Week 3 recap

Seattle 24, Cincinnati 21
The clown car of a defense the Bengals rolled out against Cleveland settled down some in a tough loss to Seattle on Sunday. The defeat was a mixture of poor special teams play, a slow secondary and thousands of long haired blue people. The Seahawk’s helmets should have a mullet attached to the back. Those fans were great.

Hasselback missed three long attempts at Seahawk receivers that had their defenders beat deep. Joseph, who does have a reportedly broken foot, simply could not run with Burleson or Branch. And Leon Hall had speed concerns coming into this years draft which becomes more confirmed each game. These two are making Deltha look like a shutdown corner because defenders have no reason to test him. The safeties aren’t off the hook either. Both Dexter Jackson and Madieu would go for one of Brett Favre’s hook shot fakes. Sometimes the two look like they can tackle but they never look like they can cover. With inexperienced corners it’s a must that safeties occasionally bail them out with a nice play in coverage but I just don’t see it happening so far.

Our special teams might show up to practice on the special bus. The opening kick off? After last week?? Then kicking the ball out of bounds with two minutes and a four point lead. I don’t blame Shayne Graham as much as I blame the decision to squib kick it in that situation. (Read this sentence to yourself in a John Madden voice) A football can sure take some funny bounces out there sometimes, so why not just kick it to the guy and rely on your tacklers instead of a lucky bounce? I have to agree with John on that one.

Everyone saw Rudi leave the game with a pulled hamstring. He’s a tough guy who has stayed on the field four straight years now. What we didn’t see was him getting any yardage before coming out. The offensive line pass protects with the best of them and you can bet Paul Alexander, line guru and overall bad ass, will get his unit to create more run gaps soon. Then again, it seemed like a matter of speed beating power to those run gaps as opposed to scheme. Either way, it wasn’t working out for Rudi.

I realized Sunday that I take Carson Palmer for granted. An elite quarterback doesn’t come around all that often. The guy makes perfect throws. Our passing game is finely tuned right now and were missing two major components expected to join the team later this season. Once the offensive line finds a consistency, this team could be carried to a decent regular season finish by the offense alone. The second half of the Bengal schedule is noticeably softer with the Rams, 49ers, Browns, and Dolphins wrapping it up. Don’t panic.

Mentions:
Dahani Jones deserves a mention for what sportscasters like to call a gutsy performance. Signed on Monday and making some solid tackles on Sunday, he and fellow scrapheap linebacker Lemar Marshall are keeping this defense just ahead of the Bearcats’. Ahmad Brooks returns this week and it’s clear we need that guy if we have any chance to stop teams this season. I wonder why Hartwell isn’t being mentioned to return.

Also Mike Myers has been a bright spot among some shady territory. This defense will take sacks any way they can get them. Big ups to Mike.

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