Remembering Chris Henry.....

[SunsetBengal]

(12-18-2020, 08:31 PM)fredtoast Wrote: In 2009 the Bengals entire offense collapsed when we lost Chris Henry and his ability to stretch the field.

Through their first 8 games the Bengals had faced 4 top 10 passing defenses and their 8 opponents averaged  a 12.8 ranking in pass defense.  But the passing offense was still relatively productive.  It ranked 10th in passing tds, 13 in pass efficiency rating, and 18th in yards per games.

But we lost Chris Henry to injury in that 8th games.

Over their final 8 games the Bengals only faced 2 top ten pass defenses and their 8 opponents averaged a 17.1 ranking in pass defense.  But since we had zero receiving threat from TEs or RBs they were able to double Chad and shut down our passing game.  Despite playing much weaker pass defense our passing game ranked 30th in yards per game, 27th in passing tds, 21st in pass efficiency rating.  Over those final 8 games our #2 and #3 WRs (Caldwell, Coles) averaged 21.5 receptions for 223 yds (10.4 avg) and 1 td each.  Neither one of them could even make plays against single coverage.

Also over those last 8 games we did not beat a single team that finished better than 5-11.

That is partly on Bratkowski, his plan never included much passing to backs or TEs.  As I remember, in limited opportunities Cedric Benson proved to be a very capable receiver.