At Seattle

Who Dey? Can you believe how many games we've won already? I re-watched the game last night and I've got a ton of stuff so I'm going to just jump right in.

I'll start off with a couple shout outs to guys I saw playing well that you may not have noticed. Chris Presley, our starting fullback, has looked really good so far. He almost always finds a guy to get a hat on and does a great job of not only popping the defender on contact, but sustaining his block. The run game wasn't very good but he was certainly not the problem. Even caught a first down pass to boot.

Cedric Peerman has been noticeably good on special teams. I was happy to see him get some snaps on offense, though unfortunately no touches. A few times he was lined up at running back with Leonard in as a fullback. Cool personnel change up but never really provided anything.
I'd love to see Peerman get 2-3 touches per game. He's fast and he's elusive, he's active every game for special teams so you might as well let him contribute on offense like they do with Andrew Hawkins (baby hawk).

The tight ends played well this week in Gresham's absence. Donald Lee had some really clutch catches and didn't show up in the run game (which is a good thing for tight ends). Cochart has yet to really contribute as a pass catcher but I think we may have found another Reggie Kellyesque type tight end. Certainly not to that extent yet, but I'm very impressed with his blocking, particularly pass protection. He did a great job of keeping guys off of Dalton and sustaining those blocks for a ridiculously long time for a tight end.

The D tackles stood out to me as well. It seems Like Geno Atkins gets at least 2-3 plays per game where you say "wow". He could be a budding pro bowl player. Then again he could be at his ceiling. But he's so quick and his motor is so strong, he makes splash plays in both the run and pass game with some regularity. Pat Sims also looked pretty good, especially against the run. I saw him split a double team like man and make a play on Lynch that was very impressive. Peko was good as always. I didn't realize how much DT Fanene and Rucker actually play, even on early downs. Those two are true defensive linemen. Not tackles, not ends. Just put them wherever you want and that'll make plays.

I paid particular attention to the defense while watching through the game again. I noticed a lot more interesting alignments and personnel than I realized they ran. The Bengals base D is a 4-3 but it still gets pretty exotic which I think is really cool. Here is some neat stuff I noticed.

Because of match-up problem type guys, particularly TEs that run like WRs, some teams have adopted a "Big Nickel" personnel group. The Bengals are one of those teams. This week they used 4 DL 2 LBs and 2 CBs and 3 S quite a bit to combat the 3 wide no huddle the Seahawks were using.
They used Nelson at SS, Gibril Wilson at FS (did you know he was on the team? I almost forgot too) and Crocker in the slot. I haven't been a Crocker fan but he played really well this week.
Its because of Crocker that they can make this quite versatile. He blitzes fairly well, he can man up on lesser slot receivers and does an adequate job in run support. Not great at anything but not bad at anything either.

Anyway, that is probably the least interesting thing they did. At different times I saw both Peko and Geathers standing up over the A gap kinda milling around the line of scrimmage before the snap while still having 4 guys in a 3 point stance. I saw Michael Johnson, one of our best pass rushers, dropping into coverage more than a few times. I think that experiment with him at SAM backer his rookie year has paid off in versatility at this point. He's athletic and long enough to not be a liability in coverage as long as they don't ask too much of him.
There was one play specifically where they brought 7 of 8 guys on the line and the only guy that dropped off was Johnson. I would NOT expect that if I was an offensive lineman.

Last thing I noticed is that while Reggie Nelson still makes occasional mental errors, he is bringing a lot to this defense right now. He saved the touchdown on the last play of the half. He read run quickly and was the only guy available to stop Lynch from getting in.
I think my favorite thing they do with Reggie, and they've been doing this a bit over the past few weeks, is blitz one of the outside corners and instead of playing zone behind it like most teams do, they have Nelson come down and man up on the WR. When I've seen it the QB and WR read the corner blitz and throw hot, only to have an athletic Reggie Nelson drop the WR where he stands for short or no gain. He started a few games at corner for Jacksonville before they sent him over here and he has the man to man skills to do it.

The one sour note I saw on offense after re-watching was the guard play. Both Williams and Livings were just awful in pass protection. The tackles, backs and TEs held up pretty well but the guards just couldn't handle their guys one on one. I wouldn't be upset if the Bengals spent high draft picks on 2 guards this year because both of them are a problem in the pass game. Which hurts me to say because I love Bobbie Williams. That being said, they were both decent in the run game.

Quick rundown of how Dalton played.

Overall he had an efficient day. He did an excellent job of sliding around in the pocket and bailing out at the right time when there was pressure. Specifically on the long TD to Green. I'm confident that would have been a sack if Carson was still our QB. But Andy bought some time, stepped up and threw a good enough deep ball. Another 2 yards would have been nice because AJ smoked Earl Thomas and a short throw let the safety catch up and contest the catch.

Quick side note, Earl Thomas is awesome. If that were any of like 95% of the other safeties in the league that play wouldn't have been close. A.J. had him set up and Earl didn't start to flip his hips until Green was even with him and heading down field. Thomas got his direction changed REAL quick and kept up as well as anyone could there.

The first INT was on Dalton, AJ and bad luck. Green was well covered so AJ probably shouldn't have thrown it up there but with AJ on the other end, its usually worth a shot. AJ and the defender went up for the ball an if that safety isn't in the perfect spot it falls harmlessly to the ground.
The second pick though was all on Dalton. A.J. was goooooone. Had like 3 steps on the dude and Andy just strait under threw that ball. Hopefully in time his deep ball placement will get a little better as it seems he still doesn't realize how fast this NFL athletes are yet. I've seen him throw farther so I don't think he was maxing out on this throw.

Other than that, he missed about 2 wide open throws yet still had a really good day all in all.

Whew, sorry for being long winded. Anyway, awards.

This week's Not His Fault They Lost Award goes to: Carlos Dunlap...again...
Don't blame me for the repetition, blame him for continuing to pop off the screen when I re-watch the game. He had the sack, sure, but he dominated the man across from him all day. He was really impressive in the run game especially. He single handedly blew up at least 3 runs and I was even more impressed with him standing up Carpenter, who is a big man, several times.
The line-up can say whatever it wants, Carlos is the starting LDE for this team and is already well above average in this league.

I had a hard time with the Surprisingly It Wasn't His Fault They Lost award this week. It had more to do with Seattle not being scary anywhere than my faith in the Bengals positions. It was between:

Nate Clements: I just don't think he's very good and I knew he was going to get Sidney Rice occasionally on his side. However I'm not sure a pass was completed against him all game. Leon got picked on more than him, however that could be a product of Zimmer protecting Clements.

Chris Crocker: Talked about this before. Good game for a player I don't trust.

Brandon Tate: He has been far too dancy so far. He has been ok, but I think with the blocking he has gotten he should have had a better year. When Pacman got his return and just slammed it into a seam, you saw what happened. He would have scored if he hadn't blown a wheel (hamstring) making a guy miss earlier in the return. He'll be ok by the way, he didn't literally blow out his hammy. Will probably be out week or two.

But glory hallelujah, he finally got a punt return and just went. He took off like he can, found a seam (thank the blockers Brandon!), shook a tackle and scored.

So not because he had the best performance, but because I had the least faith in him, Brandon Tate gets the Surprisingly Not Your Fault They Lost award for this week.

Seems silly that it's the not your fault they lost award while we're kicking this much ass doesn't it?

Anyway, skipping the Not your fault they lost young buck award this week because the whole GD team is made up of young bucks. That and I've already rambled on way too long.

Thanks a TON to anyone who read this far. I don't know if anyone actually reads these but big thanks to anyone that does.

Till next week, (please pardon this part, but I'm far too excited about how well we've done)
Who Dey! Who Dey! Who Dey think gonna beat them Bengals? Noooooooody!