Week 12 Recap: Watching Paint Dry

Well, for the record, I didn’t wish for them to “just win baby” or anything remotely like that. I wanted us to get a complimentary defense that could do enough to keep us in the game (or better yet protect the lead in the final two minutes) and keep kicking everybody’s butt on offense.

Before we had all offense and no defense. Now we overreact and have all defense and no offense. OK, so I exaggerate slightly, but I also do so on both extremes, not just the current one I dislike so much.

If I wanted to watch Steeler football, I’d go watch a Steeler game. I wanted to watch improved Bengal football.

Hell even the Steelers have figured out that all defense and no offense is not a truly viable long-term solution. Oh it may win you an odd Super Bowl or two when your opponents make idiotic mistakes and the refs help out, but it doesn’t allow you to become a true dynasty like the Patriots were (until they flushed themselves with a series of bad drafts). In the years they won the SB, they played two teams with dynamic offenses but defenses that essentially would have struggled against the average college team. They would have outscored the college team, of course, because their offenses were that good, but they would have needed to as well. Add in some outright horrendous calls and they won some rings that they probably actually did deserve… but only because everybody else sucked worse. But they figured it out, and they worked hard to turn Ben into a real passer. And they’ve actually approached halfway successful at it. He still throws a few — or a dozen — ducks a game, but he also throws quite a few decent ones as well. If he had a running game to compliment his improved abilities, a few less injuries, and the defense of 2003 — yes I said 2003 when they were only 9th in the league, because he wouldn’t need the 2006 one — they’d be 11-0 with the Colts right now. Fortunately for us, they don’t and they aren’t.

Even the Bears figured it out too. They lost in the Super Bowl despite an excellent defense and a great running game AND a special teams unit that could score on almost anybody pretty much at will. Why? Because their QB sucked and their defense, despite its dominance, couldn’t shut down a truly elite quarterback unless he let them. Peyton let the Steelers shut him down some years — maybe even many years — but he didn’t let the Bears do so and the results we all know. In their SB loss year, they beat exactly one elite QB, primarily because of idiotic playcalling on Payton’s part and helped out by some utterly egregious reffing and yet another defense that would have struggled to contain a college team. Farve, at the time, wasn’t exactly elite anymore due to extreme recklessness, and even he managed to beat them once. Fortunately, their defense is a mere shell of its former self and their OL makes Ben’s look good. Add in another reckless QB who makes the 2005 Farve look disciplined and they aren’t going anywhere until they fix those. But if they do, look out. They’ve got good enough coaches to at least make some noise, its their personnel and some bad luck in the injury department that’s deep-sixing them right now.

Until Brat can grow enough of a brain (or Marvin can, or both) to realize that you need BOTH a good offense AND a good defense, we’ll win some games, but if we win the big one it will be either a complete fluke or handed to us by the refs and/or the opponent shooting their own foot off.

Turning Carson into a game manager, basically hamstringing him, is sort of like having a Lamborghini that you only ever run back and forth in the driveway. I’m a serious proponent of tailoring a scheme to fit the personnel when that particular personnel happens to include a ninety-ninth percentile talent. To do otherwise is just ridiculous.

Look, I think Andre is going to come in and take over Roland’s position sooner rather than later, and that the competition between the two will wake up the line to work on their pass blocking. They are teaching the kid under fire, and the best way to know the skill is to try to teach it to somone else. I think it will pressure Roland to step up or step aside.

I think it is unfair to believe that Larry Johnson is able to learn both the run game and blocking scheme in just a couple of days. He’ll get better at blocking and Cedric will come in and take care of business to show how it’s done.

Palmer needs to get at least another 2 seconds out of the linemen AND the backfield in order to connect consistantly to the WR’s. We have too much talent running routes to blame them or Palmer. They all know how to toss and catch the football.