting a clean release off the line.  The safety is there to clean up in case Wayne muscles through that jam, though there is always the possibility that he can sit in the space between the corner and safety if he does.  His comeback route is notorious for taking advantage of this kind of defensive look.

Garcon is shown less respect in terms of pressing at the line, with his corner about eight yards off and the corresponding safety a few yards shallower than Wayne’s safety.  This, to me, signifies that the Bengals are not as afraid of a Garcon/Manning timing route as they are a Wayne/Manning timing route.  They’ll give Garcon that release because they believe his only threat is to beat them downfield, and they’re not going to let that happen playing so far off.  This is a big reason why you see Garcon grab so many slants and screens; defenses simply are not afraid of him doing anything underneath.  They’re much more focused on his abilities to stretch the field and get over top, and they’re going to take that away – something accomplished much easier, of course, when they do not have to commit a safety down in the box.