Especially when the Steelers were running the ball.
At least we know he washes his hands after he uses the bathroom:
Sorry guys, the Bengals are in the Steelers way. Yeah, maybe Peter King and the rest of the media schlobknobs have you ranked higher in the “power rankings” (even though we’re 3-0 in division play, have beaten you, and whipped the snot out of a common opponent that you lost to), but at the end of the day…you’re going to claim that the Steelers play early in the season was the anomoly, a “Superbowl hangover” or whatever…but the Bengals are improving.
Betta watch out, Steel City. Your overconfidence will be your undoing.
Indianapolis is better than either one of us right now.
Quite possibly. Probably. Maybe. One can steal one whenever though. Beauty of the NFL and all that.
Yeah, I know. I’m hoping the cold weather slows them down or something. Brady, Brees, and Manning are scary dudes when they start looking automatic. I like Ben as our Quarterback but he doesn’t have that kind of intimidating presence even when he’s playing at the top of his game. Of course none of those teams has our D either but New Orleans is making big strides there.
Wow, victory by a measly field goal in the closing seconds, and you say overconfidence will be the Steelers’ undoing? I’d suggest that maybe it should be the other way considering that the Bengals have never actually managed to accomplish anything in their history, like maybe win a Super Bowl.
So what does everyone think about the team going into the bye? Injury-wise things aren’t too shabby. Lawrence Timmons is gimpy again but might be ready to roll or at least wobble against the Broncos. I think Keyaron Fox is better than him against the run anyway but we still need Timmons to provide that explosive presence that teams have to account for in the short passing game. Ryan Clark may miss the game too. He almost died last time there when he had to have his spleen removed because the high altitude caused his cells to sickle so I wouldn’t blame him for sitting it out.
Passing Offense - Ben has been as good as anyone could have hoped so far. His numbers are ridiculous and he’s making consistently good reads. He still struggles against cover-2 though as we saw against Minnesota. If the Vikings hadn’t triple covered Hines Ward twice in that game we wouldn’t even have seen the yards we did (on both plays he ran a hook route and Wallace beat the coverage behind the safety). Some of that goes on my favourite whipping boy, Bruce Arians, though. You dont take Heath Miller off the field against cover-2 you put him out in front of the mike back and make them play up or run him through the middle zone to draw a safety. Ben had no deep options and no short options much of the time. Other than that one game though hes looked pretty good and he`s really spread the ball around well.
Other than a few hiccups, the receivers have been pretty good. Theyre reading zones well and doing a great job adjusting to Bens scrambles. Holmes and Ward have had butterfingers a few times but Heath Miller and Mike Wallace have made up for a lot of those deficiencies. It`s almost time to give up on Limas Sweed.
Pass protection has been improving and not just against weaker teams. Starks was dominant against Jared Allen the other day, often without any help. Another guy who played without a lot of help was Hartwig against Kevin Williams. That won`t happen every game but still, that was pretty impressive. Anyone miss Sean Mahan? Me neither.
***Running Offense - ***Parker is hurting but even if he werent he wouldnt be the number one guy right now. If Mendenhall can improve his ball security he will be better than FWP in just about every area. Both guys are willing blockers and good at picking up blitzes but Mendenhall has actually had a couple of pancake blocks. Thats not something youll get with Parker. I like the way Rashard picks his lane and then hits it. Willies too slow to make his read and our guys cant hold their blocks long enough for him to get through. Two guys who have made huge strides are Willie Colon and Chris Kemoeatu. They have improved a lot and that should lead to a lot of running right with Kemoeatu pulling, especially if more teams go to cover-2 to slow down the passing game.
***Defense -***The d-line has played well, surprisingly well considering Aaron Smith is out. One thing you never saw with Smith in though was him getting blocked out of the play. That happens more often than not with the replacements but they hold their guys well enough and Lamarr Woodley is strong enough to handle linemen who get through the line unlike Clark Haggans the last time Aaron Smith was out. Casey Hampton is a rock in the middle. I’ve been watching teams try and move him out with two and sometimes three guys and he’s still controlling the gaps in there. The linebackers owe him a lot.
The linebackers are solid as usual. If there’s one area where it’s easy for a Steelers fan to forget how good we have it it’s here in the LB corps. Everyone minds their gaps against the run, they can all get to the QB. Farrior’s lost a step in coverage I guess but Timmons is good enough in coverage to handle both their zones if he can stay healthy.
I think the secondary has been very good. William Gay has been getting ripped on at the Steelers boards but Lebeau/Tomlin are all about the bend but don’t break and that means Gay has to play soft. McFadden played the exact same last year. I guess everyone forgets that. Other than getting trucked by Adrian Peterson last week Gay hasn’t missed many tackles and really who can blame him for not being able to tackle AP by himself? Everyone knows what Troy Polamalu brings to the defense but Ryan Clark is making plays every game, knocking balls loose and manning the deep zone very well while still being effective in run support. Probably the biggest weakness on the team right now is the secondary depth.
I won’t say much about Special Teams because I know fuck all about it. Sepulveda kicks it a mile and Stefan Logan has at least taken care of the ball well. That’s good enough for me.
We won by three, but it wasn’t a field goal, it was a TD and a 2 point conversion.
Why did you lose to the Bears?
Hey, not all the refs are in our back pocket!
yet
:D:D:D:D
The check is in the mail?
OK. Steelers’ bye week. But I need to root while I’m watching. You guys who follow the game more than I: Who do we need to lose this week? (just so I know who to root for.)
Cincinnati is not playing this week and the Browns are out of it already, so that leaves only the Ravens to worry about. They are playing Denver at 1:00. While I wouldn’t mind seeing Denver lose, I certainly don’t want the Ravens to win. A loss puts them at 3-4, which all but puts them out of it barring a Pittsburgh collapse (or, more likely, a Bengals collapse). I can live with that.
Yeah, I’ll find it easy to root against the Ravens. Although Denver is undefeated, so I guess a loss there won’t break my heart.
Wow, the Steelers must have even officials in other games in their pockets… That was a blatant hold against Mason that they didn’t call.
They just got the uniforms/venues confused. Rooney got on the red phone and corrected the error. That ref’s family has already disappeared, and he’d better not go home. Gulag awaits.
He held James Harrison. That’s why there wasn’t a call. James Harrison gets held every single play, including ones he’s not even in, and never gets a call.
Well, Pittsburgh’s win against Minnesota looks much better now, doesn’t it?
It was nice of the schedule makers to put the Ravens against The Vikings and Broncos ahead of us too so they’d be beat up already when we got to them. The Rooneys must be filthy rich I tells ya.
I think we can beat the Broncos but the last time we faced them Ben and/or Arians made the decision to throw at Champ Bailey a lot. It didn’t go well. I hope we’ve learned from that little mistake. The Broncos are playing a more aggressive defense this year which actually will help us I think. When teams play weird zone coverages against us Ben gets slow to make the reads and hangs on to the ball a lot. The Vikings did that to him last week and I noticed the same look on Rodgers’ face a lot today although he fared pretty well overall.
Harrison did get a call in the Vikings game last week and the Browns game the week before. The one in the Vikings game wasn’t the usual arm looped around the neck hold against Harrison.
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