Week 7 recap

Cincinnati 38, New York Jets 31


The Jets managed to outsuck the Bengals Sunday in a quagmire of turnovers and penalties. Chad Pennington swiss cheesed the Bengal secondary early with his wet noodle of an arm and proved once again that anybody can throw against Deltha and friends. A coat tree could tackle better than our corner backs. Bresnahan’s blitz calls have improved the last two games and the linebackers are limited but not directly losing games. It’s the secondary that continues to allow the blow up plays and we’ve invested two first rounders to dam that flood. We still have a good ways to go before the young tandem can become at all consistent. Down by 13 points in the second half to a lousy team at home, I thought we’d hit a new (recent) low.

Then things turned around in the second half when Bratkowski called his best game of the season, capped off by the shovel pass to Watson on 3rd and 7 inside the redzone in the fourth quarter. I’d been calling for that play all year. He stuck with the run behind by two touchdowns and that allowed the battered offensive line to get into rhythm. Behind Carson, Whitworth is the best draft pick under Marvin Lewis. For such a colossal guy he really moves down field well.

After two thorough drives to give us the lead, one thing became obvious; Watson is a more effective runner than Rudi. Remember when Corey Dillon got into a car accident on his way to the stadium in ‘03 against the Seahawks? Rudi came in and bashed Seattle and we never really saw Corey again. Now Rudi is on the outside looking in too.

Rudi has one style of running, straight ahead. If a play calls for a hole to be somewhere, Rudi either runs through it or tries to create his own hole if it isn’t there. The second Kenny Watson gets the ball, he scans the field and finds a hole even if it isn’t where it should be. He’s more patient than shifty, more finesse than power. He allows plays to develop in front of him and then squeezes through small openings to get him just enough for first downs, touchdowns, etc. Rudi puts his head down and tries to smash through walls.

But there’s more to it than just running style. With Watson’s ability to run to the outside, the Bengals play calling is opened up to a new set of possibilities. Maybe we’ll run a screen, a shovel pass, a draw, or a delay with Watson. When Rudi is back there, outside linebackers move in between the hash marks and wait for him to run right at them.

There’s also the style of the run blockers to think about. In ‘03 the Bengals had a smash mouth line who could push defenders backwards. Now we have some young athletic lineman who prefer to pull away from the line and get down field before laying a hat on somebody. Willie is older and not the same as his glory days, Levi has become 100 percent finesse, and Bobby Williams is just fat. But the youngsters, Ghaicuic and Whitworth, and even Stacy Andrews like running the screens, the pitches and the draws.

Watson is an older less explosive version of both Chris Perry and Kenny Irons. When one or both of those guys someday get back on the field, one can see how this offense can get back to the high powered days of old. Rudi may soon be watching the Bengals play on TV with Corey Dillon considering he’s due to collect over 6 million next year. It seems he’s reached his plateau as a Bengal and limits the play calling too much to remain effective. Running backs have a short shelf-life in the NFL especially for those considered a one-trick pony like Rudi.

Mojokong - Carting off workhorses to the glue factory.