Comments on: Bengals Need To Be Fueled By Green Energy

By: davidhoffer2012

davidhoffer2012 — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 16:02:42 +0000

I have been a Bengals fan since before they had stripes on their helmets. I watch, record, and study every game. Here is what I see so far this year. Offense: A young and inconsistent O-line. Cook going down a mere days before opening day has had more of an impact on both the running game and pass protection than most think. BJGE is a capable back but not able to do it on his own. Did anyone see Scott’s injury as a surprise (time to move on there). Also the suffling of WR2 is not working, name a #2 and stick with him, period. After the bye bring Cook back solidify the O-line, then make Marvin Jones the #2 WR, and Sanu #3 WR, keep Hawkins. Trade Binns, Whalen for a RB with shifty speed (ala Scott w/o injury history). Defense: stop experimenting with secondary…make Reggie and Crocker starting safeties (like last year). Hall and Clemons #1 & #2 at CB. #3 CB should be Dre. As for LBs…I have not yet witnessed the potential of Malaluga at MLB, not sure if it is injury, heart, brains, or what but he is not getting the job done. he is constantly out of position, late on the tackle, or just disappears in games. I think I have been seeing Burfict making checks and running down recievers Malaluga missed. Anyway put Burfict at MLB now instaed of waiting for next year (we all know its coming). Also is is me or does it always look like Gresham is give half effort, just seems sluggish. Coaching: Marvin’s main job is to get them ready to play, what happened in the Dolphin and Browns game? Jay when team double AJ, run the ball period, go back to the 2009 tape extra Tackle (Roland). it worked in 2009 and 1st half of Steelers game. Its not pretty or flashy, but works. especially in AFC North. Zimmer even though you have a great D-line and are afraid the backend may not hold up, you gotta blitz a little more. maybe on 1st down instead 3rd. Anyway all just my opinion based on limited knowledge and understanding.

By: mwindle1973

mwindle1973 — Sat, 27 Oct 2012 01:19:23 +0000

I’ve been thinking about this issue with AJ getting shut down all week. I think it’s possible that the fact we have zero 7 step drop plays in the playbook can hurt in these situations. Maybe if we had a play designed to give AJ the time to bust these brackets. They were essentially having Ike engaging at the snap for 5 yards then trailing him the rest of the way. Then sending the S over the top. At times they went with a centerfield S cheating towards AJ, and a LB bracketing to side of AJ’s route. Other times Ike played the over bracket and a LB under, with single high coverage. An obvious call to bust that type of coverage when you have an AJ Green, is to call a double move, or stop and go, a long crossing route. But these all require 7 step drops. I think this line can block it, they are the top pass rushing unit so far this season according to pro football focus. And that’s with Jeff Faine rating dead last in C’s playing at least 50% of the snaps. With Cook back it might become like the stone wall of 05. But anyways it may be advantageous to adding a few vertical plays to the playbook. Just as a way to try to produce offense when a team shuts us down this way. It happened some last year. And it will happen again against the right team. That’s until someone steps up as a second deep threat. And hopefully Jones will be that guy when he comes back from injury. These young guys are giong to have growing pains, but I remain very enthused about their future and the teams future. This year’s draft class has been great,and we haven’t even seen the top pick yet! Can’t wait until next Sunday, I’ll be there with my daughter, hopefully watching a route of the Broncos!

By: mwindle1973

mwindle1973 — Thu, 25 Oct 2012 02:54:37 +0000

I think AJ is a lot like a young Randy Moss in the sense that if you have to you can throw a jump ball, and he’ll either grab it or prevent the int. There came a point when the other WRs weren’t picking up the slack, that we needed to throw AJ a couple jump balls and see what happened. I also think that if teams choose to play him that way, then line him up in the slot and let him run some flys and clear the underneath, for catch and runs. That’s what we used to do with Chris Henry. It essentially takes 3 guys to bracket a slot WR the same way you bracket an outside WR against the sideline with 2 guys. It may seem unconventional, but would’ve forced two things. Both wideouts are single covered. Also they have to choose to man up on the TE, or leave the RB uncovered and play a 3 man zone underneath. Either way, the point is no matter how we do it, if AJ is taken out of the game, we have to find a better way of using him as a decoy. I’ll add though that Lebeau seemed to have a good sense for what we were wanting to do. AJ had single coverage several times. But every time the pass was either designed to the other side of the field, or he was on a short comeback or similar route. I still feel like if we challenged the coverage it wouldn’t have held up.