"Sky Isn't Falling Despite Blowout Loss"

[BFritz21]

ESPN has an interesting article on us, called The Sky Isn't Falling, which is surprising considering they'd usually be quick to write-us-off, but they actually took some time to mention that we might not be in panic mode just yet.

Quote:KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The Cincinnati Bengals said everything right in the locker room following a 45-10 drubbing to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday night.

They talked about how there’s no time to panic. They said the team would stick together. They mentioned that it still counts as only one loss despite the lopsided score.

“There is a lot of season left and a lot of things out in front of us,” Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton said. “It is just one game. We have another one next week ...

“As much as this one sucks, everything is still right there. We are in a great position. We have to go take advantage of it.”

I LOVE that Andy said that because it sounds like something a head coach would say and it sounds like he's going to take control of the locker room and get us back on track.

Andy knows what this team is capable of.

Quote:Saying it is one thing, actually doing it is another.

The Bengals have dropped two in a row and have some of the best offenses in the league still coming up on the schedule. The Buccaneers, who lead the league in yards per game, are up next, followed by the Saints after the bye week.

The Bengals' defense has given up at least 480 yards in three of its last four games.

“It’s bad,” Bengals linebacker Preston Brown said. “It’s a bad look for the whole team to see this happen. It’s such a big score difference. You never want to go out there and get blown out on a Sunday night [especially] when it’s been something we’ve been waiting to show the whole league what we can do. And now, to put up a goose egg like that, it’s not a good look. But we’ve got to learn from it and find ways to get better.”

Geno needs to rebound.  The one play, he just completely gave up on trying to tackle Mahomes, and there was another play that I was just thinking of (that slips my mind right now) where he either half-assed it or got blocked or something, and I was thinking "he must be sick or something."  

Regardless, he needs to rebound.

Also, there's a play I remember when Dre had the running back (I think it was a rb) wrapped up from behind for a few seconds, and then he just let him go, and I think it was on a third down because I remember thinking "at least we held them to three."  And then they ended up scoring.  They might not have even been in field goal range.

There was also Hunt's TD where Burfict had him wrapped up and Hunt broke free.

A bunch of those small mistakes add up and I think that's what Brown's referring to.

NFL's a game of inches and we need to quit giving the other teams free inches.

Quote:Sunday’s loss couldn’t be put squarely on the shoulders of the defense either. The offense didn’t take advantage of a weak defense and couldn’t get the ball to anyone but A.J. Green. The reliable Tyler Boyd was barely a factor against the Chiefs, while John Ross, who came back after missing two games with a groin injury, was practically invisible before leaving again due to the injury.

“We are going to try to get A.J. the ball,” Dalton said. “A.J. was doing a good job of getting open. He got open a lot early and they started doubling him. I thought A.J. did some good things tonight.”

The Bengals clearly miss tight end Tyler Eifert, who gave Dalton another reliable target. They are now potentially down three tight ends after Mason Schreck was carted off on Sunday. Tyler Kroft is out with a foot injury for an unknown period of time.

Tight end depth does worry me and I think that we need to get other guys involved.  AJ takes up so much attention, but then we were able to hit Boyd on a crossing pattern for a nice gain and then it seemed like we stopped looking at him completely.  Other guys will be open with AJ out there scaring defenses.

We also may have been trying to take it easy on him since he might still be recovering from the knee injury, but I think we definitely need to establish the run more and let the big dog eat.

Quote:Now that they’ve fallen to 4-3, the Bengals have lost the sole position they had on top of the AFC North division. It’s not a season-ending problem, but it certainly erases the cushion they built after starting 3-1 in September.

Bengals cornerback Dre Kirkpatrick said he believes the Bengals could be a great team once they get back some injured players.

“We’ve been together for a long time, we’ve been having injuries, so we’ve been having new faces step in,” Kirkpatrick said. “I believe in those guys, but it’s a little different when you haven’t been out there from a communication standpoint. We have to get back out there and do what we have been doing and have fun. I feel like that’s what we got away from. We’re not having fun. We need to go out there and have fun.”

If the Bengals can correct their issues then Sunday’s game will just become an embarrassing blip on the radar. If it’s a larger problem related to personnel then the same mistakes will continue to pop up throughout the season.

I love that we still sound confident and like this is a team that can deal with this adversity.

Quote:“I hate missed tackles. I hate missing tackles, I hate seeing us miss tackles, because it’s just, they want it more than we do. It’s all physical. You’ve got to want to tackle those guys, and they were not going down unless you wanted to tackle them. It’s not just a wrap-up kind of thing. They were running through guys, spinning off guys. We’ve got to find ways to get guys down, just hold them up, wait till the whistle blows, do whatever we’ve got to do but we’ve got to get guys down.”

The other problems are a little trickier. The front seven struggled across the board. Rookie safety Jessie Bates said he felt like the Bengals limited the deep throws, but ultimately it didn’t matter at all since they couldn’t make the tackles when needed. The Chiefs simply checked down and made the big plays anyway.

The team has struggled to stop the run all season. Multiple players said there’s not a problem with the scheme of first-year defensive coordinator Teryl Austin, but the results haven’t exactly been stellar so far.

“This one’s going to be hard to swallow just because it was in front of everyone,” Bates said. “Everyone was watching. I think we were excited to show people what we could do and we didn’t do that. We’ve got another opportunity next week to go into the bye week with a win and get this thing rolling back the right way."

Our front seven got no push and I think Austin did a piss-poor job calling the defense yesterday.

I have more to say, but I like that the players are talking like they see this as a challenge and are going to do their best to get back on track, but do we have the coaching to do so?