After Only A Week Of Practice: Bengals Lose 16-7 To Cowboys In Hall of Fame Game
by Josh Kirkendall on Aug 8, 2010 11:28 PM EDT
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The Cincinnati Bengals lost a fumble, threw two interceptions, missed a field goal and punted six times. They also gave up three drives of 67 drives -- two of which result in touchdowns and the third resulting with a fumble on the goal line. This was the result of the Bengals 17-7 loss to the New Orleans Saints during last year's opening preseason game.
A game that was played a full week after the Bengals 2010 preseason opener against the Dallas Cowboys.
So my question to you is this. If you were to write one sentence on what you thought about tonight, what would it be? Would you make the point that the Bengals had practiced only a week during training camp before kicking off the preseason? Would you make a point that the first preseason game is perhaps the second most meaningless (behind the final game) to judge a team with? Would you make the point that the Bengals largely didn't plan, nor prepare, for the Cowboys strictly using an evaluation process for the individual players?
Or would you find faults with the club? Faults that the Bengals coaching staff will unquestionably address with more than a month to address them.
One week. That's all the Bengals had to prepare. During this time, the team had to get their players into shape, get the entire unit accustomed to the playbook -- a playbook that perhaps only a fraction was used.
Yes, it would have been nice to have points. For me, if you're going to evaluate a team, then maybe scoring a few points would be nice towards that evaluation. Is it critical right now? Not really. The points will come. The team will adjust. Keep what worked, ditch what didn't. Put players in different situations.
One week. But while the Bengals offense looked absolutely lost (and that's an understatement), there were positives. So let's go through a few points about tonight's game.
- The performance from Michael Johnson and Geno Atkins takes the cake. Atkins looked quick, shedding blocks -- even double teams -- finishing with a team leading six tackles and a quarterback sack. Johnson's performance at outside linebacker gave us our best visual representation of the praise he's received all offseason with his transition from coaches recording two quarterback sacks.
- Additionally, I liked Adam Jones and Brandon Ghee. Having been out of football for so long, Jones' early rust during Training Camp didn't translated against the Cowboys, which included an impressively quick 31-yard return on kickoff. And I really like Brandon Ghee. That boy can hit; especially on guys that are still looking at a football 50 yards away in the air. Speaking of hard hitting, wasn't it nice to see a couple Roy Williams' hard impact shots?
- And what about Gibril Wilson, who recorded five tackles and a forced fumble?
- Aside from the first team defense, the Bengals generated a good pass rush and good penetration.
- Bengals receivers appeared to be finding ways to get open, but the quarterbacks were just unable to get them the football -- mostly because of the pressure from an offensive line that appeared ill-prepared for the Cowboys pass rush. A concern? Perhaps. But hopefully fixable.
- Also fixable: The Bengals committed 12 penalties for 90 yards lost.
- Chase Coffman made a nice reception on fourth-and-17 for 21 yards.
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If I mentioned everything
Then what would you guys have to say? :)
Blogger at CincyJungle.com -- SB Nation Cincinnati Bengals blog.
by Josh Kirkendall on Aug 8, 2010 11:32 PM EDT up reply actions
liked some
Pacman was alot better than i was expecting. I was very impressed with Atkins, expecting him to really help our pass rush this year. I didnt like how our safteys played in coverage, I really think thats going to be a spot that will be often picked on by the qbs we face this year. The way Ghee hits im on the move him to saftey bandwagon now. I was against it thinking he wouldnt be physical enough, but he seems like a willing tackler so im for it now. Im not really worried about our starting offense looking bad, they need more time than one week to get accustomed to eachother and get back to game speed.
o-line
I’m on the other side about the o-line needing more time. It looked an awful lot like all of last year when we were trying to pass and there really shouldn’t be any reason to gel so much, they have experience with one another. Hope it’s short term but it just looked all too familiar.
Too stoked.
That Coffman reception was damn near amazing. Once Gresham starts figuring things out, this offense is going to purr with those two, Benson, Ocho, and T.O.
Well, if the OLine can hold it together, anyway.
Outsider who watched the game
Y’all are not worried about Palmer?
"Why do you even ponder passing? I mean, you can take a knee and try a 56 yard field goal! This is not Detroit man, this is the Superbowl!" -- Paul Allen's call after Tracy Porter intercepted Brett Favre in NFCCG
Romo looked off too though
"Why do you even ponder passing? I mean, you can take a knee and try a 56 yard field goal! This is not Detroit man, this is the Superbowl!" -- Paul Allen's call after Tracy Porter intercepted Brett Favre in NFCCG
Too early.
Gimme a few Preseason games first before I start to worry about that. If he looks like that against New England, then yeh, I’m worried.
Count me in
palmer looks like he’s moving, playing and thinking in slow-motion. 1st string looked EXACTLY like they did last year in the passing game.
by Bengals NFL Champs on Aug 9, 2010 12:34 AM EDT up reply actions
Worried about Carson.....HELL NO because when you give this guy weapons and some protection he is up there with Brady, Manning and Brees.
Kenneth Lewis Moore
by lightskin350 on Aug 9, 2010 12:44 AM EDT up reply actions
Agreed
I’m not worried about Carson. What I saw, was plenty of zip on the ball. However my concern lies with the O-Line. Hopefully Andre Smith will help when he is able to go. Also getting our TE’s up to speed with the pass rush. The O-Line has to give Palmer time. He has the weapons now we have to give him time to get through his progressions.
I will say I do not think they ran the ball as much as we will in the regular season. I think the run game needs far less work then the Passing game and so that is the area they decided to work on. Running the ball efficiently will keep the defenders at bay a little. I think the O-Line’s pass blocking is one of the few weak area’s on this team. I also think, that once the regular season gets here, we will be able to do a lot of things to put the O-Line in better situations to succeed.
One thing that frustrated me. PENALTIES. I know its early, but I feel this should have been a priority this off-season. We kill drives with penalties year in and year out!
+1
This game made me realize the importance of having Andre Smith actually playing football. If he’s back, I’ll feel a lot more confident about our offense.
PS – Anybody else notice how much Otis Hudson absolutely stank???
What about Gibril Wilson, you ask?
He looked right at home with our safety group, i.e. a big hitter who plays the run well, but gets burned repeatedly in coverage by slot receivers and tight ends. We already have Roy Williams and Chinedum Ndukwe to do that.
And just like last season, their outside receivers had a much harder time of things with our CB’s: only in the first series did they get much traction.
I can only hope that whatever happened to Chris Crocker, it wasn’t serious.
Agreed
I said last night he was the one Safety we cannot afford to have an injury.
All I can hope is that with a potential injury the coaching staff looks more seriously at moving Ghee or Trent to FS. I think both would be great at the FS position and exactly what a lot of us of been clamoring for out of our FS. If the coaches don’t consider this seriously, then I believe we are setting ourselves up for failure. If Crocker goes down, I worry this D could drop out of the top 10 in the league because of the issues covering TE’s and slot receivers.
I disagree
OK, its clear that the TE’s are killing us right now, but that is our only defensive weakness. Everything else yesterday was solid to great. I think Roy and Co will be fine this year if healthy…
For free safety I notice a few plays that Jeromy Miles was in on… so he looked pretty good. I would potentially support a move of trent or Ghee to FS as well
I was impressed with
Atkins and MJ tonight. The whole defense played well.
I wasn’t real impressed with the offense at all but Shipley, Coffman and Matt Jones looked decent.
For GODS sake!
Get rid of JT O sullivan and J Palmer!!! Get a decent back up QB. Make Matt Jones the disaster QB. He played QB in college.
"Shiny. Let's be bad guys."
by KentuckianaBrowncoat on Aug 9, 2010 12:11 AM EDT reply actions
JT O'HORRIBLE!
WHY OH WHY do we keep him? What? forget our year if carson goes down. Thats what I got out of it.
2010 - The Year of the Tiger.
Well we could forget the year if Carson went down anyway
However, don’t mistake what I’m saying. I couldn’t agree with you more that JTO is Horrible. I do think our season could be lost if Carson simply misses a game or two. That could be all it takes for us to miss the playoffs. Thats what you have to get out of your backup. The ability to step in and win a few games until the starting QB gets healthy. I do not feel we are anywhere close to having that with JTO.
While Jordan isn’t a whole lot better, I prefer him to make it over JTO. He makes less, is younger, and he does seem to put in more work after practice and in the offseason with the receivers. I do think that was an area that the organization should have addressed in the offseason. Free Agency or the draft. We have to upgrade this position. We have very few positions that I feel we are weak. OLine, Backup QB, and Free Safety. We could use one more good starter on the OLine, other than Smith, and the Free Safety could be addressed in house, IMO. Move Ghee or Trent to FS already.
Nothing to worry about
except leading the NFL in offensive penalties in 2010. If that’s a concern, then oh boy.
by occams_tiger_teeth on Aug 9, 2010 12:36 AM EDT reply actions
Tronzo at FB
Considering how much the line was struggling, I thought he held up surprisingly well at FB. Nice to see him catch a pass, as well.
i was happy that
matt jones made a couple nice grabs alot of people forgot about him me included and after what i saw tonight im also all for moveing ghee to saftey he nailed some people tonight granted 1 of the guys wasent looking but still i think the bengals d is somethig to really get excited about this year if they wasent already.
Matt Jones
is a forward, not a receiver. He shouldn’t be in football.
Been calling for that since draft
Move Ghee to FS. Even Trent could make the move. Either one would be a major improvement over our backup FS (whoever they would consider as the backup) and could end up pushing Crocker by the end of the year.
I don’t see why they have not done this already. They could practice at both spots. Hopefully this forces them to take a more serious look at making the move.
The Bengals had a week and so did the Cowboys. Dallas played better because of their back up QB can play and our's can't. Our beloved Bengals have some early problems that I don't think can be fixed with practice.
It should be clear that the Bengals have a monster hole behind Carson and JT O’sullivan + “babybrother” = oh sh** we are in big trouble. All jokes aside, the Bengals have a big hole at backup QB and Jordan is not an NFL QB. The Bengals have got to start looking at other teams and their QB depth and see if the can make a late rd trade for a QB. (Troy Smith) is still in Baltimore.
The O-line was horrible but it’s only the 1st preseason game and this can be fixed with reps against this defense everyday.
Pacman looked really really good, Michael Johnson looked fast and physical and ran around like he wanted to hurt someone……loved it. Geno Atkins might be the the best player in our entire draft if he continues to collapse the pocket the way he did tonight. Having a DT who can do that means the world to a defense.
Shipley looks like he is ready for the regular season right now and that probably means that Quan Cosby is gone. Matt Jones looks like he is running in slow motion but he made plays and at 6’6 he could be useful.
Roy Williams means so much to this defense and he made a couple of nasty hits including the FF on the goaline.
Kenneth Lewis Moore
really liked Atkins
I had been disappointed that Brian Price was long gone by the time our turn to pick in the second round came up. I was very favorably impressed by Atkins’ performance tonight: he came up with a Price-style highlight reel, against pro competition no less. Very promising.
did any one else want to pour battery acid into there eyes when JTO and Jordan Palmer was in or was that just me?
Was Mikey-boy watching the game?
If Mikey-boy watched the game, even he must have noticed the dismal play by the backup quarterbacks. Any Cincinnati Bearcat fan has watched backup quarterbacks come in and excel, time after time. What’s with the Bengals?
I think every Bengals fan did
Actually I think most Football fans did. Definitely hard to watch. This is one area that cannot wait any longer to be upgraded. We have very few holes on this team. This could possibly be #1. We have to get a backup that can give us a legitimate chance to win if Carson misses a few games (which is a good possibility if the OLine doesn’t get it together).
Agreed
Not too many people noticed that or mentioned it. Hopefully he will continue to get better as he continues to come back. Achilles injuries are very serious, and its possible that he never returns to form. On a positive note, we did draft capable replacements, and Fanene filled in nicely last year.
My one sentance about tonight's preseason game
wow it’s really awesome to end the weekend watching the bengals live against another team and althought carson was off because he wasn’t clicking with everyone just yet he was lightyears better than any other bengals quarterback and that scares me a lot which is about the same amount of scaredness i had with the massive number of pentalties and so the only really great thing other than shipley kicks ass is the defense was terrorizing the cowboys all night.
How’s that?
2010 - The Year of the Tiger.
I did notice a few passes from Carson
That I thought had plenty of zip on them. That is a positive. I think Carson will look better in the regular season for a few reasons.
1. Offense will run more which will allow Carson to effectively utilize the Play Action.
2. Offense will run more which will force D’s to bring the Safeties into the box. This will open up more one on one coverage on the outside.
3. The Offensive Line should improve once Andre Smith is healthy. He should provide an immediate improvement to the Line if he is healthy. Also the OLine will benefit from the team running more.
4. The receivers will continue to improve with practice. The timing will continue to improve as Training Camp goes on. Also should improve with Antonio Bryant getting on the field.
5. The Offense should utilize more of the ‘No Huddle’ once the regular season is here. I believe this is where Carson excels and this is where the offense will excel this year.
6. The Offense will actually game plan for the opposing Defense.
7. The Offense will use a higher percentage of their Playbook.
I’m sure I missed some things that would lead me to believe that Carson and the offense will be light years better than we saw tonight.
1. We haven’t effectively used play action for years.
2. We haven’t effectively used no huddle for years.
3. Andre Smith is a perpetual question mark.
4. The Cowboys weren’t using 100% of their playbook either.
5. Palmer looked just as slow and indecisive as last year.
EXACTLY
We’re all very good at this point at “finding the positives” (because we’ve been doing it so long), but I saw the same team and coaches that laid an egg last year. Dallas had the same time to prep as we did, and they made us look like a high school team. The ‘D’ made a nice little stand on that first drive, but no pressure on the QB AT ALL, and the forced fumble on the goal line was wiped out by ANOTHER penalty, a neutral zone infraction? Are you kidding me? We can’t line up behind the ball?
We’re telling ourselves the ‘timing will improve’ and the no-huddle will suddenly reappear, play-action will be executed to perfection, bobby b will somehow grow a brain with all these new “weapons”, on and on and on…fellas this team is not good. Will they be good in September? It’s possible, but I’m far less optimistic than I was before this game. Last night was UGLY on all levels.
by Bengals NFL Champs on Aug 9, 2010 10:25 AM EDT up reply actions
one week?
and how long exactly did the cowboys have? right, it’s just that they looked like a professional team on all levels. Definitely concerned about the pass protection. Obviously J palmer isn’t going to cut it. I’d like to see JT with the first string O line before completely giving up on him, but it didn’t look good. FG kicking is still a lingering question that didn’t come close to getting answered tonight. I hope Maualuga and M Johnson end up on the field at the same time! M Jones definitely looked good enough to see more time here.
Our D held the Cowboys to 3 field goals. They held up very well in the redzone. The offenses will be behind the D at this point. I think that Gresham is way behind, and TO’s connection with Carson isn’t therre yet, but I am not worried about the first team O. I agree that our back-up QBs have a lot of issues.
True Our D held up pretty well...
Remember we were without the Heart and Sole of the D also (Rey) and without one our better defenders (JJO). No reason to think that with the return of these two we won’t be a very good unit again this year. Only concern is Crocker’s injury. Hopefully the coaches look at Ghee or Trent at Safety.
I love how everybody’s dumping on Jordan for making rookie mistakes. You know, last I checked, he’s basically a rookie. He’s played in a few preseason games, but that’s it. You should expect him to suck. I was far more surprised by the (unfortunately rare) moments when he didn’t suck.
As a 3rd QB who’s still learning the ropes, you expect him to get fooled by zone blitzes. (Or at least you should.) Just about every QB in the league has trouble with them at first. Jordan threw two awful interceptions but both were to LBs who faked the blitz and dropped out into coverage and he never saw them. They were dumb mistakes he desperately would love to have back. But they are also mistakes anybody with his level of experience is EXPECTED to make.
Did he play well? Not overall. He did in a few spots, though. Did he play better than I expected? Yeah, actually, he did.
In contrast, Just Terrible O’Sullivan was just that. Terrible. He did absolutely nothing to make me think he’s worth keeping around for one more second. He stared down receivers. He was inaccurate. He had no authority on his ball at all. He couldn’t even scramble. He threw an interception that seemed almost MORE boneheaded than either of Jordan’s. He completed an amazing 4/11 passes for 33 yards. He just flat out sucked. And this is a guy who has been in the league for almost 10 years now. If he still sucks this bad this far in, there is zero point in wasting one more second with him.
But even more important, we still don’t seem to have an OL. I think we would be OK — but not great — if we had Drew Brees back there. He at least gets the ball out quickly. But none of our current QBs do. And they are going to get beat to a pulp unless we start protecting them better. Now admittedly Dallas does have a good pass rush and not every team we face will be that good. But some will be close. And if we don’t shape up, it will be a very long year.
Agreed
I do think it could be upgraded. However I feel Jordan should make it over JTO. I just don’t feel JTO will ever get any better. As I mentioned above, Jordan as more upside and he does seem to put in plenty of work with the receivers after practice and during the offseason. I have read lots of stories about Jordan working out with this receiver or that receiver. I haven’t read a single story about JTO doing the same during the offseason. Also JTO makes more money. That small amount of money saved could go to a player like JJO!
Defense Was Impressive
Michael Johnson and Gino Atkins looked great and when we add Dunlap to the mix, watch out. A. Jones and Wilson also surprised. We need a decent backup QB desperately. Absolutely pathetic effort.
Overall I think the offense will be fine…the back up QB situation has been a concern since Kitna left. I think they HAVE to address that this year! No point in J Palmer being on the team…keep Jones and make him emergency 3rd. Hope Leanords injury isn’t too bad bc he’s a significant loss….
by Bdub14 on Aug 9, 2010 7:47 AM EDT via mobile reply actions
My biggest concerns...
Were the offensive line and Brian Leonard.
The O-Line shouldn’t have had any adjusting to do. It’s the same line that started almost every game last year and it looked atrocious. By the second or third snap I was ready to pull Palmer for fear of seeing a bloody jersey again. Dennis Roland is not a capable NFL starting tackle. If we were really worried about Andre Smith being ready, I wish we would have made a move for Flozell Adams. Maybe it’s a conditioning thing, maybe the Cowboys were trying some stunts that we hadn’t gameplanned for, I don’t know. It just needs to get fixed and FAST. Because all the TO’s and Jermaine Gresham’s and Jordan Shipley’s in the world aren’t going to mean a thing if Carson gets broken in half like in ’08.
As for Leonard, sure sounds like he’s going to be missing some considerable time. That’s obviously not a good thing. But it could be worse. Imagine if that injury were to Ced or Bernard Scott? We were already talking about getting B Scott more carries, this is going to do just that. And hopefully Leonard can be back in time for the rough final stretch of the season. Of all the offensive “starters” I hate to say it but Leonard was probably the one we could most afford to lose to a preseason game injury. Hope he’s back soon, though.
Leonard should have been out of the game before he got hurt
He should have been on the sidelines with the rest of the stars. He had nothing to prove and got hurt trying to make a play that didn’t matter. I suppose injuries can happen at any time, but it would be as though we sent out TO in the 4th quarter to see if he syncs up well with Jordan Palmer. Leonard proved hes a go to guy last season. Hopefully he can recoup sooner than later.
2010 - The Year of the Tiger.
B-Scott
We need to see the ball in B-Scott’s hands more…..hope they use him more on first and second down in 2 back sets…..also I can not wait for MJ’s breakout year- that was probably the most encouraging thing I took away from last night…that and Geno Atkins is going to be a BEAST. Also, was it just me or did Rivers look like he bulked up?
it comes down to mind over matter....if you don't mind, it won't matter
Backup QB/Safety/O-line
I think, granted it was only after one early preseason game, that the o-line is our biggest concern. When what we’re looking at for improvement is the mound of jell-o known as andre smith, you know we could use some more help… Backup QB could be trouble, but if Carson goes down we’re pretty much effed anyway. Maybe Sage Rosenfels from Minnesota if Favre decides he can play… Safety is also kind of stressful. I’m in Miami so I watched Gibril Wilson blow tons of plays last season. Hopefully Crocker’s okay. On the bright side, MJ at LB looks like it’s gonna work out better than I expected. I love his speed around the edge. Just working on keeping the idea that this was a meaningless preseason game and not a sign of things to come.
Is Mark Brunell still available?
I know he’s like a hundred and forty years old and everything, but he’d be able to step in as a backup QB and do light years better than The JT and Jordan Show combined! Seriously…that was abysmal, no matter how little practice they got…that was just poor decision-making.
Yeah the Jets FO is covering its bases
We’re busy showcasing JTO and lil’ Palmer overthrowing our pair of WRs—you know, the one in gold shoes and the other with the five-carat diamond in each ear.
by Bengals NFL Champs on Aug 9, 2010 2:27 PM EDT up reply actions
Dallas Had Nine More Days of Training Camp
First of all, neither Dallas nor Cincy prepared for each other since the object of preseason is to get the vets in synch and get a good look at the rookies in a game situation, not to win the game. Having said that, Dallas started their camp 9 days before the Bengals, so their vets are going to be further along. The Bengals had had just one practice in full pads. It’s way too early to judge this team.
Backup QB'S
Whos available? Who wants to go to Cincy with me and “kneecap” our 2 backups?
"Shiny. Let's be bad guys."
by KentuckianaBrowncoat on Aug 9, 2010 8:24 PM EDT reply actions
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