Somewhere hidden within the game of football lurks a sleeping beast: the mistake. The most ancient of football sages once accurately observed that football is a game of mistakes and the team that overcomes the most will win the game. It sounds simple and rudimentary, but like Aesop's fables, the moral never changes.
The Bengals fell victim to an earthquake of mistakes near the San Andreas fault line on Sunday, and panic didn't set in until it was too late.
For most of the game, everything went as planned.
Cincinnati ran out to a two touchdown lead and then went conservative in their play-calling. Running the ball, using clock and avoiding risky shots down-field make sense with the lead against an opponent like the Raiders. The Bengals were satisfied with sporadic rushing yards from Bernard Scott and Brian Leonard and Carson Palmer was on his way to throwing under 20 passing attempts---exactly how the Bengals wanted the day to unfold---but events that don't normally happen, of course, sprang out at the most inopportune time and Cincinnati was unable to overcome “the mistake.”
If it's blame you thirst for, then allow me to move the microscope under our very own franchise-player, kicker Shayne Graham. While Graham's statistics have been hampered by some bizarre special-teams play from his teammates this season, he continues to struggle at living up to his contract. His miss from 37 yards in the third quarter is less acceptable than the fumbles later in the game. Fumbles, by nature, are freak occurrences, but missed field goals, barring a poor snap or hold, are just bad plays.
The Bengals are now a grind-house team that runs the ball, controls the clock, plays good defense and wins with field goals. I'm willing to cut Shuga Shayne some slack on the attempts from 50-yards or more, but anything inside the 40 is a must for a man getting paid the average of the top-5 wealthiest kickers.
Graham had a solid game in Pittsburgh, and he was a major reason that Cincinnati came out of there with a win, but he needs to be the consistent component to an otherwise unpredictable place-kicking unit if the Bengals are to win more of these close games. I know it's a lot of pressure and that it damn sure ain't easy, but it has to happen; it simply must.
Graham, however, is safe for now, because Cincinnati has its own default scape-goat for times like these. It's been scientifically proven that after any loss, Bengal fans whip themselves into a frenzy and rally a witch-hunt to wherever Bob Bratkowski is hiding; he is always to blame in the Queen City. Often times, especially this season, the scorn has been unfair, and the Oakland game is no different.
Bratkowski has been instructed to play-call under a new philosophy and he has done just that. No longer does this team wait for the few opportunities to go deep on offense. Carson's role has shifted from play-maker to game-manager, and oddly enough, makes more plays as a result. The offensive line looks comfortable devouring defensive front-sevens in the running game and Cincinnati is collecting running-backs like bobble-head dolls. We play power football now and everyone might as well get used to it.
In Oakland, the play-calling followed the new rubric of the offense. Even a first-down hand off to Jeremi Johnson inside the red-zone during the fourth quarter, with the lead, is the right thing to do these days. Sure, the day had its moments of curious strategy---none more so than the fade to Leonard on third & four on the Raider 48-yard line with 2:25 to go---but the theory was sound and would have worked were it not for the Whammy of mistakes late in the game.
Three times this season, the Bengals have followed a tough divisional win with an underwhelming performance against inferior competition (at Cleveland, Houston, and at Oakland). It appears that adrenaline dump is the biggest weakness for this team so far.
The NFL is designed for its teams to fail. It wants to cast away contenders as soon as possible. The further a team gets within such a gruesome maze, the more prevalent their mistakes become. There are difficult opponents along the way, but the most dangerous enemy for the Bengals is likely themselves. Marvin Lewis and his staff have already solved a lot of problems this season; learning the lesson of the Oakland game could put them over the top when it matters the most--- in February.
Mojokong---”Big money, big money. No whammies, no whammies.”
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2 comments:
Bratkowski sucks, although less so this year than in year's past. He has a tendency to outsmart himself in the process of trying to outsmart the defense. Instead of doing what is needed, he generally does the predictable thing with the logic "they'll never expect us to do the obvious thing here."
BUT, I don't blame him for this loss. I don't blame anyone really. I don't care to. It was a bad loss. Period. Lesson learned. Let's move on.
Like you said, this has more long term positive impact on the team than the short term negative impact, mostly because the Steelers crapped the bed against the Chiefs. If they had won while we lost to the Raiders, I would point out how average Shayne is, how our head coach lacks killer instinct, how our usually amazing D-coordinator called a passive, weak game, how Carson refuses to make this HIS team by calling his own number in the clutch, how the Bengals need to play Andre Smith, how stubbornness usually prevails over common sense in cases like Larry Johnson's, how Chad doesn't get enough passes thrown his way, and how we STILL don't employ draws, misdiretions, and screens often enough.
But, its just one game. On to Cleveland.
rediculous conservatism as soon as they got a 2 score lead. rediculous. and why couldn't geathers score on that return? should have given better effort knowing its going to be a FG attempt if he doesn't. sometime in the pittsburgh game, they decided that FG's are a legitimate option in the red zone. prior to that they had a better mentality about it, but ML is defaulting to his normal self again.
they should have played LJ. marvin lewis lacks killer instict. passive weak defensive game plan following an amazing one. andre smith should be in the game, starting with the 'heavy' formations at first. quan cosby should be the KO returner like he was at Texas. they should throw (even overthrow) deep minimum 3 times every game. can't be a 'move the chains' offense ALL THE DAMN TIME.
i don't care if its a 'lesson' game or what. you play to win. they didn't. they played not to lose, the mindset of the bungles, not the 'resilient' team from this year. its like benson is out so we have to 'survive' until he gets back, while someone who COULD be a better player sat on the sideline waiting for a chance to do what he has done twice a year (run over and around the raiders).
AZ
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