He did win that little thing called the Super Bowl last year.Originally Posted by redsfan28
And yeah, the Ravens have those players. That's my point. It doesn't seem Lewis is able to find players of that caliber. He has shown no signs of doing so thus far.
The fact is, both the Cardinals and Steelers have won World Championships in 2006.
I'm just tired of seeing St. Louis and Pittsburgh getting these World Championships when it seems we can never join in.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
Angst devours offense
By GEOFF HOBSON
October 29, 2006
11 p.m.
It was a sloppy loss with bad timeouts, kickoffs out of bounds, too many men on the field and left them so frustrated that two of their offensive leaders questioned the abandonment of the running attack in a game the Falcons won by stealing the clock on Daylight Savings Sunday.
Pro Bowl right tackle Willie Anderson questioned a lot more than that as he wondered aloud if their own coaches respect their toughness on another day the Bengals grappled for their offensive identity.
“I don’t care what anybody says tomorrow,” Anderson said after the 29-27 loss. “We have a lot of tough guys, but in certain instances you got to man up. Third down is the key. ‘Hey, ‘we got to get this, ’or ‘Hey, we need to stop this.’ Not just being on the field lackadaisical hoping somebody else makes the block or the catch or stop the pass or stop the run. You do it. And the good teams have that and we don’t. Point blank. We don’t. …We do have some guys like that. We don’t have enough.
“We got to toughen up in spots. Either that or make changes,” Anderson said. “Make changes. Guys gave to be shaken up. I know tomorrow (players will say), ‘Willie’s just mad.’ Yeah I’m mad because we lose these kind of games we should win. I get tired of hearing ‘We would have won if that.’ Got to toughen up.”
Michael Vick stole the show the Bengals thought they were going to headline as late as intermission. After the first 23 minutes and 22 plays on offense, the Bengals had a 14-6 lead. They had thrown it 12 times and run it 10, although one of the runs was a Carson Palmer scramble.
Much to the chagrin of Anderson and running back Rudi Johnson, the Bengals lost their balance and ended up throwing 26 more times compared to just eight more runs the rest of the way in a game that the Falcons praised themselves for adjusting their defense for more all-out blitzes on Palmer even though they left the middle of the field open.
“In the second half, we mixed up some of our looks. We got a little bit more aggressive with some of our calls,” said Falcons head coach Jim Mora. “We put in some new calls at halftime. We felt as coaches that it was up to us to put our players in position to make plays. Lets give these guys an opportunity, and they have to make plays when given opportunities.”
Meanwhile in the Bengals’ locker room Johnson publicly wondered why he got virtually no opportunities after helping fuel their opening drive with 32 yards on five carries that included the final two snaps of 10-play series that gave the Bengals a 7-3 lead.
He hasn’t said much on the subject this season, but he let it be known Sunday that feels as if the running game has been ignored in the losses.
“We changed before they did. They changed at halftime, we changed in the first quarter,” said a perplexed Johnson. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Take a look at a lot of the games we lose. It’s for that reason. It’s real simple. We make it real complicated. It shouldn’t be that complicated. We should have beaten this team.’’
Johnson carried just one more time in the first half and seven more times in the game for a total of 12 rushes for 46 yards. The Bengals had just four series in the first half and in one he was replaced by Chris Perry and in another Kenny Watson took his normal role as the back in the two-minute offense.
After the Bengals fell behind, 26-20, with 2:21 left in the third quarter, Johnson didn’t carry again. The Falcons chewed nearly half a quarter to get Morton Andersen’s 39-yard field goal for a 29-20 lead and by the time the Bengals got the ball back, they had just 7:42 to get two scores.
Only in Bengaldom. A week after offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski had been toasted for his fourth-and-one call against the Panthers he was getting roasted, although neither player named names.
The frustration continues to grow for an offense that made all the plays last year but can’t seem to come up with the big one consistently this year.
And on Sunday, Anderson let it be known that while he privately may wish it otherwise, the Bengals aren’t a running team like the Steelers and Falcons.
“We have a 1,400-yard back but we’re not a running team,” Anderson said.
Still on Sunday, the offense appeared to do enough to win. Palmer had his best passer rating of the season (106.9), they got a big scoring play from wide receiver Chris Henry on their longest play of the season (55 yards), a red-zone touchdown from wide receiver Chad Johnson, they didn’t turn it over, and Palmer only got sacked twice.
But even though they had Henry and Perry together on the field for the first time since late last season, they failed on four of six third downs in the second half as they couldn’t take advantage of the Falcons’ blitz.
“When it comes down to it, you have to out-execute them,” Palmer said. “When they put pressure on you, and they try to blitz or whatever it may be, you have to be perfect. If you are perfect, you score. If you’re not perfect, it’s an incomplete pass or a run for no yards.”
And when they had to punt, they didn’t get it back right away because Vick was in the process of reeling off seven of his first 10 third-down tries.
“When you’re playing against a playoff team,” Palmer said, “you have to take advantage of the chances you get because they don’t give you too many.”
What had Johnson and Anderson angry is that they felt the Bengals offensive line could have pummeled the small, fast Falcons in the running game. Except for 350-pound defensive tackle Grady Jackson, the Falcons didn’t have an active lineman weigh more than 301 pounds. Three members of the Bengals offensive line are at least 335 pounds.
"Our offensive line could have manhandled them all day. And they know that. Our offensive line knows that,” Johnson said. “They know they could have manhandled them all day long. Up and down the field. When all is said and done, we could have had our way with them. They could have helped everything out. It could have eased up the pressure on defense. Everything."
Anderson fumed, “To see them put who they put over me (and the rest of the offensive line) and say you can’t run the ball, that’s a joke.
“I’m not criticizing, but it’s a joke. It’s not the Ravens,” Anderson said. “Give those guys credit, though. It’s a fast, hard-nosed, hard-charging football team. They’re a better football team than us today. That’s all that matters. I don’t take anything away from the Falcons…But you got Reggie White in front of you? C’mon man.”
While players and coaches talked about trusting each other after the fourth-and-one play last week, Anderson openly wondered Sunday, “Sometimes that shows you, too, do the coaches even respect our toughness when we don’t…”
Anderson wouldn’t finish the thought but Johnson did when asked if running the ball was the difference between the first and second halves.
“There you go. There’s your answer,” Johnson said. “(The Falcons) possessed the football beautifully. That’s really what football is all about. That’s what it comes down to at some point in time. They did a great job protecting the ball, possessing the football all throughout the game. When we started with our run, look back at time of possession that was a big difference maker in the game also.”
Wide receivers Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh were just as perplexed. Houshmandzadeh had just one catch for two yards in the second half after six catches for 68 yards in the first half. With the Falcons blitzing, Johnson had some room in the secondary on some one-and-one chances but he and Palmer could never hook up on the same page as some times Palmer was rushed several times to get a pass off, or the receiver wasn’t in the right spot or Palmer didn’t get there…
“They did a good job of giving us the short stuff. We threw a lot of short passes and got a lot of completions out of those,” Palmer said. “We didn’t get the ball to T.J. as much as we like to ... It would be great to drop back and throw the deep ball play after play. But if you don’t have the right coverage, and you don’t do the play correctly, it’s just a long incomplete pass.”
Exhibit A: First play of the second half. A long ball called, the “9,” route Johnson caught last week on fourth-and-one and what is supposed to be the signature of this offense.
But this time Palmer overthrew him. Johnson caught six balls for 78 yards on a day Palmer threw at him 12 times.
“We just missed,” Johnson said. “It’s one of those we wished we could have back. You’re not going to get a ball like that all the time. There are going to be incompletions. There are no excuses. It’s execution.”
As the Bengals wonder about their offensive soul, everyone is looking back at last year.
“We’re going to come back Wednesday and try to be as (good) as possible,” Johnson said. “We won’t be perfect all the time, but we want to be right most of the time. That’s the point where we were last year. We were right most of the time.”
Johnson and Houshmandzadeh said the Falcons did nothing that surprised them.
“When they blitz, you got to get the ball out quick. It doesn’t matter how many you’ve got in a matchup because they’re bringing the house and you better throw the ball or No. 9 is going to get his head knocked off,” Houshmandzadeh said. “It didn’t surprise us. They did it against Pittsburgh. We just didn’t handle it.”
Houshmandzadeh said he saw it all second half. Strong safety Lawyer Milloy lined up over him and cornerback Kevin Mathis was off him four or five yards.
“I knew they were bringing everybody,” Houshmandzadeh said. “If I knew, everybody knew.
“It’s tough to figure out because of the flow of the game,” Houshmandzadeh said.
Which is a nice way of saying, there was no flow.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
“I don’t care what anybody says tomorrow,” Anderson said after the 29-27 loss. “We have a lot of tough guys, but in certain instances you got to man up. Third down is the key. ‘Hey, ‘we got to get this, ’or ‘Hey, we need to stop this.’ Not just being on the field lackadaisical hoping somebody else makes the block or the catch or stop the pass or stop the run. You do it. And the good teams have that and we don’t. Point blank. We don’t. …We do have some guys like that. We don’t have enough.
......................
“We got to toughen up in spots. Either that or make changes,” Anderson said. “Make changes. Guys gave to be shaken up. I know tomorrow (players will say), ‘Willie’s just mad.’ Yeah I’m mad because we lose these kind of games we should win. I get tired of hearing ‘We would have won if that.’ Got to toughen up.”
........................
Much to the chagrin of Anderson and running back Rudi Johnson, the Bengals lost their balance and ended up throwing 26 more times compared to just eight more runs the rest of the way in a game that the Falcons praised themselves for adjusting their defense for more all-out blitzes on Palmer even though they left the middle of the field open.
..............................
“We changed before they did. They changed at halftime, we changed in the first quarter,” said a perplexed Johnson. “If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. Take a look at a lot of the games we lose. It’s for that reason. It’s real simple. We make it real complicated. It shouldn’t be that complicated. We should have beaten this team.’’
.......................
Our offensive line could have manhandled them all day. And they know that. Our offensive line knows that,” Johnson said. “They know they could have manhandled them all day long. Up and down the field. When all is said and done, we could have had our way with them. They could have helped everything out. It could have eased up the pressure on defense. Everything."
Anderson fumed, “To see them put who they put over me (and the rest of the offensive line) and say you can’t run the ball, that’s a joke.
“I’m not criticizing, but it’s a joke. It’s not the Ravens,” Anderson said. “Give those guys credit, though. It’s a fast, hard-nosed, hard-charging football team. They’re a better football team than us today. That’s all that matters. I don’t take anything away from the Falcons…But you got Reggie White in front of you? C’mon man.”
......................
While players and coaches talked about trusting each other after the fourth-and-one play last week, Anderson openly wondered Sunday, “Sometimes that shows you, too, do the coaches even respect our toughness when we don’t…”
Anderson wouldn’t finish the thought but Johnson did when asked if running the ball was the difference between the first and second halves.
“There you go. There’s your answer,” Johnson said. “(The Falcons) possessed the football beautifully. That’s really what football is all about. That’s what it comes down to at some point in time. They did a great job protecting the ball, possessing the football all throughout the game. When we started with our run, look back at time of possession that was a big difference maker in the game also.”
...........................................
“When they blitz, you got to get the ball out quick. It doesn’t matter how many you’ve got in a matchup because they’re bringing the house and you better throw the ball or No. 9 is going to get his head knocked off,” Houshmandzadeh said. “It didn’t surprise us. They did it against Pittsburgh. We just didn’t handle it.”
Houshmandzadeh said he saw it all second half. Strong safety Lawyer Milloy lined up over him and cornerback Kevin Mathis was off him four or five yards.
“I knew they were bringing everybody,” Houshmandzadeh said. “If I knew, everybody knew.
“It’s tough to figure out because of the flow of the game,” Houshmandzadeh said.
Which is a nice way of saying, there was no flow.
.................................................. .............................
I think the above areas I highlighted are especially deserving of comment.
Very interesting.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
Why didn't Willie Anderson man up when Carson Palmer was under so much pressure?
rf28
It is pretty interesting that the team seems to be placing most of the blame on the offense and Bratkowski, not the defense. The one thing that Mr Lewis might want to take away from his past teams is a more ball control offense.......especially while Palmer is trying to get back to the level he played at last year.
What I think he's trying to say is that he thinks that the team would have scored more points yesterday had they continued to run the ball more. He liked the matchups against the Falcons' defensive line. With all of the passing, the Falcons get used to it coming and just sent blitzes from all different directions, even diagonally with the safeties, etc. I think Willie liked the matchup of he and others on the offensive line doing more of a "grinding it out" battle against the Falcons' defensive line in order to open up holes for Rudi, as opposed to playing to the Falcons' strength by allowing them to utilize their speed by rushing Palmer play after play after play. As he said, their D-Line is small but fast. Think about what that implies.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
Most of it, although I think some of that has to do with the Bengals having more "aggressive personalities" on offense than on defense. The defensive players tend not to talk as much.
Also, it's not like I've absolved the offense lately. In fact, even after last week's win vs. Carolina, I stated that it was the OFFENSE that still had me concerned.
I still don't think the defense is that good though, which also worries me.
And ultimately, Lewis is in charge of both sides of the ball, so it is just as much his responsibility to control the play of the offense as the defense. If he doesn't like Bratkowski (and I never have, as I have stated at other points over the last few years regarding his play calling), he needs to fire him and either take over duties like Billick did when he dumped Jim Fassel, or bring in someone else.
An out with the old, in with the new situation might be in order.
Bratkowski was "left over" from the "old" Bengals, after all.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
I know I told CRF when it happened but I dont remember discussing it with any one else (maybe Bipster) but you are seeing from Bresnahan what the Raiders "tolerated" for many years. Usually about league average defense (strong against the run USUALLY, soft vs the pass, decent number of turnovers sometimes more so b/c teams were trying to come back). He drove me batty with that stupid way he and Gruden both called the dogs off way too early and it cost us often. The Snow Job had one of the biggest robberies in NFL history BUT Bres and Gruden LET NE back in the game to even set that up. The D had all but shut NE down the 1st half with the way the d was playing then in the 2nd half you see the Raiders seemingly drop off and play "prevent" d only the way a Bres D could.
Na, you don't bring in someone from outside the coaching family midseason. Anytime you see an OC get canned either the coach (Green, Billick) calls the plays or the coach elevates another assistant (Davidson in Cleveland) to the position to minimize the change in philosophies.
Relax some. I would kill to be 4-3, Atlanta is not a fluke of a team. They are a very good one. The only thing that matters right now is that you got games with Baltimore left and are still in the thick of the playoff race. I wish I could say that for my Raiders. We would have to win out for even an iota chance and that aint happneing when your offense doesn't even go the full length of the field for the entire game.
HollywoodLeo: You and Kingdom always annoy me
"Oh, don't mind me, I'm rebuilding now" then you win at least 80 games
RIP S3SL Minnesota Twins.
RIP HSL Anaheim Angels
Rebuilding the Dodger Blues
Renewed Start back in the land of 10,000 lakes
It could be worse Slyder, at least your not a fan of the Dolphins like me.
I say in the offseason they make a serious run and throw ridiculous money at Norm Chow, reuniting him with Carson Palmer.
rf28
The Bengals are terrible on both offense and defense anymore.
Just awful.
This franchise will NEVER win anything consistently.
We are getting worse and worse all of the time again. Now we hardly even compete in these games.
Oh, and Chris Perry shouldn't be returning kicks. Not looking like a good first-round draft pick.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
23-7 Ravens.
This one just gets more laughable.
Please fire this joke of a head coach. PLEASE.
The defense gets crushed almost every time the other team has the ball and the offense looks anemic these days too.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
Should have went for it on 4th and 6 there.
Typical lame, conservative coaching from this team.
The Simpson family gathers around, as Homer places Bart's passed test on the fridge.)
Homer: We're proud of you, boy.
Bart: Thanks, Dad. But part of this D-minus belongs to God.
LOL
****ing Rudi and Galloway will destroy my fantasy team.
http://strike3forums.com/forums/phot...pelbon2006.jpg
Then out of fairness to the others you will be Slagathor.
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