Like Brat with his Ulysses Grant* like stubbornness on being a running team, I'm going to establish what we know so far this year. Below are bullet points. I've been saying it for a while now, if newspapers just went to the all bullet point format, they wouldn't be in so much trouble.
Good Things
- The Defense has played fantastic so far. Outside of one hilariously soul crushing fluke play against Denver, The D has gotten its wreck on. Mike Zimmer is like the Blue Dude in Watchmen smart compared to Chuck Breshnahan.
- Antwan Odom - 8 sacks in 4 games. I don't care that 3 or 4 of them came against a backup tackle in the GB game. If you extrapolate his numbers out over 16 games, he gets like 60 something sacks. That is a lot of F'ing sacks people.
- Tom Nelson - I haven't seen him do much besides continue to be white and fast on special teams. But whatever, the man oozes PHYSICALITY!
- Brian Leonard. Opposing D Coordinators are so troubled by his grit that they are gearing their whole scheme around taking away the shovel pass and rb flats routes. John Gruden was wrong about Delhomme leading the league in grit, 40 for the Bengals has that statistical achievement wrapped up. And besides, how do you even measure infinity grit?
- Bengals record this year: 3-1. Last year: 0-4
Problems
- Shayne Graham and Brad St. Louis are not good at their jobs.
- Carson hasn't shown that he can throw the deep ball. That one to Chris Henry last week, wow. I'm not a doctor(Neither are our trainers, unless you respect mongolian medical degrees), so I can't say with authority if the science I'm about to drop on you is actually true. If you tear something in your elbow and you don't surgically repair it, won't it end up not completely healing? Stay with me here. If you tear your knee up, which is another joint, and you just stay off it and pray every night, it'll heal itself? Right?
- Cedric Benson is a good short yardage runner, but to me is regrettably slow getting to the edge. That sentence was paid for by The Coalition To Get Benny Scott More Carries in 2009.
- The line is not consistently giving Palmer time to survey the field. I don't like watching Palmer have to dance around in the pocket.
- I feel like I'm forgetting someone, oh yeah, Bob Bratkowski. The man defies logic. Receivers are getting open, who cares? Let's make them stop our vaunted running attack. Goddamnit. The cunning baked potato would have hung 30 on Cleveland.
- Since we are 3-1 you can't be that mad at Marvin Lewis. But the report that he was content with a tie against Cleveland and the players had to talk him into going for it is cause for worry.
- Mike Brown. Katie Blackburn.
*Grant also became Head Man. This really isn't the best comparison considering Grant's strategies often worked**.
**Those strategies were very very grim from a death perspective.
The deep ball vs. Cleveland into double coverage was intended for Coles. Coles should never have fades or bombs thrown to him at this point in his career...too slow and not enough grit. Hoping they get Henry more deep looks as his quad heals.
Posted by: Grundoleum Dynomite | October 08, 2009 at 09:42 AM
I think maybe he is referring to the play where Henry was 20 yards wide open down the sideline, and instead of zipping a pass 30 yards down field, he floated one deep which gave the safety plenty of time to come from the middle of the field and knock the ball away. Am I wrong?
The one to Coles was just a bad decision, guy was double-covered. We can't throw jump-balls into double coverage to 7'4" Chris Henry, but we can sure try with 5'2" Coles.
Posted by: rymo | October 08, 2009 at 10:19 AM
My bad, close games lead to more drinking and remembering less from the game. I believe you are right Rymo on what play Sly is talking about.
Posted by: Grundoleum Dynomite | October 08, 2009 at 10:39 AM
In fairness, ML has said that he wasn't content for the tie, but rather was convinced that if he punted he would stop the Browns and get the ball back with decent field position to set up the winning field goal with a little time left.
Posted by: Mockenrue | October 08, 2009 at 01:11 PM
Goodness, has anybody had the chance to read this year on Bengals.com
N THE RUN: Maybe the Bengals’ transition from a team that used the run to a team that believes in the run came late in last Sunday’s game when Bratkowski got on the headsets and told the other coaches when they were deep in their own territory he was sticking with the run even though not much was happening with it.
In the middle of the fourth quarter, Bratkowski had just 66 yards to show for it on 19 carries.
“I wanted the guys up front to know that the talk about running the ball just wasn’t hot air,” Bratkowski said Wednesday. “Sometimes you have to keep running it to let the runner, the offensive line, the tight end know you have faith in them and that something is eventually going to break. It’s a challenge ... you don’t want to abandon the run, yet you want to generate something.”
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And they print this stuff and don't expect people to think they're idiots. He admits that the running game was not getting them anything, as evidence by the numerous 3 and outs... but also says he continued it because they said they'd run... way to adapt your gameplan Brat
Posted by: Nacho | October 08, 2009 at 03:03 PM
Brat is an effing moron.
Posted by: MikeBrownPleaseDieSoon | October 08, 2009 at 08:22 PM
how can i become a member of The Coalition To Get Benny Scott More Carries in 2009?
every week the bengals rely soley on one RB. why? i feel like any enough ced benson runs that go for 10 yards are TDs by scott. so please include La Jungla in Hollywood as members of The Coalition To Get Benny Scott More Carries in 2009. thanks
Posted by: hollywoodcaveman | October 10, 2009 at 09:42 PM