Bengals News, Notes, Quotes, and Links: August 6

The Bengals will hold their second practice in Atlanta on Tuesday and all indications are that Monday's session was a success.

A few notes:

Rookie wide receiver Cobi Hamilton gave first-round pick Desmond Trufant "a little trouble". Beyond that, Jason La Canfora's practice observations were entirely Falcons-centered (as the headline points out).

The Bengals offense struggled early against the Falcons, but picked it up towards the end.

"Early on we were a little concerned. We thought we struggled a little bit with the tempo. I think everybody was not really sure what to expect,"said offensive coordinator Jay Gruden via Bengals.com. "But once they got in the flow and started competing, everybody started to play better. Guys made some plays. It was good to see. Different guys made plays, too, it just wasn't one guy, it was a lot of guys. Sometimes when you have A.J., you focus in on A.J. and now you get in here and you spread the ball around."

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Jaw's Film room with Andy Dalton.

The show started with Dalton's return to TCU, with Jaws asking about the day he was drafted with wide receiver A.J. Green and his transition into the NFL. Later Dalton reiterated that he feels more in control in this third season.

Eight minutes into the show, they finally relax in the Film room, surrounded by plain white walls, which began highlighting Dalton's red zone production (35 touchdowns in two seasons without an interception), using a quick slant against the Pittsburgh Steelers in week seven last year. They moved on with Jermaine Gresham's touchdown against the Chargers and Dalton's presnap reads against the Raiders that led to a decent gain.

More time was put into Dalton's throw against the Pittsburgh Steelers (the 15-yard out to A.J. Green) and the incomplete deep pass to Green against the Texans that would have scored a touchdown. It was an interesting show that approached the ow-shucks personality of Andy Dalton with the intense happy quarterback guy, Ron Jaworski.

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All-time series.

The Falcons have dominated the preseason series against the Bengals, winning eight of 11 contests. When the game is played in Atlanta, the Bengals are 2-6. Both teams clashed in the second week of the preseason last year with the Bengals winning 24-19. However, the Falcons held a 13-10 lead heading into half time with surgical precision from Matt Ryan, completing 18 of 21 passes for 174 yards passing.

This will be the third time that the Bengals and the Falcons face off during a preseason game on national television. The Bengals win over the Falcons in 2012 was on FOX and the preseason game played in 2007 was shown on ESPN.

If there's one caveat, the Bengals have a winning record against the Falcons in regular season play, winning seven of 12 games.

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The Georgia-Ohio Connection.

There are seven Bengals that played at the University of Georgia -- DT Geno Atkins, G Clint Boling, TE Orson Charles, DE Robert Geathers, WR A.J. Green, OT Dennis Roland, and S Shawn Williams.

We're not finished.

• Michael Johnson played for Georgia Tech
• Bengals cornerback Adam Jones is from Atlanta (Westlake High school)
• Cornerback Chris Lewis-Harris from Smyrna, Georgia
• Defensive tackle Brandon Thompson is from Thomasville Georgia.
• Linebacker Bruce Taylor is from Riceboro, Georgia.

Additionally, defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and running backs coach Hue Jackson were both on the Falcons coaching staff in 2007.

There are some Falcons connections to the Bengals and the region.

• TE Chase Coffman was a former third-round pick by the Bengals in 2009.
• WR Harry Douglas played at Louisville.
• DT Corey Peters played at Kentucky, but is originally from Louisville.
• G Phillipkeith Manley played at the University of Toledo, originally from Hamilton, Ohio.
• DT Adam Replogle is from Centerville, Ohio
• DT Neal Huynh played at Ohio University.

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During our Football Outsiders interview (buy their the 2013 Football Outsiders Almanac here), one of the things that we wondered about was Cincinnati's backup situation. Obviously we know how it looks, we're reading the reports, and seeing the practices. But we wanted another perspective. We asked them about it, to which the final comparison, writing that "Tyrod Taylor in Baltimore is a poor man's Josh Johnson."

To which I received an email:

That poor man dam near beat ya’ll your great 6 ranked Def with alllllll backups in week 17, in the future talk about the Bengals and Josh and keep Tyrod Taylor name out your mouth or in this case out your article .

The internet tough guy routine is beautiful.

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Links, and more notes.

+ A Q&A session between Reedy and Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton, who is looking forward to watching Hard Knocks but Marvin Lewis may have purposefully scheduled a meeting around the time the show airs.

“It will be fun to watch. They’ve been here and filmed a lot of stuff. Will be fun to watch. I don’t know if we are going to be able to watch with the meetings we have (Tuesday) night but it will be good to see everything.”

+ Another story on how the Bengals rebuilt following the 2010 season, led by Marvin Lewis.