Tag Archives: Geno Atkins

2018 Pre-Season – Week 3

29 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

18-08-29 Matt Nagy

Image Credit: apnews.com

The accepted general schedule of an NFL pre-season has week three as the dress rehearsal for the starters, which is what I confidently stated last week so it’s nice to be completely tripped up by the second game I watched of the week three slate.

The Chicago Bears hosted the Kansas City Chiefs and Mat Nagy had already called Chiefs head coach to warn him that the Bears would be sitting their starters earlier in the week so whilst I got to see plenty of the Chiefs’ new starter Patrick Mahomes, the Bears’ Mitch Trubisky did not start much to my surprise as I had not seen the news before I sat down to watch the game. The two shining stars for the Bears offence for me was Chase Daniel who looked the best I had seen him all pre-season and seventh round receiver Javon Wims, who caught four balls for one hundered and fourteen yards and a touchdown. There is further good news in that the offence generally looked good in this game and the Bears ran out 27-20 winners to take their pre-season record to 2-2. Wins are not the focus while the teams prepare for the regular season but after losing their first two pre-season games the Bears will appreciate wining two on the bounce and they will have got extended looks at players further down the roster with the approach of Nagy.

The head coach of the Bears argued the decision was about workload and keeping players healthy for the start of the season and reading Nagy’s comments he seems to have thought it through and he’s not the only coach who’s thinking like that as the Rams starters have apparently barely played this pre-season either. The quote that caught my eye was that ‘… if we win that game against Green Bay, trust me, it wasn’t because we didn’t play 25 [snaps today]. And if we lose it, it’s the same thing. I promise you that.’ I find it interesting as whilst I believe that he thinks this is true, the press are going to ask questions if they do lose. The one thing from this that I think should cheer them is that their new head coach is doing things his way and I always think that’s a positive as you’ll find out more quickly if they are on the right track or not. I’m not sure if the Bears’ defence is going to live up to last year’s ranking of fourteenth by DVOA but I do think their offence will be better than twenty-eighth as long as they’re not overwhelmed by injury

As for the Chiefs, whilst Mahomes will not be as efficient as Alex Smith he will make plays with his remarkable arm and I suspect they are in for a very entertaining season. I have a lot of respect for Andy Reid who seems to be a consistently underrated coach even if the criticism of his clock management is warranted. The defence has been overhauled with several pass rushers moving on as well as cornerback Marcus Peters being traded so I’m curious to see if they can step up from their ranking of thirtieth by DVOA. But with Reid’s offence it won’t take much of an improvement to make the Chiefs pretty scary in the AFC, it just depends how ready Mahomes is after sitting for nearly all of his rookie year.

My final game of week three saw the Cincinnati Bengals travel to the Buffalo Bills and Andy Dalton likely be the first opposition quarterback to get a standing ovation from a crowd for his part in the winning play against the Baltimore Ravens last season that saw the Bills finally break their playoff drought.

Unfortunately for the Bills, Dalton looked sharp in what likely will be his final extended run of minutes in the pre-season and started as he meant to go on with a touchdown pass to John Ross of fifty-seven yards as the second year receiver sprinted past the Bills’ defence and then shuffled into the end zone. The Bengals have a lot of players showing flashes in the skill positions and even Tyler Eifort was out there as he tries to make another come back from injury. I still have concerns over the offensive line and the rushing attack has not convinced me yet but I feel like the Bengals have a lot of potential on offence for the coming season.

As for the defence, if the pass rush last year was good it may well be even better this year and Josh Allen spent a lot of time running away from marauding defensive lineman or getting sacked. In fact the Bengals’ defence finished with six sacks and ten quarterback hits. The Bengals also just signed Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap to contract extensions of four and three years respectively. They may not have got the turnovers that have been the focus of the offseason, but it feels like the defence is shaping up nicely and I kept spotting new signing middle-linebacker Preston Brown around the ball in the first half. My concern would be the run defence, which has never been the same since they let Domata Peko walk in free agency two years ago but I think having a more settled rotation might help. Needless to say I shall be watching closely over the coming weeks.

Whilst Josh Allen spent a lot of his game escaping pressure and trying not to turn the ball over, the infamous Nathan Peterman moved the team well and as threw for two hundred yard and a touchdown. There was talk on the commentary that there were some around the Bill who thought Peterman was moving the ball better in practice than injured starter AJ McCarron. After the disastrous five interception half Peterman had last season when he was made starter over Tyrod Taylor (a decision I still find somewhat inexplicable) it is good to see him moving the ball with the offence and given the problems the Bills are having with their offensive line, I do wonder if he might be an early starter to buy Josh Allen some more time to acclimatise to the NFL. Whoever starts, as the Bills continue to overhaul their team it looks like they might be taking a step back this year as they consolidate after Sean McDermott’s first season as head coach. I’m hesitant to write them off completely just because apart from his handling of Tyrod Taylor I was impressed with the job McDermott did in his first season, but after this offseason I think there are too many questions around their roster and in particular the offensive line.

So that’s it, one pre-season game left where the players at the bottom of the depth chart will be fighting to make a roster and then next week we will be looking forward to the start of another NFL season.

I am very much looking forward to it.

Only two more weeks until coaching tape.

2018 Pre-Season – Week 2

22 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Having concentrated on the Cleveland Browns and Hard Knocks over the weekend it’s now time to focus in on the week two pre-season games for the teams I’m following.

Firstly we have the Cincinnati Bengals who travelled on the road to face the Dallas Cowboys and got their second win of the pre-season running out 20-10 winners but I am not getting over excited yet. What won the game for the Bengals was their depth as for a lot of the game they were losing and they didn’t score any points in the first half.

The big question for this team is still the revamped offensive line and the reason that is important is that Andy Dalton’s strength is his quick decision making and ability distributing the ball but he is not able to play like that under pressure and so far the offence hasn’t sparkled. The big pre-season test is coming this week in the third game, but the truth is that as well as a revamped line the offence has a new playbook and calling system so it may well take some time for things to truly bed in. We will know more once the regular season has been under way for a couple of weeks, but Dalton cannot miss the throws he did in this game and hope to succeed. That said, there are flashes from the young receivers and again Jeff Driskel led the quarterbacks in yardage although he did throw an interception, whilst Matt Barkley got himself a touchdown.

The Bengals’ defence also has a new approach as they have a new co-ordinator this year and the big news post the week two game is the surprise release of George Iloka. There has been a lot of talk about the focus being on turnovers this season, and the Bengals clearly have been looking at this position all off-season as they had free agents come in before they picked Jessie Bates III in the second round of the draft, but I don’t think anyone was expecting the Bengals to cut their starting safety.

It really looks like the Bengals are placing a premium on speed at the moment but the strength of the Bengals’ defence looks to be pass rush and they were able to get pressure throughout the game and finished with five sacks and seriously exposed some of the backup Cowboys’ offensive linemen. It’s good to see rookie Sam Hubbard getting a strip sack and Carl Lawson also got a sack picking up from his strong rookie season last year while Jordan Willis (another of last season’s rookies) managed a pair of sacks so the depth of rusher really seems to be there without mentioned Geno Atkins or Carlos Dunlap.

As for the Cowboys, we don’t know how Ezekiel Elliott will play this year but if he plays the full year at something like his best they will be a difficult team to deal with and to me the defence looked good early in this game. They could still be as reliant on Sean Lee as they were last year but fellow linebacker Jaylon Smith looks like he is finally beginning to get back some of the form that made him such a tantalising draft prospect before the horrible knee injury in his last college game. It was a shock to many for Smith to be picked in the second round and he was still hampered last year (wearing a brace to support his foot) but he could be a big addition to the defence this year.

The Chicago Bears travelled to Denver to face the Broncos and they may have conceded the first safety that I have seen this year, but they ran out 23-24 winners to give the Bears their first win in three attempts.

The Bears revolution on offence continues and whilst there is still plenty of work to do I would say they are better than last year. There were several additions in the off-season but the obvious one in their game against the Broncos was tight end Trey Burton, he of the touchdown pass to Nick Foles in the Super Bowl. He lined up in several places round the formation and caught four balls for forty-five yards and a touchdown as well as appearing to be one of Mitch Trubisky’s favourite targets. There were some problems in pass protection, but when you’re the right tackle with no obvious help, pinned behind your own five-yard line, and Von Miller is lurking I think I might have false started too. The problem with pre-season re-surfaces here as you have to really know who is playing for what reasons and with the lack of coaches tape it’s hard to really dig into plays but I do see a step forward for the Bears but they have an incredibly tough division so let’s not get too excited yet.

The Bear’s defence got pressure in the game and came up with three sacks but this is one of the games where multiple lowering the head penalties came up and whilst everyone is adjusting to the new rule (and it is incredibly hard to adjust when the game is played at such a pace) the Bears will have to watch out for this if the officials call the penalty in the same way during the regular season. It doesn’t seem that surprising that rookie Roquan Smith is being eased in slowly after holding out through the start of camp until last week, nor that he didn’t finish practice Tuesday because of a tight hamstring. The Bears will need to get him into football shape before he hits the field and so the fans will have to wait for their first glimpse of the first round pick and it could be the regular season before he makes the field.

As for the Broncos, the offensive line still seems to be a worry but Case Keenum is an improvement on what they had last season at quarterback and it appears that Chad Kelly has overtaken Paxton Lynch on the depth chart. The defence is different, having lost still more players from the Super Bowl winning iteration but it can still be scary and so this could be an improved year for the Broncos but I’m not confident enough to declare that it will be.

Next week is the dress rehearsal games and the most we will see of the starts before the start of the regular season, which feels much closer than it ought to.

I’m sure the coaches feel the same.

2018 Pre-Season – Week 1

15 Wednesday Aug 2018

Posted by in Pre-Season

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

IMG_20180815_175351.jpgThis year I am watching three teams through the playoffs, which nicely replicates what I think will be my regular season viewing without the additional game tape as it is not available in pre-season.

However, for the first full week of pre-season this actually only garnered me two full games to watch as the Chicago Bears played the Bengals in Cincinnati. I will start with my usual caveat that it is always dangerous to read too much into pre-season as coaches are not game planning for their opponents and are working on what they think their team needs sharpening rather than going all out to win the game. This resulted in a close game where I hope that the Bears level is on the up rather than the Bengals are slipping back from last season.

From the Bengals side, Andy Dalton looked sharp enough until he threw an interception when John Ross slipped and fell but it’s too early to know if the changes to the offensive line will work and that they won’t miss Brandon LaFell’s solid veteran presence in the receivers room. What I did notice was there was a lot of run plays called on first and second down in this game , which I hope is just the team trying to turn round a disappointing running game that finished 20th in the league last season by DVOA, although the passing game was actually ranked one place worse. They were hampered by the offensive line last year and there’s still a lot of chopping and changing going on there so frankly I won’t believe any improvements until they last through the first quarter of the season.

As usual Geno Atkins looked like a monster in the middle of the defence and I’m hoping the defence improves with the new coordinator Teryl Austin but the Bengals do look a little thin at corner past their top three. There were also some big run plays given up, but hopefully new middle linebacker Preston Brown combined with an improved defensive tackle rotation will shore things up in Vontaze Burfict’s absence (he’s suspended the first four games for a violation of the PED [performance enhancing drugs] policy) when the regular season hits. Certainly Jordan Evans caught my eye a couple of times in Burfict’s absence in this game.

I never claim to be an expert on special teams but the Bengals have been focussing a lot on speed in the last two off-seasons so hopefully that helps as I’m not sure if fans really know what to expect out of the tweaks to the kick off rules.

As for the Chicago Bears, it took a last ditch drive from third string Bengals’ quarterback Jeff Driskel to deny them their first win of the preseason 30-27. The offence certainly looked more like a current day scheme but opening up with a missed long pass by Mitchell Trubisky had to be an unwelcome reminder of last season. I’m looking forward to seeing more of Trubisky to see how he’s taking to the new scheme but he didn’t really catch my eye in this game. To be fair, as a Bengals fan my eye was drawn more to their side of the ball but the Bears did seem to repeatedly break long runs even if they didn’t do it consistently. I was a little confused by several players on the Bears roster who had the same number but were playing on offence and defence. I was impressed by Ryan Nall who apart from being one of two 35s apparently on the roster, managed to maintain an average run of 10 yards over nine carries, greatly helped by getting through the entire Bengals defence and only being stopped by a desperate last ditch tackle from behind. I actually thought that the Bears’ third string quarterback Tyler Bray (who came over from the Kansas City Chiefs this offseason) looked a little better than Chase Daniels but neither of them were wholly convincing, but they are backups.

The Bears defence did enough to cause the Bengals problems moving the ball, but apart from Kyle Fuller making the interception on the John Ross slip play I mentioned earlier no one particularly caught my eye. I definitely think this will change next week when I can focus in more on the one side of the ball as the Bears play so I hope to come back with more names next week.

So the other game I watched was the Cleveland Browns travelling to the New York Giants. I do wonder how much of defensive coordinator Gregg Williams’s reaction to Saquon Barkely’s thirty-nine yard carry that opened up the game for the New York Giants Hard Knocks will be able to show, but things were mostly positive for the Browns who ran out 20-10 winners. There was a really good catch made bu Jarvis Landry but possibly most hopeful for the Browns is that whilst Tyrod Taylor looked very solid in his limited outing, rookie Baker Mayfield looked to have active feet in a good way and played well. He only completed eleven of twenty passes but he threw for two hundred yards, two touchdowns and no interceptions. How sustainable this is and what Hue Jackson made of the running game I don’t know (but hope to find out) but this was a solid outing on offence.

As for defence, there was that long run and a couple of taunting penalties but it very much looks like the Battle for Ohio games with the Bengals could be competitive this season. If I have an excuse for the first game regarding spotting defensive players, this one proves that the team seemed to be doing the job rather than anyone jumping off the screen, but you miss so much on the TV copy that I definitely might have to pay an early coaching tape trip to the Browns

This post will be going up the day before Hard Knocks airs in the UK so the Americans are ahead of us and there is already a story out there that Hue Jackson punished rookie receiver Antonio Callaway by making him play over fifty snaps in this game after the fact that he was stopped by the police on the 5th of August became known. I’ll leave the details to actual new outlets but it’s a curious way to deal with a player and I’ll know more about how I feel about it once I’ve seen the show, but it definitely feels odd to me.

So on to next week, where we might get to see Bears first round pick Roquan Smith play linebacker now that his holdout has ended, more of the first team starters, and I’m sure more insight on the Cleveland Browns.

Being Thankfull

24 Thursday Nov 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , ,

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

Week Four: Dolphins @ Bengals

02 Sunday Oct 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.

Football is Back

14 Sunday Aug 2016

Posted by in Uncategorized

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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.