When it comes to the Bengals' defense, you know who the heavy-hitters are.
Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap form one of the best pass-rushing tandems you'll find in any 4-3 defensive line. Vontaze Burfict has become one of the game's best 4-3 linebackers, while Adam Jones became an elite NFL corner last season and a steady presence on the Bengals' defense.
Those guys help make up a defense that ranks among the league's 5 best units when they're all on the field. After all, when Jones, Atkins, Dunlap and Burfict played in 2015, the Bengals allowed an average of just 10.8 points per contest in the eight games in which that occurred.
But what was sneakily good about the defense throughout the 2015 season was how well the pass defense did at not allowing big plays through the air. Football Outsiders' Aaron Schatz (via ESPN) did a breakdown of all 32 NFL defense's sneaky strength that may have been overlooked by the common eye.
For the Bengals, Schatz noted how well they did in terms of not allowing big passing plays, especially down the field.
Cincinnati was the league's best defense against passes thrown 16 or more yards downfield. The secondary excelled with 14 picks (no other team had more than 11 on deep passes), and the pass rush pressured QBs on 27 percent of these passes (sixth in the league, compared to an NFL average of 22 percent).
This also applies to the earlier stat mentioned about how good the Bengals defense is when they're four best players are on the field. That's especially true in the passing game with regards to Jones.
In the two games he missed, Week 10 at Arizona and Week 14 vs Pittsburgh, the Bengals allowed an average of 285.5 yards passing in those games. That number goes down to 249 ypg for the season and 243 ypg when Jones played.
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However, Jones can't get all of the credit. After all, it was Reggie Nelson who picked off an NFL-high eight passes. There's also the fact that Darqueze Dennard and Leon Hall were both solid for much of 2015, especially in terms of not allowing deep bombs.
It also helped that Dre Kirkpatrick, for all of his struggles, was actually a pretty good defender down the field with his long arms and athleticism. It's really those shorter passes where he has to make a quick tackle that's really hurt Kirkpatrick to this point.
But, as Schatz noted, the pass rush was the real reason this happened. While Nelson and the secondary picked off a lot of passes, anyone who watched the Bengals regularly knows a lot of those interceptions were lame ducks caused by Atkins, Dunlap and the rest of the front seven.
That pass rush also keeps a lot of offenses from calling many deep passing plays that take time to develop, time they don't have when Atkins is coming up the middle and Dunlap off the edge.
The Bengals' dominance vs the deep ball was clearly one of its biggest strengths in 2015. That will hopefully continue in 2016 with most of the defense back in the fold.