When Will Offense Get Better?

ok, this hasn’t been his best year statistically but “learns how to throw” what? Alot of those poor throws are a result of a lack of rhythm. You loose a little bit of that with a “run first” mentallity. Palmer would gladly sacrifice another pro bowl trip for a shot at a different bowl.

Just deep routes though. I just don’t understand why they don’t do this. Unfreakinbelievable! Start Simpson and I think you will see a change in the passing game. Doesn’t take a Brain surgeon to figure out that Simpson=speed=deep threat=open middle of field. Decoy or not, use him! We might be surprised at what could happen to the passing game. Hey Mikey (or ML) try it, you might like it….

Another one-touchdown day. A win is a win, but I am not confident in the Bengals’ ability to put up points against good teams. I’m primarily concerned with the Chargers game, but the Vikings will be tough as well. Palmer obviously still doesn’t have any sense of rhythm with anyone but Chad. As great as the CBs have been, the safeties too often blow coverage when a good wideout is released to them. Simply put, the Bengals don’t put up enough points for a serious playoff run.

On the other hand, you can’t argue with the logic of a gameplan in which you control the ball at a nearly 2:1 ratio, leaving your defense rested and strong. I’d just love to see Palmer get more reps in with the receivers in real games so that they have their timing and tendencies down when the playoffs come. Obviously they don’t have that now, aside from Chad.

We can argue that Palmer isn’t putting up top 5 QB numbers. He’s not even close. We can even opine that it’s his fault, or not his fault. The God of Golden Arms surely isn’t the problem, right? Therefore it must be the others on the team. Single out Coats. Single out Coles. Single out Simpson or Purify. Anyone see a trend?

The reality is that it’s not just one player that’s causing this. It’s the entire unit. Palmer is only as good as the other 10 in the huddle are in doing their job. Pass rusher isn’t stopped, Carson has to hurry, Coles doesn’t make a crisp enough cut to shag a defender. That’s the bottom line here. The Offense isn’t playing in sync for a large part of the game. They do tend to be less sloppy for the big games, which is a plus.

I don’t know who to blame here. Maybe it’s the coaches and not the players? Maybe it’s Mike Downtown Brown? Maybe the O needs to learn what makes the D so good? Defense is playing like a team at a very high level. Doesn’t seem to matter whos in, either.

There has been a lot of discussion of the weakness of the offense. Granted…I am concerned as well as I do think the Bengals are probably going to have to put up 24+ points in the not too distant future to win a game against top notch competition,. That being said, it might help to put some things in perspective.

Last year, the Bengals had the worst offense in the NFL 32nd in scoring, 32nd in total yards. Now we have the 16th best in scoring, 18th best in total yards. Pretty significant improvement? Right?

I know, I know…that was without Palmer and now we have Palmer and it should be 2005 all over again. Well…this offense is a lot different than 2005. That team had a seasoned veteran line packed with top draft picks and a receiver/rb corps that had been in place for 3 years. We had veteran TE and a second year RB with good pass catching skills.

Yes, Palmer’s back, but the 2005 offense isn’t. It’s clear that our line, while exceeding preseason expectations, is still in the learning process. Additionally, Ochocinco is the only receiver that Palmer has a history with and its obvious that he doesn’t have the chemistry yet with the veteran Coles or 2nd year Caldwell.

Now, I would say our offense is clearly on the upswing. Meaning, there is no reason to think that they won’t get better as Smith gets more reps and the groups gets more comfortable playing as a unit. Similarly, Caldwell looks like the real deal and I think we will see him improve as well as he and Palmer get used to each other.

If the Bengals add a playmaker next year—preferaby a speed back—and our offensive line gets better, we could approach 2005 form.

This year however, I think the Bengals offense is kind of what you see is what you get. When we win its because we controlled the ball for 38 minutes and kept your offense off the field.

The way we will see improvement this year is by eliminating the mental mistakes—penalties and turnovers. Those are the things that will kill us…not lack of an explosive passing game. And I think those things are correctable… .now…this year. If we do that, I think we could make a deep run.

But I love when the ref declares “number 74 is an eligible receiver, number 74”, and the whole crowd goes crazy. We must hear that at least ten times a game, hilarious!

If GB holds the 13 point lead the have now with less than two minutes remaining, our magic number becomes 1