WhoDeyRevolution

Fat Hoosier Friday

Will Cinci be invaded by a bunch of fat humps in sixe XXXL 18 jerseys or will all those seats just be empty this year? I would think the fountain square Greater's is losing a LARGE amount of business this weekend.

Carlos Dunlap continues to get pressure along with the rest of the defensive front and this has made up for a great number of defeciencies in other areas. Also how could you not like the look of the Red Rifle over Gabbert last week. Although to be fair Gabbert has no one of Green or Gresham's talent to throw it to. Bernard Scott has to be due to get about 15-20 touches this week as everybody waits for Benson to get the hammer sooner rather than later.

I hope the colts being in full on "suck for luck" mode helps propel the bengals to victory, but with anything bengals I expect the worst and hope for something just mildly better than whatever vomit MB is trying to shovel me this week. Sadly we're still a couple weeks away from shots of Jim Tressel in a colts sweatervest which would have made this game a much better watch. 

 

TGIF! - Northern Florida's Team

Who do the bengals play this weekend I really have no idea I have totally checked out. Oh the jags I totally don't know how I missed that.

Carlos Dunlap is my favorite defensive player to watch since Tovar and somebody we can only hope MB lucks into locking up for a little while longer than his rookie contact. Dunlap gets consistent pressure and is somebody o-lines have to scheme for already. He looks like the type of d-line anchor you want to build around. The guy the bengals never have who makes everybody else around them better while still being able to get his own. I know people thought Geathers was this after his double digit sack season that we have never seen again but Dunlap just seem more consistent already if that makes any sense.

I still expect 2-3 after this weekend. I've just watched to many times where we've always always always let flukey rookie qb's beat us through the years.  I guess we'll see if this defense is any different. Either way the fighting who dey's lost to Alex Smith two week ago so nothing would surpise me at this point.

Defensive Preview Part Three: Stopping the Run

A good run defense is the last piece to a defensive puzzle. Not having one isn't worse than struggling to contain the passing game, but giving up five yards a pop, succumbing to the playaction pass and struggling to make comebacks are frustrating results without it.

The Bengals were fortunate enough to have the eight best run defense in DVOA last season, at -8.1% (negative is above average for defense). The advanced ranking looks better than traditional stats like Y/A because of the tough offenses faced; the unadjusted DVOA (VOA) was -4.6% This was far from the performance in 2007, where the D ranked twenty-seventh.

Bengals Defensive Players Not the Only Ones Who Weren't Top 10 Material in 2008

Not to pile onto the "Camp Postcards" article from yesterday, but the second item really got me thinking:

The Bengals finished a surprising 12th in the NFL in total defense in '08 (it was by far their best performance since 2001), but that ranking was inflated in that they spent so much time way behind in games, allowing opposing offenses to ease up on the accelerator. "The offenses may have been running a little bit more, because we weren't playing from ahead a lot, and I don't think we were quite top 10 material," says second-year defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer.

Seems like a nice little bit of humility from a coach that improved a defense significantly in his first year in Bengaldom until you actually look at the numbers.  The chart below shows how our defense performed by week in 2008:

That's right, the defense actually gave up significantly more yards/play in the second half than in the first. In only three of the games did the defense give up fewer yards per play in the second half than they did in the first, and that's including 11 kneeldowns to end blowouts. Don't worry, it's not some statistical anomaly, they also gave up more significantly more points in the 2nd half (216) than they did in the first (148).

What's worse, the fact that Ben Reiter didn't bother to check the data before proclaiming his theory or that Mike Zimmer didn't appear to know either.