Dragda
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CLICK HERE to Register for a free account and login for a smoother ad-free experience. It's easy, and only takes a few moments.Of course there's room for improvement. That's generally how it goes with a defense this young. But the talent is clearly there at many of the key positions, and frankly the defense was light years better than I had expected. If someone had predicted we'd be up by 24 at the half and Cedric Benson would have 6 carries for 0 yards, I would have assumed that person was drunk.
Why?
1.) The Bengals had scored fewer than 20 points in 9 of their last 12 games prior to yesterday, so there should be no surprise that they struggled scoring in their first game of the year.
2.) The Bengals drafted a receiving TE in the first round of the draft and signed T.O. Throwing the ball a lot makes sense as a general rule, although.....
3.) Crappy coaching by the Bengals led to far too many passes in the first half and nowhere near enough runs. When they did run, they often guessed wrong, as in the case of the Benson fumble, when the Bengals ran into a blitz and ended up going against an 8 man rush. Once New England stopped blitzing and settled into the cover 3, the Bengals were much more successful running the ball.
Anemic offense + transition from running game to a more pass oriented system + lousy coaching = Sunday's Bengals.
Because Benson is a good RB, and our run defense has/had question marks all over it.
It's to be expected that once they reverted to their softer defensive alignments that they'd be more vulnerable on the ground. Maybe I'm remiss but I don't remember seeing Big Fat Vince out there nearly as much in the second half...
...which makes sense. You let them nickel and dime you on the ground, which wastes time, and gradually precludes an opportunity for a comeback win.
They tried to run and the defense stuffed it. They didnt become pass heavy until after they were far behind.Because Benson is a good RB, and our run defense has/had question marks all over it.
It's to be expected that once they reverted to their softer defensive alignments that they'd be more vulnerable on the ground. Maybe I'm remiss but I don't remember seeing Big Fat Vince out there nearly as much in the second half...
...which makes sense. You let them nickel and dime you on the ground, which wastes time, and gradually precludes an opportunity for a comeback win.
You can never over estimate the importance of having Crable on the practice squad.