In my last post I talked at length about the primary cause of the Bengals woes this season, the run defense. I went on to say that I was worried such lackluster play was going to haunt them against the Steelers. Once again, I hate being right.

The Steelers ran for 221 net yards on the ground Sunday, while Roethlisberger could only lead Pittsburgh to a mere 83 net passing yards. The Steelers big yard gainer on the day once again proved to be Willie Parker, who racked up 131 yards on only 18 carries. Adding Parker to the rushing table from my last post, it now looks like this:

Game	Top RB	Carries	Yards	Average	@Cleveland	R. Droughns	12	78	6.5
Minnesota	M. Bennett	3	36	12.0
@Chicago	T. Jones	27	106	3.9
Houston	D. Davis	19	81	4.3
@Jacksonville	F. Taylor	24	132	5.5
@Tennessee	C. Brown	18	84	4.7
Pittsburgh	W. Parker	18	131	7.3
	Total	121	648	5.4

I realized I’ve harped on the inability of the run defense to do its job, and I think for good reason. After I wrote the last post however, I planned to switch it around and look not at how the Bengals have lost or how they could lose in the future, but instead focus on how they’re winning their games. I wanted to dig deep into the offensive stats and put together an essay on the accomplishments of the passing game along with the running attack, and show how that side of the ball is winning the war against the opposition. I never had the time I needed to construct that post, however.

After last Sunday against the Steelers, I’m glad I never found a chance to write. Now that post that I never got around to is much easier to start and finish. So I present to you, loyal GBSB readers, the “How the Bengals Win” post, in its entirety:

They play crappy teams.

And there you have it. The entire post only needs four words a period. They don’t get much easier to write than that, and there isn’t too much more to say.

I will add however, in an effort to support my simple, yet incredibly profound, argument, that a couple of posts ago I went through the four opponents the Bengals had faced up to that point. I concluded that we’d only beaten the bottom tier of the NFL with the victims then consisting of Cleveland, Minnesota, Chicago, and Houston. Those four teams currently have a combined record of 7-17. Each of them have losing records save only the Bears, whose 3-3 mark is thanks to three wins against the Lions, Vikings, and Ravens–not exactly a ringing endorsement of talent and skill, is it?Since Week 4 Cincinnati has gone 1-2 beating only 2-5 Tennessee. Toss the Titans into the pile and we’ve got five wins against a combined record of 9-22. That certainly doesn’t bode well for the rest of the year, now does it?

To belabor the point, the pair of losses were against the Jacksonville Jaguars and now Pittsburgh Steelers, of course, both of whom have records of 4-2. It seems that the verdict is clear, the jury is unanimous, and there isn’t any hope of an appeal.

The Bengals can easily climb over the bottom rungs of the NFL ladder, while we’re tripped up by any team better than average.

So enjoy the next two weeks, Bengals fans. November 20 is going to suck.

Although this season has undoubtedly been a success compared to seasons of yore, the Bengals still have a long way to go before they deserve to win the AFC North. While the loss to Jacksonville was somewhat unexpected, last week’s blowout by Pittsburgh was downright humiliating. The Bengals’ defense, of course, failed once again to stop the rush (as predicted by JANET).

What do you get when you combine musician Bootsy Collins and the Cincinnati Bengals?

If you didn’t answer “a couple of really funny rap songs,” you obviously haven’t seen this.

A sample of the lyrics:

If you don’t really know about us no more
This ain’t like the Bengals - I was here in 2004
Ain’t nothing mediocre about the way we play
We’re trying to go to Detroit, trying to have it our way

Direct download:

- Bigg Cats (5:31)
- Fear Da Tigers (2:57)

It goes without saying that I can fully get behind any song that has the chorus of “WHO-dey! Fear the tigers!” Still, the hubris behind producing these modern-day Icky Shuffles is amazing. Let’s hope the team can back it up.

I’m getting tired of being right.

In my very first post here at GBSB I told of my worries that the Bengals run defense was still very weak. On September 21, when our Bengals sat at 2-0, I bestowed this pearl of wisdom upon the Internet:

The Browns…managed to pick up a good running back in Ruben Droughns. Who…ran over the defense for 78 yards on only 12 carries. That’s 6.5 yards a touch…It also didn’t improve in Week 2 when Michael Bennett touched the ball three times and picked up 36 yards…I would argue [that] the biggest defensive problem from last year remains unsolved.

Here’s what the rushing defense has accomplished this year:

Game	Top RB	Carries	Yards	Average	@Cleveland	R. Droughns	12	78	6.5
Minnesota	M. Bennett	3	36	12.0
@Chicago	T. Jones	27	106	3.9
Houston	D. Davis	19	81	4.3
@Jacksonville	F. Taylor	24	132	5.5
@Tennessee	C. Brown	18	84	4.7
	Total	103	517	5.0

As the numbers plainly show, when totaling up the big yardage gainers for the past six games our Bengals are getting burned by each team’s top back for five yards per carry. Take in to account all of the rushers over this year and the defense ranks 21st in the league with an average of 4.9 yards given up per attempt. Keeping your opponents average in the three’s is considered good. The low to mid-fours means you could stand to improve. We’re sitting essentially at five yards every single time someone takes off down the field with the ball in their hands. This is not how you succeed in the NFL.

Why am I going that extra mile to harp on this now? One look at the schedule should tell you all that you need to know. This week the Steelers visit Paul Brown Stadium, and they bring with them 12th rated rushing offense in the NFL.

The deeper you look into the Steelers rushing stats the scarier the game starts to look for Cincinnati. After two big 100+ yard games by Willie Parker he has started to cool off a little bit, but thanks in large part to his newfound success the top running back in each of Pittsburgh’s first five games averages 4.3 yards per carry (Parker was the top rusher in four of those five games). Cincinnati has already allowed a pair of runners to hit the century mark with two more in the eighties and a third only missing that milestone by two yards.

After the performance in Jacksonville and the stats resulting from that game, coupled with the rest of the season so far, I’m worried that the Bengals are turning in to the Colts of last year. The Cincy offense is clicking and ranked third in the league, while the defense is ranked 16th in the NFL, dragged down by that 21st rated rushing defense paired with the 15th best passing D. I make the comparison to the Colts of 2004 because they finished that year with the third ranked offense in the NFL, while their defense was only ranked 29th. We all know how that movie ends.There is one other reason why I’m trotting out last year’s Indianapolis Colts, and that is to warn every Bengals fan out there about what is to come. Over the next 11 weeks you’re going to read a lot of stories and articles, hear quite a bit of babbling on sports talk radio, and see more than one television segment devoted to the incredible offense that Cincinnati is fielding every week. If you’ve been paying attention you know this has already started.

Commentators, analysts, and fans are going to be gushing with praise for everything related to the Bengals offense. Carson Palmer is the next Peyton Manning. Chad Johnson can stand along side Moss, Owens, and Harrison as the league’s best receivers. Rudi Johnson is an unstoppable freight train that proves getting rid of Dillon was the right move. All this and more is going to overwhelm your senses for the rest of the NFL season.

Do not believe the hype.

The Bengals are, right now, better than average. We’ve shown we can beat up on the little teams in the NFL, but Jacksonville exposed our squad as one that is maybe not quite as good as their record would lead you to believe. Cincinnati will likely finish the year with a strong record thanks in large part to their decidedly weak schedule, but don’t allow your hopes to soar too high quite yet.

Just ask your nearest Colts fan.

It’s been a rough week. The Bengals, after coming off a hilariously lackluster performance against the Texans, were trounced by Jacksonville, a team they should have easily beat. On the homefront, my wife and I had our first child a few days ago and my life since then has been filled sleepless nights and diaper-filled days.

Fortunately, I was able to take some time today to sit down today and watch my first Bengals game with my new son. Now, there’s lots of things I could say about today’s game. The defense was inept. The offense didn’t produce enough. Jacksonville plain ran them over. But none of those things really seem important now.

For once, I’m actually giddy with joy about the future of the franchise. When I was growing up as a boy in Cincinnati, the Bengals were perennial losers, the punchline to the joke that was the AFC. Now they might actually be contenders for the Super Bowl this year. Even if they don’t go all the way this year, they will certainly be better next year and the year after that. They’re a young team and they have a solid coach who can only get better from here.

A lot of my friends talk about how they worshipped Joe Montanna or John Elway when they were boys. Being a Bengals fan, I never really had any heroes to look up to like that. It brings a smile to my face to think that maybe, just maybe someday my son will look at Carson Palmer the same way that those boys looked at their football heroes.

Who knows how this team will ultimately turn out, but for once I hold out hope for the future of the Bengals.

(your regularly scheduled, hate-filled poster will return next week - Niko)

“Last night, I felt like I wished I wasn’t Chad Johnson.. Last night, I felt like I wished I wasn’t good. I had to keep from crying on the sideline because I wished I wasn’t that good because I wouldn’t be getting the attention I’m getting. I just want to catch the ball, that’s it.

“Everyone considers me a game breaker. One play, I can change the entire game. All I want is the opportunity to do that. That’s it. Now if you give me those opportunities and I don’t get it done, I can’t say nothing. When I don’t get the opportunity, I’ve got to be able to voice myself here.

“I’ve done enough here to where I think I should be able to do that, for real. Think about it. I’m not a bad guy. I’m not a knucklehead. I do everything the right way.”

More here.

If you’ve been following along over the past couple of weeks you know that I’ve been continually asking the question, “How good are the Bengals?” My answer has always been some version of, “We don’t know yet.” After getting past the bottom rungs of the NFL in the first four weeks of the season we couldn’t really make any definitive judgments. As I’ve said, we’d have to wait until Week 5 at Jacksonville.

Well folks, Week 5 is upon us, and it’s time to find out just how good this team is.

I must admit though, that this game is not quite going to be the test that I had hoped for. Like most of the football analysts going in to the 2005 season, I thought Jacksonville would be a team that should improve on its 2004 record of 9-7 and make the Playoffs. After four weeks of games and a 2-2 record however, that may not come to pass.

Jacksonville’s pair of wins have come against the Seattle Seahawks and the New York Jets, and neither of these teams has done much to impress anyone this year. The Seahawks remain the same head scratching team that they were last year, winning against the Falcons and spanking Arizona, but then losing to Jacksonville as well as the Redskins. The Jets meanwhile are simply a mess at 1-3 as Pennington has been hurt since apparently the start of the season, and is now out for the year along with their second string quarterback.

On the other side of the ledger, the losses that the Jaguars have suffered have come against the undefeated Colts and the 3-1 Broncos. While Indianapolis has fattened up on the likes of Baltimore, Cleveland, and Tennessee, they have at least looked good doing it. That Colts defense looks real pretty on the highlight reel so far, but we’ll wait until they face some high-powered offensive competition before we declare their troubles from last year to be a thing of the past.

Denver meanwhile, looks as though it might be one of the better teams of the year. Its 3-1 record has come by beating the Chargers, Chiefs, and the afore mention Jaguars. Both the Chargers and Chiefs now sit at 2-2, but San Diego has recently looked more like the team they were last year. Over the last two weeks LaDainian Tomlinson has remembered how to run, and Drew Brees remembered that LT could catch passes, as well. That information wasn’t relayed in time for the Bronco game, however. Unlike Denver though, Kansas City has only won against the Jets and Raiders, so their .500 record may be hiding something.

So what does all this studying of the Jaguars’ record, who they beat and who those teams beat, who beat them and the caliber of those teams, mean anyway? What we’re trying to ascertain is the pecking order of the NFL, and where our Bengals fit in to the ranking. So far all we can say is that Cincinnati has at least risen above the rabble of the lower classes, and not much more.

One of my favorite football sites out on the web is Cold, Hard Football Facts, a site that tries to give the pigskin facts that are based on what the stats and numbers tell them. One of the reasons I enjoy CHFF is that they have managed to organize and codify something I’ve thought for years. Namely, that a good NFL team winning against another good team is going to matter more than anything else.

At CHFF they call this their Quality Wins Quotient, and it’s something I’ve come to put a lot of stock in. This is why each week as the Bengals racked up wins against the Browns, Vikings, Bears, and Texans, I’ve said that we shouldn’t be shouting, “Who-dey!” quite yet. It was all about Week 5, and as the exercise we just went through has pointed out, Week 5 isn’t quite holding the significance it once did.

Jacksonville doesn’t associate with the inferior squads of the NFL as represented by Cleveland, Minnesota, Chicago and Houston, that much is clear. However, they are not the Playoff lock that most thought them to be. So then, what does a win against Jacksonville mean for Cincinnati?

What I think it means is that we’ve got one of the NFL’s better teams on our hands. With a 5-0 record it would take a miracle collapse for them to finish a third year at 8-8. We could start seriously discussing at least a ten win season with Cincinnati only needing to go a game under .500 the rest of the way to pull it off. We could also begin to whisper the idea that the AFC North Championship might be taken away from Pittsburgh, and talk openly of being able to beat the Steelers straight up.

A loss however, makes things a bit more complicated. Looking at the Bengals schedule it’s not out of line to talk about seven wins from Week 6 on. The Cincy schedule is fairly weak, so they could lose Sunday night and still finish 11-5. That record would be deceiving, though. Three of those losses could be at the hands of the NFL’s elite teams with a pair of games against the Steelers and one with the Colts. 11-5 will make the Playoffs, but the weak schedule means we should all plan on an early exit from the postseason.

So we’re faced with a final decision. By 11:30 PM Sunday night we’ll either have a mediocre Bengals team, or a good Cincinnati squad we can all start shouting, “Who-dey!” about. That will be something to make us all want to be like Chad and do the Ohio Riverdance.