09-26-2020, 09:02 AM
(09-25-2020, 08:02 PM)J24 Wrote: The Defense was 4th overall that season and the offense was very inefficient that year. I don't think copying the extra offensive lineman idea is going to work.
Correct. The defense was finally approaching elite levels under Zimmer in 2009. I believe 2008 was the year Marvin decided to fix something that wasn’t broken: the offense. I can’t remember exactly when, but there was a press conference during the 2008 offseason where Marvin said he wanted to “blow it all up” and “find a better way to win”. I remember this vividly because that press conference filled me with hope and fear. I didn’t know exactly what he meant. I assumed he meant just the lackluster defense, as the offense didn’t have much of a problem at the time. But as it turned out, I believe he meant the entire team.
Marvin said a couple of times over the years that he wanted the offense on the field as long as possible. He believed that scoring too quick was often times detrimental to the defense. And he’s absolutely right about that. However, he went about it the wrong way. It’s no secret that Carson was not a dink-and-dunk QB. Before Norm Chow arrived at USC and installed an Air-Coryell type offense that suited Carson’s strengths, Carson was having a very underwhelming college career.
Carson was fortunate enough to inherit a similar Air-Coryell offense when he arrived in Cincinnati. It worked for him, and it worked very well. However, it was very obvious that the Bengals gradually devolved into a run-first, short passing team in 2008. It made sense through most of that year with Ryan Fitzpatrick starting. But once Carson came back in 2009, the offense remained very slow-paced. It was clear that Marvin “fixed” the whole team by having Brat call a much more conservative offense. It clearly worked quite well in 2009. But when Carson Palmer is your QB, you’re holding back your best player by going this route.
It failed miserably in 2010, and the “cardiac cats” were dead. We all know what happened with Carson after that year
