Memo to Gresham: Take heart with Davis
Posted by hobsonschoice1 on January 14, 2012 – 11:10 pm
Here’s hoping Bengals tight end Jermaine Gresham takes heart watching San Francisco’s winning drive Saturday. The one where 49ers tight end Vernon Davis took over the last 97 seconds and personally willed his team into next week’s NFC title game.
Davis accounted for 61 of the final 85 yards, giving him a monster 180 in a playoff masterpiece that has to conjure up memories of the Kellen Winslow Game 30 years ago without the Miami dehydration but with the Dwight Clark-like heroics.
Gresham can be that guy for the Bengals. He’s been frustrated in his first two seasons with promising yet sporadic production. But he is a Davis in the making. Offensive coordinator Jay Gruden wants him to be that guy and the fact Gresham is going to be in his offense for a second straight year should really help him.
Like the 6-3, 250-pound Davis, the sixth pick in the 2006 draft, the 6-5, 260-pound Gresham, the 21st pick in 2010, had to deal with a change in quarterbacks and systems early in his career. Truth be told, Gresham’s first two seasons have been more prolific than what Davis did in ’06 and ’07. Gresham has caught 108 balls for 1,016 yards and 10 TDs compared to Davis’s 72-774-7.
And Davis didn’t pass what Gresham did this past season (56 catches for 596 yards and six TDs) until his fourth season when he broke out with 78-965-13.
Gruden believes that not only will another year in the system benefit Gresham, but his first offseason with it is going to make a difference.
“We’ve started to get more out of Jermaine. The more he practices and the more he hears about the game and the concepts, he’s going to get better and better,” Gruden said last week. ”Because he’s as athletically talented, gifted tight end as there is in the league. From the standpoint of experience running these route concepts, he’s a little bit behind.
“But he can get up to speed in the offseason and next year we have huge, high hopes for him. That will take a lot of pressure off A.J. (Green) when they start doubling him with a safety on the outside, that will open up the field for a big guy like that. It will be huge.”
All Gresham has to do is take a deep breath and look at Davis on Saturday and realize he’s got better numbers than he did at this age.
And he won’t turn 24 until after the second set of OTAs in June.
Tags: Jay Gruden, Jermaine Gresham, Vernon Davis
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Pulling The Trigger
Posted by hobsonschoice1 on January 9, 2012 – 9:23 am
Courtesy of Associated Press
Tim Tebow’s 316 passing yards in Sunday’s AFC Wild Card Game against the Steelers in the wake of Denver boss John Elway’s “Pull The Trigger” plea earlier in the week may be a harbinger for Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton’s sophomore season.
While Cincinnati lost six of its last nine games, offensive coordinator Jay Gruden often talked about the fine line between being careful with the ball and taking risks with it in order to make big plays. He even admitted there were times he wanted Dalton to take some chances rather than checking it down or throwing it away after his QB opted for the more conservative route.
First of all, Gruden should be named the NFL’s assistant coach of the year for getting an offense with a rookie QB and rookie No. 1 receiver to the playoffs without the benefit of OTAs. He did it by keeping things sane, simple and vanilla for Dalton. And it is exactly what he had to do against a schedule that in those last nine games featured six against the top five defenses of Pittsburgh, Baltimore and Houston.
But even before Tebow stunned Charles Richard LeBeau and his Steelers, Gruden showed signs on Saturday he was beginning to take the wraps off Dalton. In a road playoff game he had him throwing 18 times in the first half and it worked for the most part. If not for J.J. Watt’s vertical show and a missed field goal, he easily could have walked out of there with a 13-10 halftime lead against the NFL’s second-ranked defense.
But what Tebow did to the Steelers No. 1 defense is mind-boggling. Here is a guy that had a worst completion percentage this season than Akili Smith had as a rookie (52-45) completing four throws of at least 40 yards against a defense that allowed just two plus-40s all year.
Dalton and A.J. Green had one of those against the Steelers, a 43-yarder in the 35-7 loss in Pittsburgh. That, their 36-yard TD connection in the first game, and a 25-yard throw to Andrew Hawkins were the only balls of at least 20 yards caught by the Bengals wide receivers in two games against Pittsburgh.
Of course, Tebow was going up against a much more diminished defense than Dalton. On Sunday the Steelers didn’t have safety Ryan Clark all day and defensive linemen Casey Hampton and Brett Keisel for much of it.
And maybe the biggest reason of all the Broncos were able to chuck it is that they ran it for 131 yards (Tebow only had 50 of them) even with the Steelers daring Tebow to beat them. Until the Bengals get their running game straightened away, Dalton won’t be able to do much more than he has in the AFC North.
There is that one big looming question. If Gruden gets the head coaching job in Jacksonville (and that is looking like a longshot), what happens to Dalton’s development? Do they promote from within? Do they keep Gruden’s West Coast offense?
But what we do know is that, at least for one day, pulling the trigger paid off. With 17 games under his belt and after watching what Tebow did to their rival, you know Dalton and his coaches must have an itchy finger.
Tags: Andy Dalton, Jay Gruden
Posted in Hobson's Choice | 7 Comments »
A few wild thoughts
Posted by hobsonschoice1 on January 7, 2012 – 1:08 pm
Andy Dalton
HOUSTON — A few thoughts heading into Saturday’s Wild Card Game (4:30 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Channel 5) in Houston:
No doubt about it. This is Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton’s show.
Starting from when the Bengals knew they were in the playoffs coming off the Paul Brown Stadium field last Sunday with a game in Dalton’s hometown. Then the Wednesday practice he missed with a 24-hour bug. The scene Friday night in the hotel lobby with his family before he went into meetings.
(They were all business this week. Dalton put the word out. No media interviews for his family, which, really, was smart because they would have been swamped. They know what a big game means. Both Dalton and dad Greg quarterbacked high school playoff wins in the Astrodome.)
All the while he has shown that signature unflappability and, why not? This is his fourth game in Reliant Stadium, going back to when he became the first high-schooler to throw a touchdown pass in the place as a junior for Katy High School head coach Gary Joseph.
“Very poised. He executed as a junior but the real pressure was when he was a senior,” Joseph said earlier this week. “That’s when you have to really perform, when you’re a senior and you’re one of the leaders.”
Dalton executed in both seasons and raised his record to 3-0 in Reliant when he led Texas Christian to a win in the Texas Bowl over Houston.
With indications that Texans coach Gary Kubiak is going to keep the roof closed to emphasize the homefield advantage, this one is going to be a lot tougher with the noise factor and a defense that held Dalton to a second-half field goal the last time the Bengals and Texans met.
“There’s a lot of excitement around here; tickets are scarce,” Joseph said. “People are excited about Andy. They want to see him do well. He’s kept in touch and been around our guys before the season.”
The week after the Bengals took him in the second round Dalton went to the school and threw to receivers as well as talked to the team. The Bengals expect that cool kid next door to show up Saturday.
“I have all the confidence in Andy. Andy is a real composed guy, he (doesn’t) get rattled by too much. He loves to win and he likes the pressure. So that’s a good thing. I think Andy will hold up real good,” said cornerback Adam Jones. “I’ve been playing with him for 17, 18 weeks, and I was here with him the whole summer. Just being around the guy. I talk to him, and the way he carries himself, he’s a winner. He’s not a flashy guy, but he loves to play football.”
Or as left tackle Andrew Whitworth observed, “Pressure isn’t really an issue for him. The greatest competitors are the ones that want to win. They want the heat. Pressure is a good thing. It only drives them to be better. I think Andy is one of those guys.”
WALKING THE LINE: Dalton is walking the line here. Since throwing three interceptions against the Ravens Nov. 20, he’s thrown just one interception in the last six games. He’s taken to heart in the stretch run to make sure he doesn’t lose a game.
But there’s also the growing sense after these slew of close games that he may have to start taking more chances. Under most circumstances the quarterbacks that win in the playoffs take shots. Dalton has taken shots, but in those six games his yards per attempt is just 6.3 yards per game and that’s not going to win a road playoff game. Offensive coordinator Jay Gruden has been talking about how there are times he’s wished Dalton has tried some throws when he’s taken a checkdown instead. But he also appreciates Dalton trying to avoid the big mistake.
Walking the line.
The health of Pro Bowl wide receiver A.J. Green is related. Since he sprained his shoulder against St. Louis 10 quarters ago, Green has caught six balls with the longest of them just 18 yards. He told ESPN Friday night his range of catching the ball has been limited since the injury, but he also has been saying for the last couple of week it feels better than when it first happened.
Texans safety Danieal Manning told ESPN that his defense was surprised when it went back and looked at film of last month’s game. He said they were surprised at how many wrong reads Dalton made and the indications were that the Texans were going to try and confuse him.
Dalton was certainly lucid in the first half while running back Cedric Benson was running for 92 yards. He completed nine of 17 passes for 112 yards and a touchdown for a 93.3 passer rating.
The TD came in the red zone on a 17-yard laser to wide receiver Jerome Simpson, where Dalton has really avoided the big mistakes. Inside the 20 he’s got 15 touchdowns and no interceptions. But the Bengals are 26th in the league scoring red-zone TDs.
Walking the line.
Ironically, it was the red-zone work that Dalton missed on Wednesday. But given that the Bengals already have a game plan against the Texans from 27 days ago and the work he put in the other five days of the week, they don’t expect a problem.
YET ANOTHER MATCHUP: The Bengals haven’t been able to stop Texans tight end Owen Daniels in their two games against Houston. He had two TDs in ’09 and 100 yards last month and Bengals radio analyst Dave Lapham says Bengals outside linebackers like Thomas Howard are going to have to be on their game. Safety Taylor Mays played well against Daniels in the second half last month but he’s probably not going to play with a hamstring injury.
Lapham noticed the Bengals played a lot of man under, which means there was man-to-man coverage under the zone and wonders if defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer is going to change it up on them.
BIG PLAYS: The last game against the Texans was defined by two plays in the last 45 seconds. Texans quarterback T.J. Yates scrambled on third-and-15 for 17 yards, and then he threw a six-yard touchdown pass with two seconds left.
The scramble hurt the Bengals even more because right end Michael Johnson led a charge that had Yates sacked, but with the secondary’s back turned, Yates was off.
“I mean, we had the guy sacked, he got out of it,” Zimmer said. “This is going to be a different game and I anticipate plays like that will win the game for one or the other.”
ESPN analyst Eric Mangini isolated the last play to show that the Bengals got beat when they covered the multiple Texans receivers that went vertical into the end zone but didn’t cover Kevin Walter’s crossing route.
Tags: 2011 Wild Card game, Andy Dalton
Posted in Hobson's Choice | 8 Comments »
Roster move
Posted by bengalsweb on January 6, 2012 – 1:04 pm
Weber
The Bengals on Friday signed free agent K Thomas Weber to a Reserve/Future contract. Weber is not on the active roster for 2011 postseason play and will be added to Cincinnati’s offseason roster entering the 2012 league year. Weber was with the Bengals in the 2011 preseason and went two-for-two on PATs with no field goal attempts. He was waived by Cincinnati on Sept. 4 and was not with an NFL team during the regular season. He is classified a first-year NFL player for 2012.
Tags: Thomas Weber
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Another set of eyes to spot concussions
Posted by hobsonschoice1 on December 23, 2011 – 11:02 amThe Bengals have tapped a familiar face to help monitor potential concussions in the wake of a new NFL mandate.
Mike Gordon, head trainer at Cincinnati’s St. Xavier High School and a former Bengals intern, is going to be in the press box with the NFL observer during games. Gordon will be wired into the bench via phone as he offers Bengals trainer Paul Sparling an extra set of eyes in the effort to spot players suffering from head injuries.
Gordon interned with the club in 2001 and 2003 and was a finalist for an assistant trainer’s job with the club in 2009.
Tags: Bengals head trainer Paul Sparling, NFL concussion mandate, St. Xavier High School trainer Mike Gordon
Posted in Hobson's Choice | 18 Comments »
Bengals sign Torrence to practice squad
Posted by bengalsweb on December 19, 2011 – 2:42 pm
The Bengals on Monday signed cornerback Devon Torrence to the practice squad. Torrence (6-0, 190, Ohio State) is in his rookie NFL season. He signed with Minnesota as a college free agent on July 27 and played in all four Vikings preseason games, with four tackles on defense and two on special teams. He was waived on Sept. 3. Today’s signing marks his first NFL assignment of the 2011 regular season. He is a native of Canton, Ohio and played at Canton South High School.
Tags: Bengals practice squad, Devon Torrence
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Bengals had Marshall Plan; Taylor being made
Posted by hobsonschoice1 on December 18, 2011 – 9:08 amST. LOUIS — The Rams are honoring Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk in Sunday’s game against the Bengals (1 p.m.-Cincinnati’s Local 12), the man Cincinnati could have had at the top of the 1994 draft instead of defensive tackle Dan Wilkinson.
The Bengals honored the concept of Faulk 10 years later when they opted for Chris Perry instead of Steven Jackson at running back in the first round of the 2004 draft. Perry wasn’t Faulk, of course, but they felt he would be a more versatile player than Jackson that could split out and cause matchup problems for defenses that only had to be concerned about wide receiver Chad Johnson’s speed.
(This was before the emergence of T.J. Houshmandzadeh and drafting of Chris Henry at wide receiver.)
But Perry was healthy only one year while Jackson became one of the top backs in the league year after year. Perry has been out of the league three years while on Sunday, Jackson can add another line to the Pro Bowl resume with 105 yards that would make him the seventh man to have seven straight 1,000-yard seasons.
It’s not exactly a grocery shop list with the names Emmitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Thurman Thomas, Eric Dickerson, Curtis Martin and LaDainian Tomlinson. At some point, all are going to be in Canton.
Jackson has piled up a steel-belted career 4.3 yards per carry on some brutal clubs and has pounded 4.4 per this season behind a patchwork offensive line that has won just two games. It makes you wonder what Jackson could have done with the Bengals running game enhanced by Carson Palmer and his receivers. Heading into Sunday’s game, Rudi Johnson and Cedric Benson have 3.8 per carry since ’04.
Faulk made his Rams debut in the ’99 opener against, of all people, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis when Lewis was the Ravens defensive coordinator. Lewis remembers it as Rams quarterback Kurt Warner’s coming out with 309 yards passing and three TDs rather than a Marshall Plan. Still, the versatility was on display in the Rams 27-10 win. Faulk had seven catches for 72 yards with 54 yards rushing on 19 carries.
“He was an awesome player. His versatility not only to run the ball but to catch the football out of the backfield or flanked out right. He caused you some adjustment issues,” Lewis said last week. “We were a pretty good defense but the thing you have a hard time replicating was the speed of that offense, the angles and cuts and how precise they are. We got a lot of pressure on Warner but he made a lot of big throws and we lost the game. That was the genesis of that offense. We played well on defense but not well enough to win.”
It was Faulk that was the X-factor, just the way the Bengals had hoped Perry would be.
“He gave them that third element that now you had to make sure the linebacker could win that matchup if you got put on him on the screens,” Lewis said.
TAYLOR MADE: Safety Taylor Mays took his most snaps as a Bengal last Sunday, his most encouraging day since he came over in the August trade with the 49ers. He took 23, almost as many as he took the week before in Pittsburgh, but they were pretty much in different situations.
Against the Steelers he played mainly in running downs while against the Texans he worked against tight end Owen Daniels in coverage and he can’t remember Daniels catching a ball on the six snaps he went against him during his100-yard day. The Bengals made the switch after Daniels had his way with the linebackers and some felt the 6-3, 230-pound Mays was the only defender that effectively got his hands on Daniels.
Mays is only listening to defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and secondary coaches Kevin Coyle and Paul Guenther these days. He thinks he can be an all-round safety and not just a physical presence in the box.
“If Zim says I’m all right, then I know I’m all right,” Mays said last week. “We’ve been working on stuff like that the last couple of weeks. Playing downhill as well as working in coverage. I’m not singling anything out because I want to be the best and I’m working on everything. It was good to get out there and finally get it on film to show the coaches.”
As Mays says, “Daniels is a beast,” and gave him a lot to work on.
“He moved well off the line of scrimmage. He’s got quick feet and he uses his hands well,” he said. “He’s like a big wide receiver.”
Coyle is playing it cautiously. He calls Mays “a work in progress,” and says “he’s got some real potential.” Mays has been getting a lot of work in practice with starter Chris Crocker getting held out on at least Wednesdays and he got even more last week prepping for the Rams with Gibril Wilson also sitting out with a nick. But both are expected to play and Mays is primed again for special teams, where he’s got seven tackles.
But Coyle doesn’t look at just Mays, a 23-year-old second-year player. There is Jeromy Miles, 24, another second-year safety second in special teams tackles with 10 and fifth-rounder Robert Sands, who turned 22 last month and has been active for only one game.
“These young safeties have a lot of upside,” Coyle said.
And that’s one of the things to hammer out in the offseason. How much do you pay the other starting safety, Reggie Nelson, as he heads into free agency when balancing it against the youth?
Tags: Cedric Benson, Chris Perry, Kevin Coyle, Kurt Warner, Marshall Faulk, Marvin Lewis, Mike Zimmer, Paul Guenther, Rudi Johnson, Steven Jackson, Taylor Mays
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Bowie to Practice Squad/Injured list
Posted by bengalsweb on December 16, 2011 – 9:47 am
Bowie
Tags: Bengals practice squad, John Bowie
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Bengals sign LB Micah Johnson to practice squad
Posted by bengalsweb on December 13, 2011 – 3:08 pmThe Bengals on Tuesday signed linebacker Micah Johnson to the practice squad.
Johnson entered the NFL in 2010 as a college free agent with the N.Y. Giants. He was released prior to training camp and signed Aug. 3, 2010 with Miami. He played in the Dolphins’ 2010 season opener, with one special teams tackle, was released prior to Game 2, and spent time on the Miami and Kansas City practice squads later in the season. He opened the 2011 preseason with Kansas City and was released on Sept. 3.
The signing marks his first NFL assignment during the 2011 regular season.
Tags: Bengals practice squad, Micah Johnson
Posted in Hobson's Choice | 11 Comments »
With Williams to IR, future at RG unknown
Posted by hobsonschoice1 on December 12, 2011 – 12:48 pm
Bobbie Williams
One of the toughest and most durable Bengals of his generation couldn’t survive a broken right ankle and for the first time in his 12 NFL seasons right guard Bobbie Williams went on season-ending injured reserve Monday.
At age 35 and in the last year of his deal, there is speculation that Williams has left the Paul Brown Stadium field for the last time. And if it is, how fitting. Even though he was hurting he walked into the locker room during the second quarter firing up the crowd with his ever sunny smile.
Ever since he arrived via free agency in 2004 from the Eagles, the 6-4 345-pound man-mountain Williams has been such a rock in the locker room, they call him “Boss Man.” Always known as an excellent run blocker, Williams improved his pass blocking when he got to Cincinnati and was part of the ’05 and ’07 lines that set the club for fewest sacks allowed.
The only Bengals games Williams had missed before serving a four-game NFL suspension at the beginning of this season for violating the NFL’s policy on physical enhancers were three games during the 2006 season after an appendectomy. His 117 games with the Bengals have straddled perennial Pro Bowler Willie Anderson and first-rounder Andre Smith as his partners at right tackle. Williams was on the field for Carson Palmer’s first fourth-quarter comeback in 2004 and Andy Dalton’s second in 2011.
Williams, the only offensive player left from head coach Marvin Lewis’ first AFC North champs in 2005, had been a second-round pick of the Eagles in 2000. When the Bengals drafted Clint Boling in the fourth round this season and picked up four-year Eagles center Mike McGlynn off waivers just before the season, they appeared to be moving to youth at that spot.
McGlynn, who started at center for last season’s NFC East champions in Philadelphia, started ahead of Boling once he got comfortable with the offense and before Williams returned. It was McGlynn that replaced Williams on Sunday. The Bengals are also high on 2010 fifth-rounder Otis Hudson, the guard they drafted in the fifth round out of Eastern Illinois in 2010. They signed Hudson from the practice squad Monday.
Before Hudson hurt his knee early in training camp, offensive line coach Paul Alexander said he and Smith were his two most improved players.
Tags: Bengals offensive line, Bobbie Williams, Clint Boling, Mike McGlynn, Paul Alexander
Posted in Hobson's Choice | 7 Comments »
