Fox Sports Wrote:Both teams played to their strengths (and weakness) -- Kirk Cousins threw the ball a lot for a ton of yards. The Redskins failed to take advantage of early domination though. The Bengals used their efficient offense to score four times in four trips to the red zone, Dalton was mistake free (until that fumble) and the dirty D leveraged its legendary unsporting play to affect officiating in a way that was beneficial to Cincinnati's cause. Allow me to lay out my case:

When it comes to on-field antics, the Bengals are the dirtiest team in football. Hands down. They're cheap, they're malicious, they have little regard for the safety of opponents. If there were Nobel Prizes in football hostility, Cincinnati would be joining Bob Dylan in Stockholm, cheekily requesting that the presenter put on a helmet to keep with the theme of the award and then having Vontaze Burfict leap out from behind the curtain to apply a helmet-to-helmet hit while Pacman Jones looks for another official to plead his case to.

But this year, with more eyes on Cincinnati than ever after last year's playoff debacle (featuring the aforementioned Misters Burfict and Jones), the dirtiness may be helping. I may be right. I may be crazy. But it just might be the football lunatics who are running the asylum. Hear me out.

1. You could pick any game the Bengals have played this year and say the same things, but since we're all about the London tie, let's look at a few things that happened during that bizarre 75 minutes of football. The following is a list of things Bengals players did at various points in the game:

Trying to rip off the helmets of runners. Late hits on the quarterback. Late hits on ballcarriers. Unnecessary hits on players without the ball. Helmet-to-helmet hits. All sorts of in-pile shenanigans. Blatant holding. Light head slapping at the start of pass routes. A barely restrained desire to go all XFL on a punt returner who'd already called fair catch. Trying to sweep the arm, reverse "Karate Kid" style. Shoving guys who were going out of bounds with the power you apply to a tackling dummy on the first day of camp. Mugging offensive players after clearly holding them. Diving on a quarterback who was kneeling in the center of the field.

And those are just the ones I saw while I wasn't looking for any. Had I been actively searching, there surely would have been more. Some of these moves are legal. Some are not. Some are smart. (If you've already committed defensive holding, make sure that guy doesn't catch the ball.) Some are silly. (Avoiding someone who's called fair catch is just about the easiest thing to do on a football field.) But they all build to the same cause, which has a two-pronged effect:

a.) By setting a tone of "mean" football, Cincinnati makes it very difficult for officials to call their games correctly. It's like LeBron James and traveling. When you break the rule so much, the rule loses all meaning. Refs know more about football than you or I ever will. But they're also humans who know about keeping up appearances. You can't call the Bengals for everything or else it will look like you're singling out the Bengals. So, you call the big stuff. The Burfict late hits. Rolling into a quarterback at the knees. Throwing down an opponent after a play by grabbing his legs and making him look like a cartoon character who hit a patch of ice. (This is like LeBron taking five steps. You have call it sometimes.) But that leaves a lot of other penalties uncalled. There were at least a dozen examples from Sunday (and probably more than a hundred this season), but the play pictured at the top of this post, where Shawn Williams almost Poltergeisted Jamison Crowder's head with a facemark at the goal line, went uncalled.

I don't think it's a conscious decision by an official to see a penalty and not call the foul, mind you. The official in the screenshot above had about three other things to look at, too. It's just that when things become routine, you're more apt to let it go. You talk yourself out of it. "Was that a late hit? Nah, it looked like he might have still been in bounds." Serving as a sort of confirmation: Cincinnati ranks in the middle of the NFL in unnecessary roughness penalties and only has one unsportsmanlike conduct call (the latter can include celebration penalties, so it's not necessarily the best gauge). There's no way there are 10 teams that more unnecessarily rough than the Bengals. There's not even one.

b.) Anyway, all this drives opponents crazy. CRAZY. And if you're a highly combustible player prone to outbursts, then you, Josh Norman, play right into Cincinnati's hands. The All-Pro corner was flagged for five illegal hands to the face penalties on Sunday, most against A.J. Green, both because Green was burning him and because, I believe, Norman's chippiness increased as his opponent's did. But his looked more out of place on a defense more prone to fouls of the stupid, not dirty, nature. (Any by "opponent's" I mean the Bengals defense. Another beautiful part of this "plan" is that Dalton and Green are crystal clean players who become even more righteous by comparison.)

In other words, Cincinnati is no New England. But the Pats wouldn't need to do this. Dirty play is the last recourse of a desperate team.

I put some paragraphs that i thought were interesting, here is the full article: http://www.foxsports.com/nfl/story/how-the-bengals-used-dirty-play-to-tie-the-redskins-and-stay-alive-in-2016-103016

"Dirtiest team in the NFL" Give me a break. It is like were the target now. People are pointing at us saying, "see that team? Dont be like them!"

Man, the media hates us.

"Cincinnati ranks in the middle of the NFL in unnecessary roughness penalties and only has one unsportsmanlike conduct call (the latter can include celebration penalties, so it's not necessarily the best gauge). There's no way there are 10 teams that more unnecessarily rough than the Bengals. There's not even one."


That's the best part of the whole article. It proves itself wrong by showing that stat. Even if the refs are "used to seeing it" you would think we would still get called MORE than every team. Unless you're trying to say that the refs don't get "used to seeing it" on other teams, only when it's orange and black.... lol

If we had a super bowl win or two, nobody would give two s**** about our "dirty play" (see: Ravens and Steelers)... In fact it may even be praised as "tough, hard-nosed football". It's amazing how bitchy the media has become towards us after that playoff game.

Read the comments below the article. The author lives right outside DC. And the comments are skewering him....

WTF was that? You know off the bat he's a moron when he says Andy was mistake free until the fumble. Interceptions don't count? And all XFL on a punt returner? He barely hit him and was correctly flagged.

(11-01-2016, 09:04 AM)Sled21 Wrote: Read the comments below the article. The author lives right outside DC. And the comments are skewering him....

Figured as much without even looking.....what a homer.

Most undisciplined team? Perhaps. Although I'd think that would go to the Raiders this year with all of their penalties.
Dirtiest team? No.

There is one rough, dirty player (Burfict) and a hothead (Jones), but to label the whole team dirty is completely wrong.

My God, I woke up and found out I've been rooting for Darth Vader and didn't know it. Or if it were up to this media fellow,  I must have known it all along and I am secretly an evil tyrant who snickers when Norman is punching AJ Green in the face. I'm sure AJ Green must have done something quite nasty to Norman for him to act that way.

I gotta make sure I've got this all down right.

1. Dennard must have looked back already knowing that the returner was going to signal for a fair catch, except that the signal occurs while Dennard is looking back for the ball. Then Dennard realizes what happened, but at the last second and barely touches the returners who doesn't even fall down. And this is egregious.

2. Norman punches AJ in the face 5 times he is flagged for this is because of the Bengals defensive players, who aren't even on the field the same time Norman is. And since the refs "can't call every foul" Norman must have hit him more than that. Of course, none of this is Norman's doing at all. He's a mere victim of the Burfict Reputation.

Yes, this writer makes so much sense.

The media is bought, even Fox. What spinsters.

It's an interesting theory about why officiating is terrible in THAT GAME. But...officiating has been terrible in most games.

I feel like poor officiating is a big threat to the NFL and losing fans. They created a lot of judgement calls with personal fouls and the play moves so quick that individuals have trouble with them...and now they are getting a lot of questionable calls.

(11-01-2016, 10:48 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: It's an interesting theory about why officiating is terrible in THAT GAME. But...officiating has been terrible in most games.

I feel like poor officiating is a big threat to the NFL and losing fans. They created a lot of judgement calls with personal fouls and the play moves so quick that individuals have trouble with them...and now they are getting a lot of questionable calls.

Every league has terrible officiating the NFL isnt alone in this.

(11-01-2016, 11:43 AM)J24 Wrote: Every league has terrible officiating the NFL isnt alone in this.

Granted. But the NFL is far and away the worst. They should be thankful they aren't soccer officials. I hear some fans in Europe occasionally shoot officials who screw up this often.

(11-01-2016, 11:47 AM)Pat5775 Wrote: Granted. But the NFL is far and away the worst. They should be thankful they aren't soccer officials. I hear some fans in Europe occasionally shoot officials who screw up this often.

I do agree with this. But i dont think they saw Norman holding green the entire time

Every team needs a story.

Ours was the Bungals, and it was how nepotism in the NFL was bad for football, that it led to an inept franchise where no decent coach would go and even someone like a defensive genius like Dick LeBeau couldn't win. Why? Because everything got bungaled.

But then... we won. We won a lot. We won against powerhouses, we won against favorites, we won against old rivals. We put ourselves in contention more often than not over a decade. We won with good players, we won with scrubs and fourth round picks. We won with a franchise — oh wait, we traded him and everyone laughed — oh wait again, we got a second round QB, won with him and shut everyone up. We won with coaches no one heard of. Remember how everyone laughed when we brought in some guy from the arena league? Just more nepotism.... until we won with him.

The Bungals chapter is over. The team is competitive even during inevitable down years like this one. But some lazy talking heads still need some story, some way to define the team. Unfortunately, it looks like it's rapidly becoming as the dirtiest team in the NFL. And the league isn't doing much to help that image with its inconsistent fining/suspension and bad calls that have plagued every team for the last couple seasons.

So, just like the Bungals, I'm going to embrace it. When I wear out my shirt and somebody makes a comment, I'll just shrug and realize they're either ignorant and misinformed, or they know the team and don't want to risk playing us on an up game. When someone makes a comment about who's suspended this week, I'll tell them their coaches are hair pulling sissies.

(11-01-2016, 09:46 AM)ochocincos Wrote: Most undisciplined team? Perhaps. Although I'd think that would go to the Raiders this year with all of their penalties.
Dirtiest team? No.

There is one rough, dirty player (Burfict) and a hothead (Jones), but to label the whole team dirty is completely wrong.

I don't think the team is dirty.  However, Burfict is arguably the dirtiest player in the league, and has compounded that reputation by targeting league posterboys like Brown, Ben, Bell, and Cam with his antics.  Jones earned the dirty label last year in the Amari Cooper incident.  Basically, it's a couple of bad apples that are ruining the team's rep.

(11-01-2016, 11:43 AM)J24 Wrote: Every league has terrible officiating the NFL isnt alone in this.

I think MLB and the NHL are fairly competent.

The NFL and the NBA tend to be bad. They cater more to stars than those other sports.

The second rate journalists have to practice pushing a narrative. Whats easier than jumping on the "Bengals are a dirty team"?

(11-01-2016, 12:19 PM)Gohards Wrote: I do agree with this. But i dont think they saw Norman holding green the entire time

They threw five different flags on Norman, hard to argue they were not watching him.  For what it is worth, I saw two blatant face mask penalties against the Bengals that were not called.  They miss calls against everyone.

As to the original post.  I don't see the Bengals being over the top dirty, but have come to realize that might be because I am a fan.  I have friends who are Washington, Miami, and New England fans.  All of whom I consider to be rational, level headed people.  We all root for our team, but don't have on team "goggles" either.  Each person has commented to me this year, making the case for how dirty and over the top the Bengals have been against their team.  Maybe it the media narrative, but none of these three guys typically bye into the hype... we discuss politics, religion, current events and each makes up his own mind.

I'm beginning to think there is something to this.

 

Quote:However, Burfict is arguably the dirtiest player in the league, and has compounded that reputation by targeting league posterboys like Brown, Ben, Bell, and Cam with his antics.  Jones earned the dirty label last year in the Amari Cooper incident.  Basically, it's a couple of bad apples that are ruining the team's rep.

I have to disagree. I still think Ndamukong Suh is the dirtiest player in the league. Maybe even in NFL history.

(11-01-2016, 02:01 PM)Matt_Crimson Wrote:  I have to disagree. I still think Ndamukong Suh is the dirtiest player in the league. Maybe even in NFL history.

Its all about how the media portrays the player. When they play the hit on AB on sports center, over and over and over, its gonna look bad. Especially when you have "expects" all saying it was dirty.

People think Suh is dirty being of the 5 single bad plays he has had. TV has played that stomp 4,000,000 times so thats really how you know Suh. First thing that comes to mind when you hear Suh, is "dirty".

And when fans of other teams think of Burfict, they think dirty. It is something the media has portrayed.

Truth of the matter is, those 2 are no less dirty than any other defensive player in the league.

"Having no concern for opposing players safety" why would you? They are out there trying to win a football game. I hope opposing players safety is one of the LAST things on their mind.

(11-01-2016, 01:17 PM)OrlandoBengal Wrote: They threw five different flags on Norman, hard to argue they were not watching him.  For what it is worth, I saw two blatant face mask penalties against the Bengals that were not called.  They miss calls against everyone.

As to the original post.  I don't see the Bengals being over the top dirty, but have come to realize that might be because I am a fan.  I have friends who are Washington, Miami, and New England fans.  All of whom I consider to be rational, level headed people.  We all root for our team, but don't have on team "goggles" either.  Each person has commented to me this year, making the case for how dirty and over the top the Bengals have been against their team.  Maybe it the media narrative, but none of these three guys typically bye into the hype... we discuss politics, religion, current events and each makes up his own mind.

I'm beginning to think there is something to this.

Well when the Bengals safety (Shaw?) threw the helmet hit on the Redskins player that was on the ground, that to me is concerning that that mentality is going around the locker room.....