Bengals Preseason Week 1 Lazy Viewer Guide: First Glimpse

On the precipice of the first preseason battle this evening, the Bengals look at one another and wonder to themselves if they collectively have what it takes.

As of now, they are quintessential paper champions, composed of quality depth and nicely developed draft picks. The coaching staff took a bit of a hit this offseason as both of last year's coordinators dipped out for head coaching gigs elsewhere, but it remains a fine collection of football knowledge in Cincinnati anyway. With the roster largely unchanged, one has to ask: are the philosophical tweaks brought on by the new coaches enough of a change to force a different outcome in January?

This is all strictly based on a person's perception and preconceived notions of the team, of course, but I am going to argue that it is indeed enough.

This has been a good team, despite its series of postseason chokes. In the second half of last season, the Bengals were murdering teams at home, pummeling them into oblivion. The Chargers came in as large underdogs, handed the ball to Danny Woodhead, and blitzed the crap out of Andy Dalton forcing the ginger to cough up the ball and the game. And even though there had been 11 excellent Sundays before it, on the most important of them all, they were outmuscled and outcoached.

So now Dalton is better paid, there are a new handful of rookies, two big-named free agents migrated south to Tampa Bay and James Harrison was allowed to leave his cage and go home. Back from injury are key players, particularly on the defensive side of the ball such as Geno Atkins, Leon Hall, Emmanuel Lemur and Taylor Mays, yet all of these things do not necessarily add up to a different team.
That means the Bengals are counting on two intangible elements to prove successful in order to produce a more favorable outcome in 2014.

The first is the new scheme. Some may have attended all the Bengals practices and can identify the new installations put in by coaches, but I am not one of those few. For most of us, games like the one scheduled for tonight is the best look at what to expect when the live fire breaks loose in three weeks, and even then it's hard to truly discern what's going on under all those layers of vanilla. Still, we will likely see the first steps of the revamped running game we've all heard about which should feature rookie running back, Jeremy Hill. If Hill and Gio can be the peanut butter and jelly sandwich the coaches are hoping they can be, we should have at least some glimpse of it in the preseason. If it's producing 2.8 yards per carry, however, Andy Dalton would then be forced to do more, and everyone that watches the game seems to think that's not the right idea.

On defense, the assumption is that Mike Zimmer's scheme will be carried on by his apprentice, Paul Guenther, but that it may have a bit more blitzes contained within the playcalling sequence. The anticipated increase of speed within the linebacker ranks with the return of Lemur and Mays, theoretically allows for more blitzing because those guys can cover receivers better than last year when it was Harrison and Rey Maualuga in coverage. With a stout defensive line and deep (though old) secondary, sending the hounds more often seems like a sensible approach with the current personnel in place.  

So while we are too old to be fooled into thinking that we learn a great deal from preseason games in terms of scheme and approach, we have thirsted for football for many months and will be pleased to see striped helmets crashing around the field. And since we live in an era where information and analysis mercilessly pours upon our heads on a 24-hour basis, there will be a saturating amount of coverage and extrapolation from the four quarters scheduled this evening in Kansas City. If you want to cut to the chase, though, and set aside most of those other layers, look for how the Bengals run the ball and how often they blitz.