Bengals Defense Becoming Liability Late In Games

1) no pass rush

2) no Jo-Jo

I think teams have had a summer to prepare for the Cincy D that lacks front seven play makers. I think overall the D has good players, but there isn’t the one guy you know will make a play like a Demarcus Ware, Jared Allen, James Harrison, etc.

Teams no know what to expect from Cincy’s D. Last year, the Bengals started the season with a chip on their shoulder, which allowed them to build confidence while surprising teams. That has not been the case this year.

As I said in a previous post, we have lost 3 games by a total of 13 points. The margin for error is very slim.

With all of the talk in training camp about the offense practicing against the #4 defense sort of made me think that they were looking at what they were last year and taking for granted the way things turned out. Every year is different, you can have the same core of guys but you have to play differently because opposing teams catch on to what you are doing real quick. We saw that at the end of last year.

All of the signs were there at the end of last season and throughout the preseason. We didn’t look good in preseason and everyone had a thousand excuses of why it didn’t matter. People said, look at the Colts, they always lose in the preseason. Well we are definitely not the Colts. From that first drive against the Cowboys in the Hall of Fame game I knew that we were in trouble.

There were a lot of issues that this team didn’t have straight at the beginning of the year. They were unprepared and now we are at week 8, and the problems are still not fixed, but it might be to late. They kept saying, we will keep working on it, these things should have already been fixed. 10-6 isn’t going to make the playoffs in this division this year. Pittsburg and Baltimore are going to probably have 11+ wins. A fast start was vital to keep us in the race.

We had not won in Atlanta in 23 years, we haven’t even beat Buffalo the last 8 tries. There are no more gimme’s the rest of the way and the odds of us running the table in our division are very slim, let alone coming out with a winning record on the rest of our schedule. We have never proven in our history that we can crank out 8 or 10 wins in a row. Our playoff chances are just about gone. I hope like hell I am wrong, but I am just trying to be realistic about it.

I was hoping Rey Maualuga was going to be that guy, but I don’t see it. It’s all fundamentals, stuff that these guys have been taught ever since they were playing pee wee football. If you don’t have heart, and intelligence, you can be the biggest and the fastest and still get beat.

Here’s a prime example starting with the last possession; Quan Cosby fields the punt on the 4 yard line. It’s inside the 10, let it go! Starting at the 20 is a whole lot better than the 4. We had time, if things were managed properly, to drive the ball and at least give ourselves a chance. Go for the side lines, if it isn’t there throw it away, and save the clock. They could have at least ran 7 or 8 plays with 35 seconds if the plays were called and executed properly. Run 3 men deep on go, flag, or corner routes, and 1 or 2 underneath, you know the defense is going to play deep guarding the sidelines to avoid the big play. Hit the underneath guys on quick outs, slant outs, or flats for 10 or so yards a pop, to at least get yourself to mid field with 15 or 20 seconds left and you have a chance to get yourself in the red zone to take a shot at the end zone. First play has no recievers underneath and Palmer throws it over the middle of the field and it is almost picked off. You don’t have any timeouts, why would you throw that pass? You can not go down in bounds! Then what does Andre Caldwell do? Catches the football, cuts inside instead of out, and gets tackled in bounds. Andrew Whitworth gives up a sack on a three man rush, un freaking believable! Game, set, match… Caldwell catching that ball and going down in bounds shows a complete lack of intelligence. If that kid was playing for me he wouldn’t see another snap. And if the offensive line can’t block with 5 on 3, you got problems.

This is squarely on the coaches to teach these guys these things and they don’t need to be on the field until they know it. I would rather lose knowing that I did things right.