06-06-2020, 05:08 PM
(06-05-2020, 12:42 AM)fredtoast Wrote: What I have done is not a complicated formula. All I have done is measure our defense's performance based on the offense they were facing. You will understand what I am saying as I analyze the season. When I list an opponent's ranking it is final season.
The first game of the season was amazing. Our defense held the #8 offense in the league (Seattle) to only 232 yards. That was an incredible 142 yards below the Seahawks' season average. I still can't explain how well we played, but I remember being shocked at the improvement of our defense from 2018.
Unfortunately over the next 7 weeks we got consistently curb stomped. We allowed an average of 465 yards per game which was almost 100 yards (99.1) higher than those teams averaged for the season. And while 3 of those seven teams had top ten offenses (#2 Bal, #4 SF, #7 Rams) none of the other 4 ranked higher than 20 (#30 Pit, #24 Buf, #21 Ari, #20 Jax).
At the half way point of the season we were historically bad. We were on pace to be the 2nd worst defense since the 1970 merger. And we really did not face that high of a level of offense. If you average the rankins of the offenses it is 14.5. if you look at the average of how much yardage they gained (353.6) it would have ranled 15th in the league.
At this point I will post just the raw numbers and league rankings for each half
1-8.....435.8 ypg....32nd
9-16...351.6 ypg....18th
This is the point were some people say we just looked better because we played weaker offenses while others say we really improved.
First of all, it is true that the teams we faced in the second half had weaker offenses, but not by that much. The league average for yards gained was 347.9. Our first eight opponents averaged 353.6 which was 5.7 yards above average and would have ranked 15th. The eight opponents in the second half averaged 333.4 for the season. That was almost 15 yards below the league average and would have ranked 24th. Worse than the first half but not by a lot compared to how much our defense improved.
When you look at the two different halfs and measure them based on opponents offense it is clear that the Defense improved significantly over the second half. Over the first 8 games the defense was allowing opponents to gain 82 yards above their per game average. Over the second half the defense allowed opponenets only 18 yards more than they usually gained. Still below average, but a great improvement over the first half trainwreck.
The Seattle game was the only one in the first half where the Bengals held their opponent below their season average. In the second half the Bengals held 5 of 8 opponents below their season average (Bal, Jets, Pats, Cle X2). The meltdown against the Dolphins were they gave up over 500 yards to the #27 offense ruined their second half stats. Other than that game they held their opponents below their season average.
So although I am not ready to give Anarumo a gold star I am certainly starting to feel a little better about him than I did before. Our defense last year was really, really bad. But at least they showed signs of getting better.
This along with the players they added this Offseason has me thinking this could be a top 10 Defense this year.
Our Linebacker play was so bad it made the rest of the Defense look bad and the worst players we got rid of and were upgraded
by players that fit Lou's system. We need our Linebackers to be instinctive and we added instinctive good tackling LB's and DB's
along with Reader to free up everyone. The fact that we improved so much should give us all some optimism about the future on
Defense. Hubbard, Pratt, Bates, WJ3, Phillips, Waynes, Alexander, Reader are all in their prime.
Was high on Wilson and ADG before the Draft and was really surprised we were able to pick up Bailey in the 7th round.
And even if you don't like Bynes Fred, he is a good vet to help out the young'uns.
