Week 17 Preview: Silly Sundays

This one is tough to call. Who will play and for how long?

If it's all the starters all the time, then the Bengals win with little difficulty. The Ravens have been shoddy offensively for three or four weeks and Cincinnati has been straight up dominant at home this season. Joe Flacco's knee hurts, Art Jones hasn't practiced all week, and John Harbaugh simply will not stop complaining about everything under the sun.

This Baltimore team hasn't risen up to its Super Bowl self of last year. Their run game is in the toilet, their passing targets are limited and Flacco seems extra turnover prone at the moment. There was a lot of chest-thumping on their behalf once they outkicked the Lions in a field goal contest, but what was lost in the hoopla surrounding a 61-yard game-winning field goal was the fact that Baltimore couldn't score a touchdown.

The Ravens want to go deep as much as possible. They have fast receivers, and Flacco can hurl it downfield with the best of them, but the vertical passing focus can be quite a hindrance when a team is forced to rely on it. It becomes easy to defend. The 2010 Bengals became junkies of the deep pass and it cost them win after win after win. The 2013 Ravens haven't quite imploded the way Carson Palmer did in his last season in Cincinnati, but they are unable to gain moderate chunks of yardage once the opposing defense takes away anything deep and they quickly fall apart. Mike Zimmer teaches his men to drop deep and allow underneath catches, then rally to the ball carrier for short gains. Against some west-coast offenses, this approach can be problematic because they are able to patiently move the ball by nickel and diming the Bengals, but Baltimore wants the quick strike and they want it now.

If it comes down to preseason football where Tyrod Taylor takes on Josh Johnson for three quarters, your guess is as good as mine as to who wins. If it matters, I think the Bengals have some of the best backups in the league, so I guess I like their chances in a Backup Bowl too, but once football gets silly in this way, predictions go out the window.

This begs the question: why would Marvin not play his starters with a first-round bye at hand? I can't answer this. Maybe he will. But think of it this way, if you play your starters and the Bills are unable to win in New England, have you sacrificed a fresher team for a remote chance at a better seeding? Marvin Lewis typically plays it safe. That's why I don't think Andy Dalton plays all 60 minutes tomorrow.

If I were the Bengals, I would hand the ball to BenJarvus Green-Ellis 40 times and throw sparingly. The Law Firm can take the pounding and it would cut down on the wear to the more dynamic playmakers on the team. If the defense can hang in there, it could be a 14-12 kind of game where the Bengals win and still not tax anybody too much outside of Benny.

Chances are though, while the starters are in there, they will go about their offense as usual. Home games this season have been point explosions with lots and lots of touchdowns. If that continues Sunday, the Ravens don't stand a chance. Honestly, no one does.

Yet the good times can't last forever. Eventually a team will rise to the challenge and make it tough on the Stripes in the Jungle. I don't think it will be this week, Baltimore simply isn't that good. Nor do I think it will be the week after. All the wildcard contenders are beatable-especially Miami. That would effectively end the home games for Cincinnati with a perfect record. The road, though, is nasty in January, and plenty of problems are likely to crop up at that point, but for now, we will enjoy what we're given and that's playoff-caliber football from our favorite team. I am proud of these Bengals.  Who dey!

Bengals 31, Ravens 20

Mojokong-sick with it.

Week 16 Preview: The Answer

Originally, this piece was to be about the lack of respect the Bengals are experiencing right now but that's an old and tired play and since I respect them still, why indulge the opposition with the fight they seek?

Instead, we look ahead to a vital game against a beatable opponent, one that could serve as a healing win and bolster the team's confidence, but one that I don't think will be an easy stroll by any stretch.

The Vikings didn't like any of their quarterbacks earlier in the season, They spun the carousel a couple of times with Matt Cassel and Christian Ponder, brought in Josh Freeman for a go at it, and when no immediate answer surfaced, they settled on Cassel in the end for better or worse. Since the position has stabilized, the offense has improved and the significant talent that exists outside of the quarterback is beginning to come to light.

This is a classic bad-team tale. The 2002 Bengals come to mind with Gus Frerrote, Akili Smith and Jon Kitna battling for a job and costing the team wins in the process. They settled on Kitna and he gave Chad Johnson wings.

It makes sense that the worst teams would be better at the end of the year. If a team is bad because of injuries to key spots, or because their roster was composed with too much youth and inexperience, then at this point, the backups and rookies know the playbook and probably have had ample reps as well. The players and coaches better understand each other. These are eliminated from the playoffs, yes, but there is money to be made and that still matters in this game.

Minnesota has quality players even without Adrian Peterson. Toby Gerhart is a bruiser with field vision, the trio of Greg Jennings, Cordarrelle Patterson, and our boy, Jerome Simpson make for at least a speedy and athletic receiving corps, and Cassel himself has been a steady hand and looked particularly good last week.

Despite all of that, the Vikings are still a bad team.

Last week, they played in their comfortable dome and ran their offense like it was practice against Philadelphia. The week before that they played in a snow storm with the fury of planet Hoth and mightily struggled for 58 minutes (the last two were nuts!). This week, it won't be freezing but wet and windy, so I expect something in between in terms of production.

Obviously, the first thing anybody ever wants to do against Minnesota is contain Adrian Peterson who is widely considered the undisputed champ of running backs of his generation. Assuming everyone agrees with this approach, then one must decide how to take on the Vikings passing game. Philadelphia applied minimal pressure and dared Cassel to throw into coverage. The Ravens were far more aggressive with their blitz schemes and had more success.

Pressure on the quarterback has subsided over the past two weeks for the Bengals, and the expectations for the front four are high even without Geno Atkins, but perhaps Mike Zimmer has blitzed less often because of the type of quarterback he's faced. Ben Roethlisberger and Andrew Luck are players who thrive when plans go awry. Both move around well and both keep their eyes downfield. Matt Cassel is not that kind of person.

Cassel seems like a very mechanical player. When he drops back five steps, plants his back foot, takes one hop and then fires, he is a quality player, but the process must be clean as a whistle or else his game breaks down rapidly. When he scrambles he either puts his head down and hopes for the best or looks to throw the ball out of bounds. Rattling him seems very achievable with the right mixture of blitzes.

His delivery is also noticeably mechanical and is therefore slow. When he drops his shoulder to throw, there is an extra hitch or two before the ball comes out allowing the defense an extra nanosecond of reaction, which can make all the difference. I could see corners wanting to take some risks against a player like that. If Cassel is not comfortable in the pocket, the secondary can become even more chancy. Look for a pick six, maybe two.

On defense, the Vikings aren't bad. Nick Foles ran on them well last week, but Andy Dalton is not the same threat with his legs. Their front four seems rather stout and their linebackers tackle well. Their linebackers also cover well, but in a reverse way, I think this is the element that will allow the Bengals to win.

The Vikings put a lot of trust in their linebackers covering people and for good reason, but a team like the Bengals are built for mismatches like this. They have the big, strong guy in Jermaine Gresham, the big, fast guy in Tyler Eifert, the little, strong guy in Gio Bernard, and the little, fast guy in Andrew Hawkins. All are dangerous in space and all bring different weaponry to the table. Finding sensible ways to get these men the ball against man coverage is the way to win. Simply checking off to underneath targets can allow for easy first downs. Exploit the overconfidence the Vikings may have in their linebackers by using the odd cast of complimentary players around A.J. Green and the Bengals offense should enjoy another nice day at home.

Everyone is a little tense right now about the very near future, but for a moment, let's zoom back a frame and look at a bigger picture. Here is a team with a 9-5 record, winners of three of their last four and scorers of over 40 points three home games in a row. Here is a team that lost last week to a divisional rival on the road thanks to two first-quarter punting snafus. Here is a team with signature wins over New England, Indianapolis, and Green Bay. Yet, despite all of their success, the world waits for the Bengals to fail and pounce on them every time they do.

This team is still a quality one made up of solid professionals; that didn't change from Sunday night to Monday morning. They have risen up from a bad team, to an average team, to a good one. The organization has built well for the last four years and it's paying off. What more must they do?

I know that answer and it begins on Sunday.

Bengals 30, Vikings, 24

Mojokong-find me in the cheap seats chanting "dome team!".

Week 15 Preview: The Stats Say Yes, the Gut Says No.

The Steelers may be in a bit of trouble. If they aren't careful in the next upcoming season or two, they could find themselves in a dark chapter of their storied history.

I realize that struck a nerve with the majority of the football universe. Here I am, a Bengals fan, warning Pittsburghabout their team. Many will think a hardy yet dismissive chortle is in order after such a sentiment. Yet, when one removes their superiority sunglasses, studded with six little jewel-encrusted trophy replicas on the sides, they might see a roster in transition and a staff in question. Or they might not.

First and foremost, the Pittsburgh Steelers still represent excellence. They have built their organization on a power foundation and have done their best to stick to it while adjusting to the current game.  Historically speaking, their selections of personnel, both players and coaches, have been phenomenal.

Right now, however, there are a lot of pieces in flux.

There are whispers about Mike Tomlin coaching the Texas Longhorns. I'm sure this is just gossip, but there is a lotof money in Texas; never underestimate what a rich Texan can buy. And at what point do the tables turn for Tomlin within his own fan base? If he carries on missing the playoffs and ending third or worse in his division, how soon is he accused of riding the coattails of winning a championship with someone else's team? When will he become Tubby Smith?

Dick LeBeau is truly the Yoda of the NFL, but even the little green guy had to hang it up eventually and so will Dick. It would be hard to count on the man for much longer. It's impossible to say he isn't among the greatest defensive minds of all time, probably the best, but he doesn't have the rottweilers he used to and his old gang ages right along with him. There are many rocking chairs awaiting this defense and it's showing up.

On offense, there is talent missing.  David Decastro and Mike Pouncey were good draft picks but both have missed significant stretches of time with injuries. Marcus Gilbert and Mike Adams now seem drafted too high. Le'Veon Bell shows promise, and Antonio Brown has proven to be a gem, but there simply aren't many play-makers on this side of the ball. In the last three drafts, the Steelers have produced eight touchdowns from players they selected; the Bengals have 48 in that same span.

Whether or not Kevin Colbert fairly gets the blame or not is known to us schmoes outside of the building, but in the everyday world, it's the general managers who get the chop when multiple drafts go by without yielding big-time talent. Of course, that isn't the case in Cincinnati where the owner Mike Brown is the de facto general manager and should have fired himself every year in the 90's, but his organizational direction has dramatically improved in the recent past.

And that isn't even mentioning the increasingly murky waters of Ben Roethlisberger's future with the team. Sure, Ben says the right things to the media about his relationship with offensive coordinator, Todd Haley, but it seems clear that it's strained at best. Todd Haley yells at people, openly and a lot. He might be one of those tough love guys, but it may be hard to work for a person like that for Ben and for others. Of course if it came down to “him or me", the Rooneys would ship out Haley with that morning's recycling over disposing of Big Ben, but I expect one of these men to be gone in January either way.

Roethlisberger is expensive; hall-of-fame quarterbacks usually are. Today's economic model indicates that the best teams pay less for their young quarterbacks, but on the other hand, good quarterback play is still the most vital ingredient for success in the NFL. He has two more years on his current contract which will pay him over $17 million each season and his next signing day will likely exceed the $20 million a year mark. He has said he would rather retire than be traded, but we have seen crazier things happen before.

So while it may be an overstatement to say that the sky is falling in Pittsburgh, it is certainly a dip in their self-made standard and more than ever the torch feels passed.

On to the game.

The Bengals now fancy themselves a running team. The return of Andrew Whitworth to left guard has allowed Anthony Collins to finally get his shot at regularly starting at tackle, and together they maul. The double-barrel action of the old-reliable BenJarvus Green-Ellis complimented by the jitterbug Giovani Bernard, has created a facet the Bengals offense haven't enjoyed since the Sam Wyche days. The last two weeks, the duo has met expectations as they salt away second half leads and let the line bloody some noses on power runs up the gut. Last week against Indianapolis, Whitworth and Collins showed their athleticism as they consistently made downfield blocks on pitch plays to Bernard. The line also hasn't allowed a sack in three weeks. It's the best line play we've seen since 2005.

The Steelers must commit to stopping the run. Andy Dalton is not a great deep passer. Loading up the box against the Bengals and forcing them to win on long throws is a smart strategy. If Pittsburgh allows sustained drives created by rushing first downs, they will wear out and lose easily in the last quarter. Playing physical at the line of scrimmage against the Bengals receivers will force Dalton to improvise if they are adequately jammed, and Big Red is not a great improvisor. If they give A.J. Green and company cushion on the outside, the Bengals can win on underneath throws and check offs for first downs.

The Steelers aren't going to run well against Mike Zimmer's cew. Their best chance for success against this defense is to beat them over the top. The Bengals corners are not terribly fast, but the Steelers receivers are true burners. The way Zimmer counters this quandary is by dropping his coverage deep, allowing short throws and coming up to quickly make the tackle. It's his style. Last week, the defensive backs missed tackles that twice allowed touchdowns. Much was made about it and Zimmer himself said he will not tolerate missed tackles.

If Ben wants to throw for five to seven yards on first or second down, this defense will let him all day. He can drive his team to the Bengals' 40 yard line on a regular basis. Getting into the end zone though proves problematic when facing Cincinnati.

At this point, everyone knows how to defend Roethlisberger: Don't overpursue him in the pocket. Keep him in the pocket. When you get your hands on him, bring him down, and don't ever stop covering your receiver until you hear the whistle blow. The blue-prints are public information, it's actually doing it that's the problem.

Ben is a big bad ass who takes a thousand hits a season and laughs as he ices his joints every week. He's a throwback and a backyard legend. What he wants to do more than anything else, is run around and make a play out of nothing. He would rather invent football than go by the script. The Bengals know this and they have the players to make his day difficult, but there is no magic analysis to glean from. Stop him from making improvised plays and you win; it's that simple.

Therefore, all in all, I don't have a great feeling about this game for the Bengals. They have a much better roster, are playing well at the moment, need this game for prime playoff positioning, but don't play well in the division on the road. Andy Dalton was so good last week that I feel some balancing out is in order for Sunday night. It will be loud and cold and the two following games are in Cincinnati. If they were to let down their guard in the season's last quarter, it would be this game. Because the Bengals are so deep and talented this year, it's almost unfair to group them into historical trends of the dismal past, but this simply feels like a loss.

Steelers 24, Bengals 20

Mojokong—irregardless of what you've read.

Week 14 Preview: Full of Wonder

The last quarter is here. All in all, things have gone well for the Bengals. They sit atop their division and are now battling for a nice seed (aren't we all?). They enjoy a final stretch where they will play three of their last four games at home. Every player on the active roster practiced this week. Games are selling out. Football is fun in Cincinnati.

The Colts are so similar, and yet so different from that. They too have a comfortable lead in their division, are thinking of playoff position and get two easy remaining home games on the schedule. Yet the climate around the Indianapolis football team feels more worried than fun.

This team is in a funk. Their offensive identity is questionable. Andrew Luck scrambling is their best play at the moment. It seems they have not evolved past the Reggie Wayne injury and their power-run efforts have been stymied by Trent Richardson's inability to acclimate to his new scheme quickly enough. Last week, the Colts beat the Titans on the strength of Ryan Fitzpatrick making poor decisions and turning the ball over four times; it felt more like a Tennessee loss than an Indianapolis win. The week before that they were hammered by the Cardinals in the desert. Momentum has waned some on the Cots' season here in December which can be the death knell for Super Bowl hopefuls. If Indianapolis gets handled in this one against the Bengals, it might take great effort to rise from the proverbial mat.

All that being said, no 8-4 team is made up of bums. Andrew Luck consists of high-grade material. His instinct for the game is tremendous, he's more athletic than he looks, and his arm is just fine, thank you. This guy carries his team the way great ones do and shows a lot of passion and confidence in the huddle. The problem seems to be the lack of play-makers around him. After the Wayne injury, Coby Fleener now appears the most dangerous Colts receiver.

Another problem seems to be the offensive line, which has been porous the last two weeks. Luck has good pocket-presence but often hasn't had time to run. Poor pass-protection mixed with receivers not getting open against the Cincinnati front four-in the snow-makes for a scary day for Mr. Luck.

The Bengals defense is fierce even with missing stars. They allow short throws all day, allow mini drives to their own 40, and then tighten up like a straightjacket forcing punts and an occasional field goal. They delight their fans and frustrate the crap out of the opposition. They are the Zim Clan and we love them dearly. The Colts will need a few long plays to truly make a difference against them, and that ain't easy.

On the Cincinnati side, their offense is the opposite of Indianapolis. They have a tremendous assortment of weapons in their stockpile, but their quarterback is not of Andrew Luck ilk. The backups on this offense are better than many starters in the league. Talent drips from Jay Gruden's roster.

The quarterback issue has been worn to bits by fans and observers and is always summed up by saying that Andy Dalton is "okay". Now, though, the thinking is that perhaps Dalton's arm will become less important down the wintery stretch to the playoffs. Last week in sunny San Diego, the Bengals pounded their way to a tough-guy win and performed the victory formation on the Chargers three yard line. The offensive line has been shuffled in a manner that I believe will show improved results from their previous line up. Andrew Whitworth was a terrific guard early in his pro career. Anthony Collins is an exceptional backup tackle. Kevin Zeitler is battling some injuries at the moment but was out last week too and the line carried on nicely without him.

Perhaps now with the line adjustments, the Bengals may turn to power running more often, but I also think that may have been the idea since training camp irregardless of injury. Remember last season when the Bengals enjoyed their best stretch of games in November by pounding the rock, allowing BenJarvus Green-Ellis to display something like explosiveness, especially at home. Now with Benny complimented by the electric Giovani Bernard, Cincinnati can both wear out defenses and gash them in the process.

The Colts are a decent team to try a new identity on. Their man-to-man defense allows for big runs if the runner can reach their second tier. They also allow a lot of underneath stuff on the pass. Last week, Fitzpatrick chose the deeper crossing route instead of the check offs and short out routes that looked to be there all day. I know it's a term many football fans hate to hear, but if Dalton simply manages the game and minimizes the risks, I think the Bengals can nickle-and-dime the Colts to a win. The last team to play a lot of man coverage against Cincinnati were the Jets and they were roasted for 49 points. Look for the Bengals to throw short but run long for big yards after the catch thanks to broken tackles and superior matchups.

If the Bengals earn a victory, they will position themselves closer to a first-round bye and apply that pressure on New England. If the new line rolls over the Colts and the running game keeps the offense in a comfort zone, the team will grow even stronger for the long haul. This last quarter is vital for momentum purposes heading into January. Marvin Lewis cannot have his team trickle into the playoffs the way it has the last two years. This should be a great win.

Bengals 20, Colts 10

Mojokong-standing in the end zones for this one.