the bengals move the ball when they HAVE to, bc Brat is calling plays that move the chains.

when there is no urgency, brat calls plays that get you 3 and outs.

after 19 years of misery….everyone’s a little skeptical. For the past year or so, the most glaring problem with this team has been the OLine. For the optimistic and patient, such as myself, I was content with the fact that a duct taped, reconstructed group of OLineman were going to need time to get comfortable with each other.

With all that said, I’m giving them a pass on Week 1. Apparently, Denver’s defense is a much improved unit. While the Bengals found ways to move the ball btwn the 20’s, they would end up shooting themselves in the foot. They were finally able to put together a scoring drive at the end of the game, which was a sign of progression. Can we agree about that?

On to Week 2, right out of the gate the Bengals Offense tore down the field in what culminated into Laveraneaus Coles first TD in stripes. More progression. For Week 2, i’m going to have respectfully disagree. Midway through the 3rd quarter the StingRey forces a fumble, setting up a Lambeau Leap that would all but end the game. The Packers garbage time deep completions gave us a scare, but they only have themselves to blame for running out of time.

As for the Week 3, cmon. The Steelers always have an upper echelon Front 7. No one runs it on them…no one. When the Bengals finally found a way to move the ball on them, they were already down 13-3. With halftime adjustments, they determined it would take a defensive full blown commitment to stopping the run, and the Offense reverting to the Spread. Which ultimately resulted in the ‘W’. It takes a fight to the finish to beat Pittsburgh, show me a game where they’ve been blown out in the past 5 years. How can you say the Bengals weren’t playing until the last 8 minutes? Wouldn’t they have to be fighting from the get-go to still be in a position to win at the end? Look at the RedZone stops by the Defense in the first half. Old Bengal teams would have stepped aside and let Willie Parker and Fuckface Ward walk into the Endzone. Not this team. They flexed their collective muscles and forced FG’s. If not for that, the Bengals would never be in a position for a comeback. They looked generally shitty in the First Half, however the Steelers are a tough football team to deal with. Halftime adjustments and overall grit and determination on the part of this new breed of Bengal fueled sensational 3rd and 4th quarters, which gave Palmer one last chance in the driver’s seat to pull out the Win.

Thus far it’s been a wild ride, but to get back to my original point, the OLine has made a lot of progress in a matter of 3 games. WIth 13 to go, and that group feeling good about themselves, these last minute heroics will be less and less leaned upon. When the Hard Knocks roll up I71 to smear their pink cleats in Canada’s Brown spot, we’ll get our 60 minutes. Cleveland can’t stop the run and Derek Quinn has never seen a Bengal Pass Rush quite like this one.

Let’s go Pat Sims.

there were isolated times in quarters 1-3 in all 3 the game when they played decent football. But if you’re saying they weren’t dominated for nearly 3 quarters in that Pittsburgh game, then I say go back and look at the quarter-by-quarter stats … they got run on, passed … and the O was totally absent. And versus Denver and Green Bay, it was only late-game heroics that won it. All I’m saying is, if the real identity of this team is what we’ve seen in quarters 1-3, then it might be a long year. If they’re really the fourth quarter Bengals, we’re on to something.

Look at the Ravens. Except for the game against the Browns, they could very well be sitting 1-2 after close games with the Chargers and the Chiefs. We beat two great football teams in Green Bay and Steelers, and yes it was close, but we beat em. Good teams are teams that can finish games, that can get the W at the end of the day. We haven’t been that team in quite some time now. But now, we know how to finish and get the win. And that’s what gets you to Super Bowls. It’s eary to tell, but we are in a hell of a good track. We’ll get our offense going early on, you’ll see, and not just against the brownies.

and yes, a win is a win is a win … and yes, we seem to be able to finish games (a must for a winning team) … that’s the good news. The bad news, unless we know how to start games, too, they’ll be far back to even be in position to finish games. I think the coaching staff would admit that if they don’t correct their first-half doldrums, winning will get harder and harder.

Would you rather have a team that plays well the first 3 quarters and then plays bad in the last quarter when it matters the most? If you do, then have the 06 team that blew a big lead against the Chargers at home (I think that’s when it was.)

Or would you rather have a team that makes some mistakes in the first 3 quarters but stays in the game, and then finishes it out in the 4th quarter with a win? Would you like to have a team that never stops fighting until the fight is over or one that gets down on themselves after a few mistakes?

I’ll take the team that finishes the fight and wins the fight. Especially over the defending world champs.

which is, if the team’s play continues to range between awful, bad and mediocre for 3 quarters, more often than not they won’t be in position to make a mad-dash win at the end. I’m sure after each team watched the game film, the Steelers said ‘how in hell did we lose that game?’ … the Bengals said, ‘how the hell did we win that game?’ If they don’t become a better start-to-finish team, I say the L’s will eventually out number the W’s.