Bengals at Jets

This game was a special one for me. Not because of the Bengals’ play, which was unspectacular, but because since I was half in the bag when I watched this game I had to find a way to refresh my memory. I re-watched the game recently with the game rewind on NFL.com. If you’re a football nerd this is AWESOME. It costs 15 bucks for a month but you can watch any game from this year in HD commercial free and it even has full view cameras you can cut to on certain plays as well as the broadcast cameras which allows you to really break down a play. If I could freeze time I’d watch each game 11 times and watch each guy. Maybe 10, I know how it ends for Carson.
Anyway, on to the awards. I went through several winners for this week’s NHF (not his fault) award. Not because so many were deserving but because no one really had a stand out performance. I’m excited about who I landed on.
The third winner for the Not his Fault they Lost award is the future sack tandem Carlos Dunlap and Michael Johnson. Is it a cop out to give it to two players? I kind of feel like it is. Leave me some comments and let me know what you think. Anyway I was originally going to give it to Carlos hands down. He had two sacks, a few batted balls and plenty of pressures. But the more I looked at his great plays I realized a lot of them were caused by Sanchez running from Michael Johnson. MJ had a few batted balls as he normally does with his massive wing span stacked on to his 6’6’’ frame. He was also the one draped all over Sanchez as he threw that awful pick to Rey rey. I didn’t hear this the first time through but while watching the broadcast replay there was a play where MJ went up and knocked down a pass so thoroughly that it hit his elbow. On the Bengals previous possession Carson’s third down pass had gotten knocked down and before MJ got back to the huddle you could hear him yell “We can knock’em down too!” I love player banter. I wish I could watch games with players mic’d up instead of listening to boarder line retarded commentators (not all of them).
These two have been really impressive over the past few games which is exciting. It usually takes pass rushers a few years to marinate before they make an impact as they need to develop more pass rush moves. But these guys are coming in and using their athleticism and prototype 4-3 DE bodies to get some pressure. If they can be more consistent we could have something special in these two.
Early in the game I was considering Peko and Sims. They both had great games as well. Really the whole defense did. You could throw a dart at the defensive depth chart and I could have made an argument for that person getting the award this week. Other than one big play (the brad smith reverse) they hardly gave up anything even with the short fields caused by the turnovers and all the 3 and outs. I thought Sims was a pretty average player until I got a chance to watch him specifically for a lot of the game. This dude gets it done. The Jets O-line is really solid too. He was not just occupying blockers but beating them and making plays. The knock on him so far is that he isn’t a very good pass rusher but he was knocking Sanchez around all night. I haven’t gotten a chance to watch Tank Johnson much but he must be something special to be getting the start over Sims. I hope this guy sticks around for a while.
I also considered Reggie Nelson for the award. He didn’t do anything great but he was more impressive than I expected in run support. He has incredible acceleration and agility. I saw one play vs shitsburg (the Monday night game) where it was just him against a big pulling guard in the hole at the line of scrimmage on a run play. As the guard went to annihilate the Reggie who gave up at least 100 pounds to him he went low and made this little move that took him around the guard at knee level and was able to trip up Mendenhall saving a big gain. I wish I could link you to a video clip of the play but I doubt many people noticed besides nerds like me and the coaches.
After watching the film on this next award winner I was floored by his performance. I’m so glad I made up this irrelevant award because it fits him perfectly. If we can teach this athlete how to play football we may have ourselves a gem.
This week’s Surprisingly it Wasn’t His Fault award goes to Jonathan Wade. This poor guy had to come in on Monday to play on Thursday. Some guys can’t pick up a scheme after a few weeks let alone 3 days. You could tell that the Bengals made it easy on him scheme wise and didn’t use the complex blitzes and man to man blitzes the like to run as much. Still, he played a heck of a game. Sure he got burnt a few times but who doesn’t get cooked by Holmes and Edwards occasionally? He wasn’t nearly the liability I thought he would be.
What really stood out to me about him is what an athlete this guy is. One play he had Braylon Edwards one on one. Braylon ran a double move out and up. Wade bit on the first move and was still able to recover and run with him stride for stride. Say what you want about Edwards but no one ever questioned his speed. On the Brad Smith reverse, a guy who is known for his speed, Wade was running him down from the backside corner position. Another 20 yards and he might have had him which is really impressive.
Wade showed some good football awareness and acceleration when he almost made the play that changed the game. I’m sure we all remember the punt that hit Caldwell’s lid and was recovered by the Jets. Well the play before that caused the punt was Wade jumping the hell out of a quick out. He was OH so close to bringing it down with him. It would have been a tough catch but the Bungs would have had the ball inside the Jets’ 30 yard line instead of the Jets having it on their 15 or whatever it was. That is at least a 10 point swing.
This week’s Not your Fault Young Buck award goes to a guy that could probably get it every week, Jordan Shipley. I love this kid, great hands, crispy routes and surprising speed and quickness. And can we talk about his run after the catch skills? Why the hell is he not returning punts? Old man Cosby hasn’t done anything all year and Shipley was creating returns on his own in the pre season. Picking up the jocks he juked off guys in the pre season would be a full time job. Anyway, Ship had a touchdown and a few clutch receptions as usual but after watching the “Film Room” angles on some of the plays, this dude wasn’t covered all game. If it was zone he found the hole, if it was man he torched his guy. He gets compared to Welker a lot just like all white slot receivers and I agree to an extent. He has great hands like Welker and can be used inside on 3 receiver sets and could play outside in base formations. However Shipley isn’t all that small and has plenty of strait line speed to go with his quickness. On the deep interception where Shipley and T.O. were in the area they were both running flys. Shipley had actually beat his guy by a few steps and Carson just under threw him by a good 10 yards. Unlike T.O. however Ship tried to come back for it but got knocked down by one of the many Jets in the area. If that is Aaron Rogers throwing that ball Shipley has a 60 yard completion.
I have a few more notes after really getting to break down a game. First of all, Carson scares the hell out of me. I don’t know what happened to his cannon but it looks more like a potato gun right now. Watch Cutler or Rogers then watch Carson. He has 0 zip on the ball and can’t hit a deep ball to save his life this year. He is still a good decision maker but he just can’t make some of the throws he used to. On the interception in the end zone where T.O. would have been the 4th guy to catch it if you took them away one at a time, T.O. was actually open. It would have taken a great throw though and Carson did NOT provide that. Would have had to have been a bullet to the back of the endzone but he can’t throw bullets anymore. I’m not saying he’s done. Some great quarterbacks have had really bad seasons around this age. Hell Kurt Warner was cut. Hopefully next year he’ll find his gun and be the Carson of old because he has the people around him to do it now.
I have one last thought. So you know how Chad says he’s always open? He’s actually sort of right. Sure, sometimes his route runs him right into zone coverage but every time they had the film room camera angle on the replay he was open. Maybe not wide open but you could get a ball to him. I hate when people rip on Chad and call him Ochostinko or whatever. To quote the great Michael Jackson, that’s just ignorance. He’s still one of the best and quickest receivers in the world. He’s had some uncharacteristic drops recently but no more than an average receiver. P.S. 2-11 and T.O. and Chad still haven’t combusted. What’s up now every sports pundit ever?
I realize I’m ranting now. Moral of the story, Chad is still one of the best receivers in the game and it is certainly not his fault we lost either.