(05-13-2019, 04:50 PM)PAjwPhilly Wrote: Lou Anarumo is the defensive coordinator (for those that never picked up his name). He has 4-3 experience (Kevin Coyle assistant/ Miami). And he has 3-4 experience (James Bettcher assistant/ Giants). Supposedly Coyle's 4-3 has some similarities with Zimmer's 4-3 once ran here in Cincinnati: Double A-gap blitz and pressing corner backs. And he wants to incorporate some of his 3-4 stuff into our defense as well.

I'd say that our defensive unit is... Average secondary, below average LBs, above average defensive line.

So... how do you make this work?

I feel that last year we ran passive defenses too often. We didn't seem to do anything creative. It always seemed like we rushed 4 and dropped our LBs into coverage. But I only get to watch the game once (Sunday Ticket). I remember a post game comment where Carlos mentioned... you can't just do the same thing all the time and expect something to change.

I am under the impression that if you can't hold coverage for 4, 5, or 6 seconds you need to blitz hard and play underneath. But I never saw that from us last year. I rarely ever see a D-line shift late in the snap count, even D-line twists, or bringing multiple blitzes from the same area (all of which I would label creative for us).

How do you go about using our 2019 unit to be the best it can be?


https://www.bengals.com/news/bengals-defense-now-skipping-to-lou

First of all...good topic. Biggest issue is this defense. It gives me hope that they showed some fight when they canned Austin and went with more press man. The secondary is way above average, IMHO, but they have been hung out to dry by a lack of pressure. The opposition would ALWAYS go maximum protection and the bengals had no counter. That has to change. If they are going to max protect, the Bengals must adapt and send an extra pass rusher, and not always a LB. send a safety. Send a CB. Be creative, and be aggressive.

If there can be more pass rush, there can be more turnovers and better production from the LB corps and secondary.

I always hear about aggression, then the team would come out and play conservative trying not to get burnt deep. In the end, they would simply die a slow death, with zero chance of forcing a turnover or getting a stop.

Guys like Brees looked like he could have gone 30/30 completions. That changes, or we keep getting horrible results.

(05-13-2019, 06:42 PM)Jakeypoo Wrote: I would say this Defense has a top 10 secondary and a top 5 Dline with a healthy.
In the last 5 games of the year the Defense was on pace per 16 games to have the 5th best 3rd down Defense, 2nd best in allowing first downs, and 11th in scoring.
That's without a Carl Lawson on the edge, a healthy Nick Vigil at LB, and a new toy in Germaine Pratt.
I hope lou saw what Marvin did at the end of last year and copies a lot of it.

Good point about the last five games, however, they can’t rely on that stat and not make more changes as I don’t believe teams had to work very hard to beat them. The offense was gone without Dalton. I agree with your optimism in regards to Lawson, Vigil, and Pratt. I will add that the new weapons on offense and a better (it was already pretty good when they weren’t behind of when teams didn’t respect the passing game) rushing attack will also help the defense.

Hoping the new D coordinator gets more out of guys like Willis, Billings, and Williams as I see them as critical pieces that underperformed.

(05-15-2019, 08:33 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Please don’t think I’m holding the Cincinnati linebackers blameless because I’m not, but sometimes linebackers have to become a safety net for less than stellar defensive line play. In 2018, the linebackers were so horrible they couldn’t shoot gaps, couldn’t tackle, and this put way too much pressure on the defensive line especially against the run.

My personal belief is Teryl Austin saw the defense as three units — line, linebackers, and secondary — instead of one. Leaving the secondary aside, the defensive line and linebackers really have to be treated as one entity since they work together. Marvin Lewis seemed to understand this concept more.

From the interviews I’ve seen with Lou Anarumo he always talks about his base defense being a 4-3 but he also includes which gaps he’ll line people up over. This is a key to knowing we have a good defensive coordinator. He understands both scheme and spacing. Now go one level up and this spacing dictates where linebackers should go when the ball is snapped.

Last season the Cincinnati linebackers set up way too far behind the defensive line. On obvious pass plays this can work but there’s no way to blitz if you’re ten yards off the ball. Watch the best teams’ linebackers: They're always moving, resetting, and trying to confuse the opposing quarterback. Not the Bengals! The linebackers in Cincinnati find a spot and freeze. This drives me nuts. Mike Zimmer didn’t teach that. Paul Guenther didn’t teach that.

Jim Haslett was a lazy skunk.

Tem Lokabu needs to get those guys moving!

Well said FIK, well said. Spot on analysis of our Linebacker play under Haslett.

Hard to even judge them being put in bad position time after time, they were set up for failure.

(05-13-2019, 06:43 PM)NKURyan Wrote: Run the ball and eat the clock.

Thread could have ended right here. Keeping these guys off the field not only keeps them fresh but also makes it more difficult for the opposing offense to get into a groove. I think a more run heavy offense would be beneficial to both sides of the ball.

(05-15-2019, 10:43 AM)HuDey Wrote: Thread could have ended right here. Keeping these guys off the field not only keeps them fresh but also makes it more difficult for the opposing offense to get into a groove. I think a more run heavy offense would be beneficial to both sides of the ball.

Except the thread is about how to use our existing defense. Anyone can write an answer... intercept the pass every time, sack the QB 100x. You cannot control these things, and it is every team's goal. It is an easy answer that really doesn't need to be said.

How can you scheme with our existing defense to make it legitimate?  The best answers I have seen: clog up the middle on running downs, blitz more often, rush 5 on pass downs, improve tackling, more aggressive LB play...

Also... getting our starting unit together would (hopefully) not make this such an issue. 

(05-15-2019, 08:33 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Please don’t think I’m holding the Cincinnati linebackers blameless because I’m not, but sometimes linebackers have to become a safety net for less than stellar defensive line play.  In 2018, the linebackers were so horrible they couldn’t shoot gaps, couldn’t tackle, and this put way too much pressure on the defensive line especially against the run.

My personal belief is Teryl Austin saw the defense as three units — line, linebackers, and secondary — instead of one.  Leaving the secondary aside, the defensive line and linebackers really have to be treated as one entity since they work together.  Marvin Lewis seemed to understand this concept more.

From the interviews I’ve seen with Lou Anarumo he always talks about his base defense being a 4-3 but he also includes which gaps he’ll line people up over.  This is a key to knowing we have a good defensive coordinator.  He understands both scheme and spacing.  Now go one level up and this spacing dictates where linebackers should go when the ball is snapped.

Last season the Cincinnati linebackers set up way too far behind the defensive line.  On obvious pass plays this can work but there’s no way to blitz if you’re ten yards off the ball.  Watch the best teams’ linebackers:  They're always moving, resetting, and trying to confuse the opposing quarterback.  Not the Bengals!  The linebackers in Cincinnati find a spot and freeze.  This drives me nuts.  Mike Zimmer didn’t teach that.  Paul Guenther didn’t teach that.  

Jim Haslett was a lazy skunk.

Tem Lokabu needs to get those guys moving!

This is the best explanation of what was wrong with our D the last couple of years. I've said this for a awhile now, our LBs are playing to far off the ball. At the snap they go backwards 10-12 yards. When a blitz was called, a LB would rush in and a DL would drop into coverage. Did they really think a DL could cover a RB? They never seemed to rush more than 4 guys either, other than the stupid 0 coverage play against Pittsburgh.. 

(05-14-2019, 09:48 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Michael Johnson had 467 snaps last season and a large portion of the was at RDE a tad over 41% of our plays on defense and he was largely ineffective.

Hardy Nickerson had 538 snaps at LBer almost 48% of the defensive snaps and he was very, very bad.

Vontaze Burfict had 298 snaps, over 26% of the defensive plays and he wasn't even a shadow of his former self.

Just replacing these threes snaps with even average players improves our D, a lot !

Ya see one thing people tend to not give enough weight to is the domino effect. You have one guy on D not getting it done it makes it tough on the remaining ten. You have two guys it's a herculean task to overcome. You have three, forget it ! There's just no way 8 guys can play D facing 11.

To your last paragraph... You could literally see it on Dumlap and Geno's faces last season. It's hard to give 100% when the QB can just dump it off over your head at will.

(05-15-2019, 10:57 AM)PAjwPhilly Wrote: Except the thread is about how to use our existing defense. Anyone can write an answer... intercept the pass every time, sack the QB 100x. You cannot control these things, and it is every team's goal. It is an easy answer that really doesn't need to be said.

How can you scheme with our existing defense to make it legitimate?  The best answers I have seen are clog up the middle on running downs to force them to pass, blitz more often, rush 5 on pass downs...

Winning the 3rd down battle and getting off the field was our biggest problem last year. I honestly thought the last coaching staff played too cautious. Sure nobody wants to get beat by the big play. but damn you have to take a risk and gamble sometimes. There never to seemed to be a push up the middle from our DL and when we did the force the QB out of the pocket, there wasn't a LB for miles around. Just shows that our scheme last season was very bad. 

(05-15-2019, 10:57 AM)PAjwPhilly Wrote: Except the thread is about how to use our existing defense. Anyone can write an answer... intercept the pass every time, sack the QB 100x. You cannot control these things, and it is every team's goal. It is an easy answer that really doesn't need to be said.

How can you scheme with our existing defense to make it legitimate?  The best answers I have seen: clog up the middle on running downs, blitz more often, rush 5 on pass downs, improve tackling, more aggressive LB play...

Also... getting our starting unit together would (hopefully) not make this such an issue. 

I would say that it depends on what the strengths and weaknesses are this season. I would guess that with minimal changes to personnel, those would be similar to last season. In that case, I will stick with running the ball and keeping them off the field as much as possible.

I don’t really know what to expect from Captain Lou but I hope that they will attack more rather than sit back and let the offense dictate to them. Mix it up, be less predictable, and overall just give the offense something to think about other than exploiting the same mismatches for chunk gains.

The first key for the defense becoming at least respectable ,starts with them stopping the run. Everyone talks about the linebackers being terrible in coverage as the demise of the defense but we also got absolutely gashed on the ground and dominated in time of possession. Our offense can’t do anything from the sidelines. In our division we need to stop the run to be successful or we will get killed by play action pass. The Ravens added Mark Ingram and want a run heavy offense with Lamar Jackson, Pittsburgh has one of the best O-lines in the league and James Connor played well before he got hurt, then the Browns have a bruiser in Nick Chubb and added Kareem Hunt. Hopefully getting back a healthy Preston Brown helps the run defense, that’s supposed to be this guys strength. Also looking for Billings to take the next step at NT. He was supposed to be a great run defender coming out of college and has just been average so far.

(05-15-2019, 11:07 AM)jason Wrote: To your last paragraph... You could literally see it on Dumlap and Geno's faces last season. It's hard to give 100% when the QB can just dump it off over your head at will.

Yep. And the stats showed that bigtime. Out LB's gave up something like 1800 yards receiving. That was by far the most in the league!

(05-15-2019, 12:06 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Yep. And the stats showed that bigtime. Out LB's gave up something like 1800 yards receiving. That was by far the most in the league!

Ouch. That is absolutely amazing (in a bad way). That blows me away. However, I recall so many plays where the LBs were late in their reads and flat-footed dropping into zones. It looked like high school film: slow, out of position, low football IQ on route recognition. 

And again it leads me to back to blitzing... Dline twists. At least attempt to push them, make a mistake, or interfere with their rhythm. We proved to everyone that we can't play passive-off-the-ball-vanilla zone and succeed. My old coach always used to say, "every game comes down to 3 key plays." And while you can always just do 3 highlights... momentum plays a role. I was completely demoralized last season whenever the defense was on the field. I imagine the entire D was demoralized as well. Driskel at the end was the only thing that made me smile, and that didn't last very long. 

I like the comment about looking at the front (DL and LB) as 1 unit. That is new to me, but makes complete sense.  And the injury bug last season really did hit our defense hard (is that on the strength/conditioning unit or medical unit?). After seeing all the injuries and just how many games were missed, it is hard not to acknowledge its impact. Hopefully we stay healthy this season. 

(05-15-2019, 10:57 AM)PAjwPhilly Wrote: Except the thread is about how to use our existing defense. Anyone can write an answer... intercept the pass every time, sack the QB 100x. You cannot control these things, and it is every team's goal. It is an easy answer that really doesn't need to be said.

How can you scheme with our existing defense to make it legitimate?  The best answers I have seen: clog up the middle on running downs, blitz more often, rush 5 on pass downs, improve tackling, more aggressive LB play...

Also... getting our starting unit together would (hopefully) not make this such an issue. 

Yeah, I think there's a pretty big difference between saying "the Bengals should actively choose to utilize the running game more than they did last year to help the defense" and "sack the QB 100x somehow". You can definitely help your defense out with how you call your offense, and the Bengals absolutely need to be smarter about that this year than they were last season.

(05-15-2019, 11:10 AM)sandwedge Wrote: Winning the 3rd down battle and getting off the field was our biggest problem last year. I honestly thought the last coaching staff played too cautious. Sure nobody wants to get beat by the big play. but damn you have to take a risk and gamble sometimes. There never to seemed to be a push up the middle from our DL and when we did the force the QB out of the pocket, there wasn't a LB for miles around. Just shows that our scheme last season was very bad. 

Agreed. How many times on 3rd down did it seem like the QB had 6-7-8 seconds to stand back there and wait for a WR to come open?

And yeah...sometimes being aggressive gives up big plays, but it can create them too.

I wasn't a fan of the weak zone coverage that the team played a lot too. Seems they tried to go bend but don't break. But, guys get open in a zone if there is little pressure.

Seems like those things all compound. And I'm not even mentioning the poor LB play.

Our Tackling has seemed suspect also for several years now.

(05-15-2019, 11:10 AM)sandwedge Wrote: Winning the 3rd down battle and getting off the field was our biggest problem last year. I honestly thought the last coaching staff played too cautious. Sure nobody wants to get beat by the big play. but damn you have to take a risk and gamble sometimes. There never to seemed to be a push up the middle from our DL and when we did the force the QB out of the pocket, there wasn't a LB for miles around. Just shows that our scheme last season was very bad. 

Yes, which comes down to coaching, otherwise the players have to coach themselves which hardly ever happens.

(05-15-2019, 11:53 AM)HuDey Wrote: I would say that it depends on what the strengths and weaknesses are this season. I would guess that with minimal changes to personnel, those would be similar to last season. In that case, I will stick with running the ball and keeping them off the field as much as possible.

I don’t really know what to expect from Captain Lou but I hope that they will attack more rather than sit back and let the offense dictate to them. Mix it up, be less predictable, and overall just give the offense something to think about other than exploiting the same mismatches for chunk gains.

Have to be aggressive and unpredictable, we were the most conservative and predictable Defense in the NFL last year.

Easy to see why we were the worst.

(05-15-2019, 12:03 PM)lone bengal Wrote: The first key for the defense becoming at least respectable ,starts with them stopping the run. Everyone talks about the linebackers being terrible in coverage as the demise of the defense but we also got absolutely gashed on the ground and dominated in time of possession. Our offense can’t do anything from the sidelines. In our division we need to stop the run to be successful or we will get killed by play action pass. The Ravens added Mark Ingram and want a run heavy offense with Lamar Jackson, Pittsburgh has one of the best O-lines in the league and James Connor played well before he got hurt, then the Browns have a bruiser in Nick Chubb and added Kareem Hunt. Hopefully getting back a healthy Preston Brown helps the run defense, that’s supposed to be this guys strength. Also looking for Billings to take the next step at NT. He was supposed to be a great run defender coming out of college and has just been average so far.

I think Billings is starting to find his own, took awhile, damn.

He is still young though, we got him when he was 21 years old.

Wren might help a bit stopping the run if Glasgow is not completely healed. Wren is a good run stopper.

It is Wren's pass rushing skills that need work and that can be taught.

(05-17-2019, 01:34 PM)Nate (formerly eliminate08) Wrote: Yes, which comes down to coaching, otherwise the players have to coach themselves which hardly ever happens.


Have to be aggressive and unpredictable, we were the most conservative and predictable Defense in the NFL last year.

Easy to see why we were the worst.


I think Billings is starting to find his own, took awhile, damn.

He is still young though, we got him when he was 21 years old.

Wren might help a bit stopping the run if Glasgow is not completely healed. Wren is a good run stopper.

It is Wren's pass rushing skills that need work and that can be taught.

Exactly. I would add that we were also the worst to watch. You basically knew what the defense was going to do before the play, so you ended up just watching the offense the entire time hoping they messed up. And it rarely ended well, because you saw defensive mistakes and the offense capitalize. It was like watching a losing rerun for the 100th time. You knew it ended badly, you knew the defensive assignments, but you still watched again and again.

(05-17-2019, 05:05 PM)PAjwPhilly Wrote: Exactly. I would add that we were also the worst to watch. You basically knew what the defense was going to do before the play, so you ended up just watching the offense the entire time hoping they messed up. And it rarely ended well, because you saw defensive mistakes and the offense capitalize. It was like watching a losing rerun for the 100th time. You knew it ended badly, you knew the defensive assignments, but you still watched again and again.

It WAS like torture no doubt.

Don't even ask you no questions, just torture the hell outta yah, bastids.

With new coaching it should be way more refreshing this year watching on both sides of the ball.

Really looking forward to see what Tem does with the Linebackers, this is where the Defense will have to improve the most.

Getting Pratt was a great start, just have to stay healthy.

(05-15-2019, 10:43 AM)HuDey Wrote: Thread could have ended right here. Keeping these guys off the field not only keeps them fresh but also makes it more difficult for the opposing offense to get into a groove. I think a more run heavy offense would be beneficial to both sides of the ball.

I also agree, ball control to control the clock is essential to keep your defense fresh. I would add ball control in today's NFL is a combination of running the ball and short passing game. If the QB can complete 70% of their passes to keep clock running with a great running game with minimal turnovers, it will keep the defense on the sidelines.

(05-15-2019, 12:06 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Yep. And the stats showed that bigtime. Out LB's gave up something like 1800 yards receiving. That was by far the most in the league!

Wow, that is one jaw-dropping statistic.  Folks that are wanting to criticize the quality of our pass rushers should really consider that stat, before throwing star players under the bus.  Most of those yards are from quick passes to the underneath portion of the field.  Who's responsible for covering that area?  Certainly not the DL..  

Most of those quick passes leave the QBs hand in under 2 seconds from the snap.  I don't know of any DL in the NFL that can get to the QB in under 2 seconds, with any sort of regularity.  The DL can win their matchup battles all day long, and still look bad if no one is there to stop those quick passes.

Billings better step it up this year or he will find himself on the sideline watching Wren play his spot. I love that some of the new guys are going to push the starters to keep their spots....