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It is not easy to be a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals right now

07 Sunday May 2017

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It is not easy to be a fan of the Cincinnati Bengals right now.

I woke up Saturday morning, a second draft day with two picks having taken place overnight, what players had been added to the roster? Then I read the story and my heart sank.

Joe Mixon is a name notorious to many, and had been one of the major discussion points leading up to the draft. There were other players in the draft with a recent history of violence, including a player selected in the first round who has recently been accused of rape, but with the surveillance video of the Mixon assault having been leaked, the evidence was there for all to see and Mixon was the first name discussed with major off-field issues.

For the record I have not watched the video, much like the Ray Rice video I don’t feel the need to witness one of the worse days the victim will ever have to face. In the particular case of Mixon, after exchanging words with Amelia Molitor, Molitor shoved and then slapped Mixon who responded by punching her in the face. Molitor fell to the floor, her face slamming into a table on the way past, leaving her with four facial fractures, including a broken jaw.

Unlike Ray Rice, who at age twenty-seven was coming towards the end of his running back career when he was suspended for the season, Mixon is a talented running back who is under twenty-one and enters the league ready to play, and so the Bengals decided that with the 48th pick of the draft, that he was worth the risk.

Male violence is sadly all too common, and is a societal problem not just one for NFL players. Overwhelmingly violence towards women and girls is carried out by men, and whilst men can be victims of domestic violence and women can be perpetrators, most violence – whether against women or men is perpetrated by men.

There is an argument for second chances, and for not only punishment but for rehabilitation. Mixon received a one-year deferred sentence and was ordered to undergo counselling along with 100 hours of community service. The assault occurred in 2014, and Mixon was suspended from football for the following year.

I’m not an expert on the sentencing of violent crimes, and not sure there is a definite correlation between circumstances and punishment, nor do I particularly like judges to be forced to give out specific sentences under restricted guidelines. To me the separation of powers that should be a part of well-structured democracy means that judges should have the freedom to interpret the law as best they can. However, I can’t help but feel that a sentence such as the one Mixon received is in part due to his status as a well know promising football player.

Still he has complied with the restrictions and by all accounts is still undergoing counselling and in his first interview as a Bengal has talked about controlling situations he places himself in and controlling his responses.

In the face of this it is worth noting that Mixon had a confrontation with a parking attendant after received a parking citation in 2016 where he ripped up the citations and threw them in the face of the attendant before inching forward with his vehicle to intimidate the office. This was on university property and he was suspended for a game.

On the other hand, he has recently settled a civil case brought by Molitor and they met to express their regrets. That said, Molitor is still dealing with the after affects of the assault, the psychological remaining long after the body has healed, and it is hard to see how the video being so widely distributed can do anything other than pick at the scars left behind. This is the legacy of violence even before social media and mass video made such moments so much harder to escape.

You can see how the Bengals are approaching the pick of Mixon from this article where you will see some familiar information.

We’ve had various NFL draft commentators talk about Mixon’s talent and referencing his off-field issues but not engage about them.

We’ve heard that only four teams were prepared to pick Mixon, although there are plenty of other players with violent incidents in the draft, and many of them were picked. There just wasn’t video evidence.

The NFL’s punishment for Mixon was to ban him from their combine event, which is a glorified prospect sports day in coverage, but for the team is mostly about getting to interview prospects, take accurate measurements, and carry out their own health checks.

I will refrain from my usual detailed criticism of Roger Goodell’s approach to discipline, and simply say that this so called punishment only really means that teams will have to go to a player’s pro day held at the university, and so this is not so much a punishment as a way for the NFL to not have to deal with such a player being at their combine event, by not having him be there. For the record, all thirty-two teams had a scout at Joe Mixon’s college pro day.

The sad fact is that this is not going away, and nor is the dilemma surrounding it. The Kansas City Chiefs faced this exact situation last year when they selected Tyreek Hill last year in the fifth round and he played excellently for them. Mina Kimes wrote an excellent piece entitled The uncomfortable reality of Tyreek Hill’s success and I’d highly encourage you to read it if you are not already familiar with it.

In fact go read it – it covers everything that is difficult about this topic, and then come back here.

Joe Mixon hasn’t even played a down for the Bengals and I know that I don’ want them to have picked him. The hard headed say that if you are going to pick such a player, then you might as well make sure you get the player you want and not worry about where he is picked. You have already made that decision. It’s just hard to apply the usual draft equation in this situation. The discussion of risk vs talent is simply not appropriate and I think I would feel like this if Mixon had been picked up as an undrafted free agent.

We can probably agree that there is no simple solution to this, and that we should keep having these conversations and that we should feel uncomfortable. Hell it should make us angry.

I’m disappointed that the Bengals picked Joe Mixon. I cannot see a world where I’m actively cheering on the player when I know what he has done. There have already been calls for a boycott of Bengals games in local papers, and to donate money to charity instead, certainly the money I was thinking of spending on a new jersey will go to a charity in the UK. I’m not pulling away from the Bengals as a team, I feel that would be cheating, I’ll watch every snap as usual and I will document what happens. I’ll be evaluating Mixon the player and how he acts. I will be just as conflicted. The joy has gone and may well never come back.

In finishing up I keep coming back to something I read whilst preparing to write this blog post. The Counting Dead Women Campaign is the work of Karen Ingala Smith, and is focussed on the documenting of male violence against women. One final piece of homework for you, read If we’re serious about ending men’s violence against women and girls, we need to listen to feminists, then find one to listen to.

The Bengals Offseason: Hope Turns to Nerves

02 Sunday Apr 2017

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It’s a little earlier than I usually like to delve back into football in the offseason, but with the bulk of free agency over, the hope of the offseason had already turned to worry for this Bengals fan. I thought I’d write a little bit about this rather than trying to cover all the signings and moves that have just taken place, and hopefully reflect some thoughts on the wider situation.

There are many ways to build a roster in the NFL, and the Cincinnati Bengals are very much a team who believe in draft and develop rather than spending wildly in free agency. This is an approach that I very much agree with, but it is worth taking note that the New York Giants spent a lot in free agency last year and significantly improved their defence. I think the trick is to make sure you get the right kind of players at the right kind of price, which sounds pretty trite, but given that there are thirty-two teams competing for the same players (theoretically) then as the saying goes, it only takes one a*#?hole, to drive up the price.

Still, the focus for the Bengals was always going to be resigning their free-agents, and this is where things got interesting for the Bengals and their fans. One of the problems the team had last season was protecting Andy Dalton, particularly as Cedric Ogbuehi seemed to struggle at right tackle. With two offensive line starters up for free agency, this would seem like a resigning priority along with cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick. However, the only player out of these three priority players who did resign with the Bengals was Kirkpatrick. I was not entirely surprised that right guard Kevin Zeitler was signed elsewhere as Bengals.com editor Geoff Hobson had been writing about the philosophy of Bengals being not to invest heavily at the guard position, and with the Cleveland Browns having a huge amount of cap space, they could simply offer much more money than the Bengals were prepared to pay. I was hopeful that stalwart left tackle Andrew Whitworth would play another season, but at thirty-five years old the LA Rams were prepared to give Whitworth a multi-year deal that was too rich for the Bengals to compete with.

And like that, the best two players on the offensive season last season are no longer Bengals and the commentary has not been good about this. I am worried, but there is at least a working plan behind these moves that I am not sure have been explored enough in the media. Although, I could have easily missed the discussion.

No one would want to lose their long term left tackle when there have been few signs of regression in his play, and Kevin Zeitler was one of the best right guards in the league going into a second contract. Nor is the upheaval in the offensive line helpful when this is the position group that most relies on continuity on the team.

However, one of the strengths of the New England Patriots, and something that Bill Belichick is often praised for is the team’s ability to let go players at the right time, and they would rather let a player go too early than a year too late. It is not exactly fair to compare Marivn Lewis to one of the greatest coaches in the game, and nor does Lewis have the control of personnel that Belichick has, but I can at least see the plan the Bengals have in place.

Two years ago the Bengals drafted two tackles in the first two rounds, and this was clearly the start of their succession plan. Last offseason the Bengals did not resign Andre Smith and Ogbuehi was set to start at right tackle after missing most of his rookie season recovering from the knee injury he had when drafted. I don’t think it is controversial to say that this did not go well, and now he will be starting at left tackle in place of one of the best tackles in the league. However, he spent the majority of his time in college playing left tackle, and whilst his struggles with the bull rush will not simply disappear, it seems too often that people think you can just swap linemen between the right and left sides of the line. These days there are more quality pass rushers coming from the left side of the defence, and so your right tackle needs to be able to hold up in pass protection. I’m not sure how different your right and left tackle need to be as this depends greatly on scheme, opponent, and philosophy, but I do worry about the assumption that you can move linemen around and so I’m hoping that Ogbuehi does better in what could be his more natural position.

The problem is that we can’t know until the live games start. The Bengals have resigned Andre Simth, but the talk is that he will be replacing Zeitler at right guard, which is another change in position although at least it will be a right handed stance.

Apart from the resigning of receiver Brandon LaFell and running back Cedric Peerman, the only other big moves the Bengals made was to sign twenty-six year old middle linebacker Kevin Minter from the Arizona Cardinals and released long term starter Rey Maualuga. This looks to be a like a straight replacement, but also signals a shift in philosophy away from the fierce hitting Maualuga who was excellent against the run, but in the modern NFL was nearly limited to a two down player thanks to the spread formations and passing attacks that now dominate the league. I am sorry to see Maualuga to go, but this is a move that makes a lot of sense to me, and whilst not a splashy move, by releasing both the thirty year old Maualuga and the thirty-five year old Kevin Dansby the Bengals have got a lot younger at a position that is increasing having to be able to cover in the open.

It is usually when a team gets outside of their plan that they get into trouble. I’m sure those in the front office would argue that they have execute several important moves, but there has been a lot of talent leave the team in recent years. In fairness, a large percentage were older players, and the Bengals would have liked to keep one of the two receivers they lost last year. The offensive line worries me thought, and will do until they prove themselves on the field no matter how many positive offseason pieces I read on player training. I am not panicking however, and with the draft coming up and the Bengals having elven picks thanks to the formula that grants compensatory picks to a team for lost free agents, I can see how they can build for next season. There is a lot on the line for Marvin Lewis, but if feels like I have been writing that a lot over the last few years, but there can only be so many failures to win a playoff game before something changes. There is no guarantee that would bring success, and Mike Brown is fairly famously loyal and not willing to waste money, either to cut players or fired coaches, but even his patience can only stretch so far.

For now, there’s the nerves and hope of the offseason, so back to other things to keep me distracted. I’ll write again around draft time.

Sunday Thoughts

04 Sunday Dec 2016

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It has been a frustrating season as a Bengals fan, but there comes a point where you have to accept that the playoffs really are out of reach, and whilst that happened to me a couple of weeks ago, the optimist in me still tries to hang on to hope for a couple of weeks. I am dreading what Fletcher Cox could do against the Bengals this week, but mainly I’ll be curious about what is going on with the rest of the league.

The Cowboy ran out eventual winners in an intriguing Thursday night game, but even though the Vikings defence is back to where it was earlier in the season, they couldn’t stop the first team to record double digit wins from getting their eleventh. There are two teams that could join them this week, but whilst the Raiders and Patriots stand a good chance of getting their tenth wins, injuries to Derek Carr and Rob Gronkowski could be causing differing degrees of anxiety to fans. Derek Carr came back in the game to play with his nastily injured finger, it is amazing what adrenaline will do for you, but it is possible it might affect his play. More worrying for the Patriots though will be the loss of Gronkowski for the rest of the season after having back surgery this week. You would back the Patriots staff to be able to adjust to this loss, but it is a big loss as Gronkowski is a real difference maker and is a favourite target of Brady as well as being the best tight end in the league.

No team is unaffected by injury at this time of year, but it is a question of whether you have picked up a critical injury and how strong you are at that position in the first place. The Seattle Seahawks offensive line has not been good all season, but in recent weeks they had improved enough when combined with Russel Wilson getting healthy to make the Seahawks look frightening again. However, they picked up more injuries last week and the Seahawks could only register five points against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. They are still very much in control of the AFC West, which is very much going through a down season this year, but they will have their eyes on bigger prizes and I will be curious to see how well their offence goes this week against a Panthers team who have been more competitive in recent weeks, even if the results don’t necessarily reflect it.

It felt like a strange week of games to predict, there are a lot of teams whose performance is varying week to week, and when there are questions surrounding even the best of teams, it is beginning to feel that the Cowboys might be putting themselves on a level of their own as they keep grinding out wins.

I think the question of overtime could rear its head again this week with another game that did give us a winner last Sunday, but still went to the end of overtime. One of my picks is resting on whether this extra pick is enough to let the Jaguars cover, but given the previous results of teams coming off a full overtime period it is not beyond the realms of possibility that the Jaguars could pick up a win. I know that Americans are culturally obsessed with there not being draws, but if a full period of overtime is that much of a disadvantage to the participating teams the following week, I’m still not sure that in an era of concern over player well-being, that we are not better off just accepting that draws happen.

Let’s see what happens with the Chiefs and Broncos when they play today.

Being Thankfull

24 Thursday Nov 2016

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Well 2016 has been an eventful year to say the least, and on this American holiday of Thanksgiving I thought I’d try to find a few things to be thankful for the NFL.

The obvious place to start given the turmoil of this year is the distraction that sport provides. I’ve written before that I don’t see getting away from the world as a bad thing. Sport gives us an escape, whilst at times teaching us things that are useful in life, particularly when participating.

Football is a sport that relies heavily on team work, cooperation, and personal responsibility as if you stop playing within your team’s system then you are going to hurt your team. It’s not a bad reminder that personal responsibility and social solutions are not mutually exclusive, despite what some politicians on both the right and left would say.

The Bengals are having a tough year, and the search for an end to the league’s longest playoff win drought doesn’t look to be stopping this season, but I’m still grateful for the sight of Geno Atkins causing trouble to offences, one of the best colour rush uninforms of the year, and the painful reminder that nothing in the NFL is guaranteed.

For all the NFLUK’s marketing of Jay Ajayi as London’s Jay Ajayi, I’m enjoying Dan having a player to hang his hat on, and whilst I was worried that Adam Gase could struggle despite being an excellent coach given the roster he had been handed, with a chance of making the playoffs and at least being relevant he looks to be turning things round. Although perhaps I should have let Dan play the funeral march in an attempt to revive the Bengals’ season.

It hasn’t happened yet, but I am incredibly thankful that this year’s playoff games won’t be blacked out on Gamepass as it will make the logistics of covering and watching all the games so much easier.

I’m thankful that despite having a terrible season of picking games, I’m on a game behind Dan and on yet another short week I shall turn to tonight’s games, which I am really looking forward to!

Vikings @ Lions (-2.5)

The Vikings are coming off a their first win in five games, as they travel to Detroit to play the Lions in a game that will put one team at the top of the NFC North. The Cardinals are a struggling team right now, but a win is a win as far as the Vikings are concerned. However, we perhaps shouldn’t get carried away as the Vikings had a one hundred yard interception return for a touchdown and a one hundred and four yard kickoff return and still only won by six points. The defence looked more like itself, but still gave up twenty-four points, whilst the offence still looks to be struggling. The Lions meanwhile managed to be behind in the fourth quarter again, this time to the awful Jaguars, but did enough to win the game. There can’t have been too many time that the Lions were playing for the division lead in their tradition Thanksgiving game, but I fancy them to do enough at home against the Vikings.

Gee’s Pick: Lions
Dan’s Pick: Vikings

Washington @ Cowboys (-7.5)

The Cowboys are having a phenomenal season and look to be amongst the elite of the NFC, but Washington are no slouches and so this seems like a surprisingly large line. I would expect the Cowboys to win, and I’m not saying they can’t cover this line, but with Washington’s offence playing as well as it is at the moment, I think they are more likely to cover this line than not, even if they are on the road.

Gee’s Pick: Washington
Dan’s Pick: Washington

Steelers @ Colts (+7.5)

I am nervous about this line as the Colts are at home and the Steelers didn’t exactly blow out the Browns in their last game. However, whilst I might have been tempted had Andrew Luck been fit, the fact that Scott Tolzein is the starting quarterback with Luck in concussion protocol pushes me to pick the Steelers. Their offence could absolutely find its way again as it still has a terrifying array of talent as well as playing in the dome tonight, but the Steelers need to keep the pressure on in the AFC North.

Gee’s Pick: Steelers
Dan’s Pick: Steelers

A Return to Form

17 Thursday Nov 2016

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So the games of week ten were as good as my picks were awful!

One of the reasons suggested for the NFL’s falling ratings has been the quality of the games, particularly in the nationally televised games, but we had a series of close and eventful finishes and probably the game of the season in the Sunday night prime time slot with the Seattle Seahawks beating the New England Patriots in a back and forth game that had seven lead changes. This followed and equally back and forth game between the Cowboys and Steelers that featured three touchdowns in the last two minutes.

The New Orleans Saints must have thought they had won the game when Drew Brees somehow found Brandin Cooks in the end zone despite being covered by two Broncos’ players. However, the resulting extra point was blocked by rookie safety Justin Simmons who vaulted the long snapper Justin Drescher with the help of Jared Crick who made sure that Drescher couldn’t stand up and make contact with Simmons by pushing him down. The NFL has later confirmed that as this was an open handed push it was legal. If Simmons’s block wasn’t enough though, another rookie safety in Will Parks scooped up the ball and ran it back to the end zone for a two point defensive score that gave the Broncos the lead before receiving the ball and holding on for the win. Such are the margins that games turn on in the NFL, although the Saints will likely feel aggrieved as with no definitive view of Parks who likely stepped out of bounds during the return, the return stood. It is very possible that this play would have been overturned if Parks had been wearing black boots, but it is too late now. Still, it is yet another dramatic ending for a really good slate of games over the weekend and we will likely see similar leaping block attempts in crucial field goals/extra points at the end of games, with the same manoeuvre executed on the poor long snapper who can’t do much to defend himself in that position.

The fine margins that separate winning and losing are not always so obvious, but the differences between good and average teams are not always that big. This season seems to have a particular large sample of so-so teams, with it seems everybody agreeing that the Patriots, Cowboys, and Seahawks are looking dangerous, a mass of teams with one or two potential contenders for post season success, and then likes of the Browns and 49ers vying for the first pick in next year’s draft.

The Bengals could be seen as a microcosm of this in that their 3-5-1 record is pretty awful, but they are only two games out in the surprisingly poor AFC North. They are not actually a bad team, but they seem to have been doomed by too many changes at once and things won’t quite come together. Whether certain parts of the team just got too old at the same time I don’t know, but most would consider the roster to be one of the most talented in the league. However, there have been so many changes with a new offensive coordinator and several new postition coaches on defence, and nothing has looked quite right. The lack of consistency is what is hampering the Bengals and those who have been calling for Marvin Lewis to be fired are unlikely to be quietened by anything other than a major turnaround in the second half of the season and post season success.

There are so many moving parts in an NFL franchise, that playing within a structure that is supposed to promote parity, it hardly a surprise that it is hard to be consistently good. Only the very best and worst are standing out at the moment, but whilst you will frequently hear people questioning decisions, you also frequently hear criticisms of such and such is a bad coach, and I’m not always sure that is fair.

In some corners of the NFL coverage you will frequently hear disparaging comments about Andy Reid’s clock management, and these are not entirely without merit, however as demonstrated by their come back on Sunday, even when the Chiefs fall into a hall the players believe in Reid and keep playing. He has won an awful lot of football games, and there is a lot more to being a head coach that clock management. If you get a chance, listen to Ron Riviera talking on this week’s Peter King podcast to get a flavour of what the coaches are going through. I do sometime feel that coaches are wedded to the way they were brought up in football, but there is a constant search for the next small advantage that could turn a game and we don’t always get to see or hear about them.

In a changing game with so much variation from season to season, the sustained success of the Patriots and Seahawks are all the more remarkable, and whilst there is a lot to take from the recent string of Bengals success, they still haven’t won a playoff game since 1990, the longest in the league. In a results based world like the NFL, people’s jobs are tied to very variable results and this does not always lead to better results, but with the seasons that the Bengals are having, much like the Packers who are a team who also have a history of patience with coaches, change could be in the air at the end of the season. There is still over a quarter of the season to go, but things are getting serious now so let’s see what happens.

 

Saints @ Panthers (-3.5)

I got bitten by the line last week, but whilst the Saints are a better team than the Browns, and have a better record than the Panthers, the Panthers played well for long stretches against the Kansas City Chiefs and have looked a lot more like themselves in recent weeks. It may be too late for a playoff push, but I’m not picking against them at home in this Thursday night game.

Gee’s Pick:          Panthers
Dan’s Pick:         Panthers

Why a Draw is Not the End of the World

03 Thursday Nov 2016

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I know that football’s hatred of ties is cultural. One of the things that confuses Americans most about test cricket is the prospect that you could play a game of five days and not get a result. However, despite what many of them might claim, life is not all about winners and losers, it is more nuanced than that and so perhaps football can learn a thing or two from sports that do end in a tie.

Sunday’s game between Washgington and the Cincinnati Bengals was not an easy one to watch as a nervous Bengals fan going through a tough season where things are not quite coming together and surrounded by Washington fans. I don’t want to speak to for others, but I find it is hard to chant lustily about who is going to beat dem Bengals when the team has a losing record. Perhaps that says more about how I look at sport, but I really want to get to a game in the States one day as I’d love to experience the real home game atmosphere. We all know that the London games offers a different fan experience as the stadium is full of general NFL fans, with every team being represented so it is not unknown for the nominated away to team to have more fans or win the neutrals over more than the hosting team. However, the game was tense to the end, with some calling it the best of the London games.

The result doesn’t really help either team in the hunt for a playoff berth, but at least they are spared playing next week with both teams on byes. The Arizona Cardinals and the Seattle Seahawks were not so lucky and both lost this week having played a full fifteen minutes of overtime to come to their own draw in week seven. This did not surprise me as I watched the same happen to the Bengals and Carolina Panthers when they had the last tie back in 2014. In an age where player safety is supposed to be paramount, I’m not sure that forcing players to play up to another 25% of football is really justified, given the effect that it has on the teams in the following week and the risks to tired players. There has been grumbling about the overtime rules for a number of years, so why not simply do away with overtime until the playoffs.

Sometimes a drawer can feel like a win. Michael Atherton’s famous innings where he batted for 643 minutes across two days was career defining and is still talked about as he managed to lead his England team to an unlikely draw against South Africa. Life is complex and so is a sport like American Football. Do we really want to further tinker with rules and watch more games failed to be decided by the boots of kickers? Sometimes a draw can feel slightly lucky, and despite Mike Nugent’s missed extra point that could have won the Bengals’ the game, things could have easily gone the other way as Washington seemed to have the momentum for large stretches of the game and missed their own field goal in extra time.

However, in the regular season there is no real reason to force a result for every game. The NFL schedule is already constructed in such a way to account for the fact that you cannot play a league format where every team plays each other home and away. The separation by wins and losses does not get broken by introducing tied games; it is not so much harder to say three, four, and one instead of three and four, so why not save overtime for the playoffs?

Be it the penalty shootouts of football or hockey, or field goal at the end of overtime, none of these feel that satisfactory so let us have a draw. Neither team were able to force a result, they get punished for not getting the win without quite getting the loss either. Meanwhile, they don’t face an unfair disadvantage the following week, and we learn that sport like life can be complicated and end without a clear winner. It’s time to get on with the next game.

Falcons @ Buccaneers (+3.5)

My plan is to pick home teams for the Thursday night game unless there’s a compelling reason not to based on the points or a much better team being on the road. In this case, the Falcons are coming off a close win against the Green Bay Packers to stand atop the NFC South at 5-3, whilst the Bucs lost in overtime to the Raiders. The fact that this is a divisional game may throw a spanner in the works, but with the topped ranked offence in the league by DVOA and a defence that is showing some progress I’m backing the Falcons to cover in this game against a team that are ranked twenty-one place lower by overall DVOA.

Gee’s Pick:          Falcons
Dan’s Pick:          Falcons

Week Four: Dolphins @ Bengals

02 Sunday Oct 2016

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Cincinnati Bengals 22
Miami Dolphins 7

I found Thursday night’s game slightly more tense than the reports afterwards would suggest, but I suspect that would be because despite the disparity in play, the Bengals were not able to put this game comfortably away and so as a fan I was rather anxious. In large part this was down to the continuing problems with the Bengals’ offence so in telling the tale of this game, I will start there.

The Bengals offence has not yet come together this season. Andy Dalton is playing well and his combination with AJ Green is as strong as ever, which this season is a blessing as there are problems elsewhere. This is perhaps unsurprising given that there are two new receivers, a lineman, and tight end starting for the Bengals under a new offensive coordinator. I would say that Ken Zampese is still finding his way as coordinator, and I would imagine the Bengals’ struggle to run the ball will be worrying him. The Bengals were more commited to the run in this game with Jeremy Hill and Giovani Bernard combining for thirty-one carries, but at roughly 2.9 yards per carry they were not able to be that effective except for the occasional good play. Luckily, AJ Green was back in his week one form going for one hundred and seventy-three yards and a touchdown as Andy Dalton posted another triple digit quarterback rating. In fairness, they Bengals were able to move the ball for large parts of the game, but the thing that is really killing them is their inability to finish in the red zone. The Bengals kicked five field goals in this game as they simply couldn’t punch the ball into the end zone, and this has to improve. Certainly getting their pro-bowl tight end Tyler Eifert back would help in this regard, but the slight miscues caused by so many new players on this side of the ball is really hurting the Bengals near the goal line.

The Dolphins defence certainly stacked up well against the Bengals in the running game, which given they were ranked twentieth in rush defence by DVOA coming into this game was an impressive effort. However, when you drop one of your big free agent acquisitions in Byron Maxwell and still allow AJ Green to get one hundred and seventy-three yards then you know there are problems. It will also be a worry that the line, which looked like being a strength of the defence going into the season was only able to get one sack against a team that had been struggling in protection for chunks of the season.

If the Dolphins defence was a worry, then their offence was surprisingly anaemic under the attention of Adam Gase who was seen as a solution to Ryan Tannehill’s problems. However, for large stretches they had gained less yards than AJ Green on his own, and if it hadn’t been for the desperate throw to Kenny Stills that yielded a seventy-four yard touchdown then things would have been properly embarrassing as this play accounted for a third of the Dolphins offence. The real problem here was that the Dolphins offensive line was missing Mike Pouncey and with tackles playing guard for them they were not match for the Bengals’ defensive line. It is really not often that you see a guard just blocked backwards into his quarterback for a sack as happened to Jermon Bushrod, but this is what happens when you play a career tackle at guard against one of the best interior pass rushers in Geno Atkins. I don’t want to put too much criticism on Adam Gase as the Dolphins don’t seem to like picking guards in the draft, but unless they can sort their offensive line problems then they are likely to keep having problems.

The Bengals defence had one bad play in this game, resulting in a long touchdown, and then were pretty dominant for the rest of the game. This started with the defensive line, which brought relentless pressure and largely bottled up the Dolphin’s running game whilst racking up five sacks against the pass. The Dolphins were never able to sustain drives, and apart from the sacks, the Bengals defence managed to force a fumble out of Tannehill and picked him off once. The return of Vontaze Burfict allowed them to rotate their linebackers more, and Burfict was talking after the game about being frustrated at not getting an interception but getting his game legs back under him. The defence has been strong for the Bengals all season, and has kept them in all the games they have played so far this season, if things did slip in the fourth quarter against the Bronocs.

The Bengals will be relieved to get out of a tricky start to the season 2-2 given that they’re still trying to get all the new offensive players on the same page, but they will need to as they push on into October. The defence should keep them in games, but things will need to develop if they are to push on for the playoff win that that they are so desperate for.

The Dolphins problems continue and they are struggling as much against the construction of their roster as they are the opposition. There is talent on this team, but it is very unevenly distributed across the roster, and until they address this I fear it will be hard for any coach, no matter how good they are, to turn this franchise into one that wins regularly.

The End of Streaks

29 Thursday Sep 2016

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It was a strange week three that saw many a game going differently to how people expected, and saw both Dan and I get murdered on our picks.

I wrote before making my picks last week that I expected more teams to get their first loss or win than continue their streaks, but it seems I picked all of the wrong ones and even in the games where I made the right choice, those choices were hardly convincing.

  • One of the unbeaten Texans and Patriots had to lose their first game, but whilst I acknowledged that Bill Belichick could win this game, I was not expecting the Patriots to manage a 27-0 win over the Texans.
  • The Cardinals went to Buffalo and lost, giving them a losing record and granting the Bills their first win of the season and resulting in the usual Rex Ryan bravado about facing the Patriots this week.
  • The Broncos went to 3-0 with an impressive win in Cincinnati where the Bengals defence stacked the box and dared Trevor Siemian to win the game with his arm, which he promptly did.
  • Even when I picked the Dolphins to beat the winless Browns in Miami and get their first win of the season, they needed overtime to do it and were nowhere near the ten point lead I needed for my pick to come through.
  • I expected the Viking to keep the game close against the Panthers, but instead ran out with a victory to remain unbeaten despite their injury troubles.
  • I didn’t see Washington beating a Giants team that were off to a great start, and yet they managed it whilst Odell Beckham grabbed headlines with another emotional outburst. This time the talented receiver lost a fight to a field goal net on the Giant’s side-line.
  • The Ravens went down to Jacksonville to face a desperate Jaguars team who were not desperate enough to avoid going 0-3, whilst the Ravens have the quietest unbeaten record in the league.
  • The Colts were one of only three games featuring a 2-0 or 0-2 record that I picked correctly, when they managed to get a win over the visiting Chargers who now have a perfect record of played three, lost three starters for the season to injury.
  • The Eagles put pay to the Steelers unbeaten record and kept their own, making the hype surrounding Carson Wentz even greater. I am so impressed with the Eagles coaching staff and the turnaround they have made so far, I’m really looking forward to seeing how this team develop over the rest of the season.
  • The Bears continued to lose, giving me my only other totally correct pick of week two where I got it right and the game went how I expected.
  • Finally, I was tempted into picking the Falcons because of an extra half point the Saints were giving up, but it turns out that the Falcons didn’t need these points as they ran out easy winners in a game of a lot of points.

Now, the wonderful thing about the NFL is that it is doing a sterling job of giving us talking points and excitement over the weekends, but boy is it making predicting what is going to happen difficult.

Still it is still early, and even though I will be writing my quarter poll summary in a couple of weeks, there are very few teams that should be truly despondent. However, whilst the Cleveland Browns were never likely to be looking for anything other than progress, and to their credit they are playing tough for the Hue Jackson in his first year, the Bears, Saints, and Jaguars are all in trouble. Only three teams have made the playoffs after starting 0-3 since 1990 when the playoff format was expanded to its current format. The Bears were expected to be rebuilding this year even if the injuries have made things worse than I was expecting, but the Jaguars were hoping to make the next step and push for the playoffs whilst the Saints have a Super Bowl winning quarterback who they have failed to surround with enough talent to push as far as they would expect.

The Jaguars are a particular disappointment as they head over to London to host the Colts this week, and already people are wondering if the London game is going to cost another head coach his job. Despite the warm feelings that everyone who has ever dealt with Gus Bradley seems to have, it is hard to see the Jaguars owner putting up with these results for much longer, and the Jaguars will need to turn things round quickly if Bradley is to keep his job past the end of the season.

And continuing the theme of disappointment, the big news of the last twenty-four hours is that JJ Watt has been placed on injured reserve as he having more problems with his back, and could possibly be gone for the season. I’ll write a little more about this over the weekend as I was already going through the coaching tape of Watt vs the Patriots, but hopefully he can make it all the way back as he is one of my favourite players to watch, but back injuries are hard ones to return from and people who’ve had such problems often say that they never felt the same.

The week five games look to offer plenty of excitement and intrigue, but already the attrition has really started to affect some teams, and it is an all too prescient reminder of how tough a game American Football is. I never want to see a player injured, but I will confess that part of me is curious to see what the Patriots would do if they were forced to play Julian Edelman as their quarterback.

Still, it is time to start looking at this week’s games, starting with tonight’s game that pits Dan’s Dolphins on the road against my beloved Bengals.

Our records are nothing to shout home about, particularly after our disastrous previous week, but I did manage to maintain my three point lead:

Gee:      Week 3   5-11                     Overall   21-27
Dan:       Week 3   5-11                     Overall   18-30

Dolphins @ Bengals (-6.5)

The Bengals lost their first home game of the season, in what has been a tricky open to the season, but if they can get back to 2-2 they can still hope to make a push for the playoffs. It appears that Tyler Eifert is not going to make it back for the game, but Vontaze Burfict comes off suspension and is likely to help the Bengals defence straight away. I think the Browns are going to give teams a tough game at the moment so I’m not reading too much into last week’s result for the Dolphins, but an overtime game before a short week road game is not the best prep, and I’m hopeful that the Bengals can win and hopefully find some rhythm on offence. For one game only I’m borrowing from Dan and picking blindly based on my fandom.

Gee’s Pick:          Bengals
Dan’s Pick:          Dolphins

Football is Back

14 Sunday Aug 2016

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And we are back.

I’m sorry this blog has been quiet over the offseason, but it turns out that publishing a book is a lot of work and so whilst I was following the offseason as usual, there wasn’t much time to delve deeply into free agency or the draft and I didn’t have the time to dive into my usual football/coaching offseason reading.

If you want to take a look at what I was up to, head over to gavinneale.com where I have been writing about the publishing process and getting my first children’s book out into the world.

However, it has been a refreshing break and I am eager to get into the new season and we already have our first round of preseason games and the training camp documentary Hard Knocks has aired its first episode as they follow the relocated Los Angeles Rams.

I will be scaling back my preseason watching this year as I haven’t been able to cope with the number of team’s I’ve tried to follow previously, so I will be focussing as usual on the Bengals, following the Rams’ games in parallel with Hard Knocks, and will be picking an as yet undecided third team, although I’ll need to pick someone soon.

The first episode of Hard Knocks was relatively quiet; we discovered that head coach Jeff Fisher doesn’t want to go 7-9 this season. The fact that this is what his teams often do is possibly not lost on him, but I will be curious to see how they get on in the coming weeks.

Aaron Donald is one of my favourite players (admittedly I do have a lot of those) and we have already discovered that’s he is pretty competitive (hardly a surprise in a professional sportsman) and that he’s pretty damn good at table tennis. The number of players who were having problems with the sun rising in the east and setting in the west was kind of scary, and let’s hope Jared Goff learns quickly as the Rams have bet a lot in their trade to get the number one pick and get him. We also learned just how close quarterbacks have to get to their centres, and the tank top obsession starting centre Eric Kush that featured heavily in the arrival footage.

Moving on from the Rams, I’ll pick up the Bengals first preseason game as that’s the one I have watched so far, and will pick up the others in the future.

The big question coming into this preseason is surrounding the receivers after the loss of both Marvin Jones and Mohamed Sanu.

However, my initial take was that Andy Dalton looked pretty good in his opening series, completing his first five passes as the Bengals drove the ball well and then missed a field goal.

Thankfully this was preseason, as having lost the game 17-16 to the Minnesota Vikings that miss could have proved critical, although Marvin Lewis did use this game to try going for two rather than kicking an extra point at the end of the game that would have tied it.

If the first team offence looked good, with my own real worry being an injury to starting running back Jeremy Hill’s finger, the first team defence was downright scary, producing a pressure, sack, pressure, and a punt for the Vikings first offensive series of the game. Both Michael Johnson and Geno Atkins got in on the sack, with Atkins generating the pressure on the first play of the drive, and Carlos Dunlap getting pressure on the second.

That was pretty much it for the first team defence and we saw the depth play out for the rest of the game. The Vikings found it easier to move the ball, and you could tell that the Bengals have been banged up in the secondary as the quality of coverage did slip earlier than you would have liked in this game, although this was only the first of preseason.

That said, a couple of newer names caught the eye on defence, in particular third round linebacker Nick Virgil who seemed to be in the right place often and stuffed a run either at the line of scrimmage or for a small loss. Second year defensive tackle Marcus Hardison caught my eye with lots of good penetration and seemed to play well next to undrafted free agent rookie David Dean.

The probable star of this game was another undrafted free agent rookie in receiver Alex Erickson who caught a touchdown pass from AJ McCarron shortly before halftime and returned a punt for a touchdown in the fourth quarter to setup the Bengals’ failed two point conversion.

Erickson was not the only receiver fighting for a roster spot to play well, with rookie draft picks Tyler Body and Cody Core both making several catches and looking good in the process, along with a number of practice squad and lower in the depth chart receivers also catching balls.

I said the big question for the Bengals this preseason would be a receiver, and this game demonstrated that there looks to be a lot of good options. Whilst I certainly wouldn’t want to make a pick as to who will make it this early in the preseason, I am feeling a lot happier about the position already and that is a pretty good outcome from the first preseason game.

Onwards then, to the rest of the preseason games as the start of the season finally comes into view.

An Unexpected Mock and the Real Draft

01 Sunday May 2016

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My offseason on the blog has been quieter than I was expecting as it turns out that self-publishing a book is a time consuming business, but I have still been following along as the offseason progressed. It was however, kick-started into gear when the Gridiron Gentlemen were looking for people to take part in their mock draft, and in the spirit of curiosity I offered to lend a hand for the Bengals.

This was always going to be an interesting experience for me as I am not a college football fan, but I have been listening to college/draft analysis podcasts all season and as a Bengals fan I feel like I have a handle on what the team have been doing to have turned around their drafting fortunes. Gone are the days of spectacular busts, and thanks to multiple years of solid pick they have one of the deepest rosters in the league.

So I tried to model my drafting method on the Bengals own, so I planned to draft the best player available, but taking account of the positions involved. I don’t know much of my biases are based on opinion abut the draft and how much is following the Bengals as a fan, but for me in the first round you focus on key positions that are defined by particular physical traits. The only exception to this is if you need a quarterback as that is always the key position, but as the Bengals have two quarterbacks who won games last season, they were not in that market this year. The positions I would focus on in the first round are corners, offensive line tackles, pass rushers, wide receivers, and defensive tackles. Each of these positions are either particularly based around athleticism, or are hard to find as there simply are not that many athletic three hundred pound plus people on the planet. I did not have time to create my own draft board, so I chose one and focussed in on several players ranked around twenty-four, which is where the Bengals were picking.

Obviously I don’t have my own staff of scouts, but a couple of players had got my attention in the range that I was picking. My first target was Josh Doctson, one of the most complete receiving talents in the draft, and one that Robert Mays, ex of Grantland and now of Bill Simmon’s new venture The Ringer, was effusive in his match to the Bengals need at receiver and what he could do opposite AJ Green. Another was Mackenzie Alexander, who is a bit short the Bengals usual preference for corners, but who was something of a favourite of Fran Duffy both for his play, and for a press conference where he not only broke down one receiver that he had been asked about, but then continued through other receivers in the draft.

This is the graphic of the entire first round pick:

Gents_Mock_Draft

With two picks to go before me I liked three players, and Houston Texans took a receiver I didn’t want for my team I knew I would have a decision to make, but a good one and then the Minnesota Vikings took Josh Doctson. I plumped for Mackensie Alexander, knowing his size was less than ideal for the Bengals, but liking how he had played and I was not worried about the lack of interceptions. The Pittsburgh Steelers then took Eli Apple, who was probably a better fit, but it was my pick and I followed my heart at the position the Bengals eventually picked.

The interesting things is looking at the actual draft where the Bengals took corner William Jackson III so I did get the position right, and Mackensie Alexander didn’t get drafted until the second round by the Vikings, but Eli Apple was picked at ten by the New York Giants.

This is where things get a bit strange. I have no problems with people talking about picks they liked and didn’t. However, much like the free agent period, we are already rushing to pick winners and losers in the draft and to grade teams. The truth is however, that we simply do not know who has had a good draft yet. The jury should be out for a couple of years, and even then what is often termed a bust is not always the team’s fault. Injury plays a huge part in the game of football, and no one can predict who will succumb to a major injury and who won’t. You would hope to get at least a solid starter out of your first round pick, you simply can’t have too many of those not work out if you want to be a successful team, but the problem can be as much with expectation as it is with actual play. I always remember the criticism of Justin Smith before he left the team, that he not produced enough sacks for a top five pick. He was however, a three down player who was playing out of position and still had an incredible career, finally gaining the praise he deserved playing as a 3-4 end for the San Francisco 49ers’ defence.

However, the real reason for the drafts prominence is that it gives us fans a shot of hope in the long dark offseason. We can now start to familiarise ourselves with the new players our teams have picked, watch them sign undrafted free agents, and begin the countdown to their first workouts and the things that really matter: the start of training camp, pre-season games, and how the teams are beginning to shape up as the new season approaches. For now however, it is fun to bask in the glow of hope as it is not so long until players start working and the reality of another seasons starts to make itself known.