During the Senior Bowl practices, head coach Marvin Lewis spoke to the guys on NFL Network before the game to talk about his North squad, as well as the Bengals struggles in 2010. One of the questions asked was why the team had gotten away from the team's power rushing offense from 2009.
"I think we did click a little bit in the no-huddle offense as we got going in the season and it may have affected some of our detail of how we were doing things in the running game because you can't serve two masters that way. The no-huddle takes work on its own to get everybody on the same page all the time. That's the one thing if we look back on again we probably make that revision."
| 2010 | 2009 | |
| Yards Rushing | 1,522 | 2,056 |
| Yards Per Rush | 3.6 | 4.1 |
| Attempts | 428 | 505 |
The Bengals ran for over 100 yards in six games in 2009, going 3-3 in those games. In two of those losses (Tampa Bay and Buffalo), the team lost their minds. The Bengals elected to throw it late in the game on third-and-13 while the Buccaneers were out of timeouts, leading to interception that resulted in a touchdown a few players later. That pass never happens and the Bengals win the game. And then against Buffalo, the Bengals defense allowed 35 points in the second half and 449 total net yards to the Bills offense -- which is only three yards short of what the defense gave up against Atlanta, their season high.
So Marvin wants to refocus on the details of the team's rushing offense. As he would say, this is a good thing. But it's easy to reflect on the season to find your adjustments. One of these days we'd like the head coach and his staff to make those adjustments during the season, or god-forbid, during a game.
Of course, we'll need to figure out how that power rusher is going to be.