2013 Bengals Discussion (Part 3)

[OldRightHander]

I'm not afraid of playing any team in the NFL at Paul Brown Stadium. Away from that building is a different story.

Someone knocks off the higher seeds before the AFC Championship game and they get home games for the playoffs, I'd like their chances.

[Yachtzee]

Someone knocks off the higher seeds before the AFC Championship game and they get home games for the playoffs, I'd like their chances.

A snowstorm in Denver may well neutralize Peyton Manning.

[Wonderful Monds]

He made himself into a projectile, which is what they are making rules to penalize over the last several years. BTW, the NFL expects the referee to make a judgment on this in real time without aid of a GIF file. Which is why it is so inconsistent.

Yeah that's the entire problem, the launching one's self as hard as they can at other players. It's not even a tackle, there's no attempt to even wrap up at all.

[Redsfaithful]

You can see the Steelers player launches himself after the QB slides. I'm sure it's bang bang, but I just don't believe the Steelers don't coach their players to do that. I've seen it too much from them.

[GAC]

The Vikings were Tony Dungy's upset special this week. Its amazing how much these talking heads can base their opinions on one game.

Yeah, I had guys at work saying the Bengals could easily get beat by the Vikings, and based that on what Minnesota did the week before to the Eagles.

The Eagle's defense is horrendous, one of the worst in the NFL. The Bengal's D is solid. The only defense that's worse then the Eagles is the Vikings and Cowboys.

I wasn't too worried about the Bengals losing.

Now next week vs the Ravens? I'm a little concerned, but the Bengals have them at home. Keepin' my fingers crossed.

As far as the play-offs? ....

Most of the year, when it came to my co-workers, and my brother, who are Bengal fans, they kept consistently saying -"We'll make the playoffs and get beat in the first round!" Very pessimistic.

I'm really not so sure about that. In fact, looking at the AFC and what's been going on with these so-called "favored" teams these last few weeks, I think the Bengals will hold their own and could advance. For most of the year everyone was talking Denver; but the Broncos have shown their vulnerability. All season long I thought KC was a team waiting to get beat. Their first 9 games weren't really against any powerhouses, and my Browns could have beaten them. New England? I don't care what their record is, they still look shaky to me, especially on defense. The Bengals beat them earlier in the year, and the Browns had them beat.

I think the Bengals will be OK.

The only team(s) that really concern me, if they make it, are the Ravens or Steelers, but it's a long shot for Pitt to make it.

[bucksfan2]

Yeah, I had guys at work saying the Bengals could easily get beat by the Vikings, and based that on what Minnesota did the week before to the Eagles.

The Eagle's defense is horrendous, one of the worst in the NFL. The Bengal's D is solid. The only defense that's worse then the Eagles is the Vikings and Cowboys.

I wasn't too worried about the Bengals losing.

Now next week vs the Ravens? I'm a little concerned, but the Bengals have them at home. Keepin' my fingers crossed.

As far as the play-offs? ....

Most of the year, when it came to my co-workers, and my brother, who are Bengal fans, they kept consistently saying -"We'll make the playoffs and get beat in the first round!" Very pessimistic.

I'm really not so sure about that. In fact, looking at the AFC and what's been going on with these so-called "favored" teams these last few weeks, I think the Bengals will hold their own and could advance. For most of the year everyone was talking Denver; but the Broncos have shown their vulnerability. All season long I thought KC was a team waiting to get beat. Their first 9 games weren't really against any powerhouses, and my Browns could have beaten them. New England? I don't care what their record is, they still look shaky to me, especially on defense. The Bengals beat them earlier in the year, and the Browns had them beat.

I think the Bengals will be OK.

The only team(s) that really concern me, if they make it, are the Ravens or Steelers, but it's a long shot for Pitt to make it.

The narrative spun out of control based upon a couple of flukish plays against the Steelers. You are going to make a judgement on the Bengals based upon a botched snap that was 1 foot away from being a safety instead of a sure fire TD. A punt return TD that should have been called back that resulted in your punter going out in the 1st quarter and a kick off return to the 40 that was called back because the Bengal's arm went above his shoulder pad when he was saying "I got it."

That is it, you saying that a 4 win (and one tie) football team is going to come into Cincinnati, a place where if Dungy would have done his homework he would have found out they are undefeated in this season, and win the game. My issue is a coach like Dungy should know that sometimes fluke plays happen and determine a game. Sometimes those plays are the deciding factor in games, but judging a team based upon fluke plays is idiotic. Would I expect the Bengals to have a 1st quarter like they did in Pittsburgh in the playoffs? Absolutely not. It could happen though.

I don't know what to think of the game against Baltimore. The Bengals have "something" to play for, but not nearly as much as Baltimore. If Marvin goes into the game thinking "I may rest my starters" they are going to lose. The Bengals need to go all in or all out, not some kind of half effort. If they are all in I think they can beat the Ravens, if they don't go all in, they will lose handily.

As for the playoffs I think the one thing that separates the Broncos and Pats from the Bengals is the QB. The Bengals have a better D than the Broncos and probably a better 52 man roster than the Pats. All three are outdoors teams so you won't have a Saints issue in the AFC. Right now I would say the Bengals are the 3rd best team in the AFC. With the way Dalton is playing I think they can score with everyone in the AFC and probably have the 2nd best defense (to KC). I don't expect a run, heck I want to see a playoff win, but stranger things have happened.

[traderumor]

The narrative spun out of control based upon a couple of flukish plays against the Steelers. You are going to make a judgement on the Bengals based upon a botched snap that was 1 foot away from being a safety instead of a sure fire TD. A punt return TD that should have been called back that resulted in your punter going out in the 1st quarter and a kick off return to the 40 that was called back because the Bengal's arm went above his shoulder pad when he was saying "I got it."

That is it, you saying that a 4 win (and one tie) football team is going to come into Cincinnati, a place where if Dungy would have done his homework he would have found out they are undefeated in this season, and win the game. My issue is a coach like Dungy should know that sometimes fluke plays happen and determine a game. Sometimes those plays are the deciding factor in games, but judging a team based upon fluke plays is idiotic. Would I expect the Bengals to have a 1st quarter like they did in Pittsburgh in the playoffs? Absolutely not. It could happen though.

I don't know what to think of the game against Baltimore. The Bengals have "something" to play for, but not nearly as much as Baltimore. If Marvin goes into the game thinking "I may rest my starters" they are going to lose. The Bengals need to go all in or all out, not some kind of half effort. If they are all in I think they can beat the Ravens, if they don't go all in, they will lose handily.

As for the playoffs I think the one thing that separates the Broncos and Pats from the Bengals is the QB. The Bengals have a better D than the Broncos and probably a better 52 man roster than the Pats. All three are outdoors teams so you won't have a Saints issue in the AFC. Right now I would say the Bengals are the 3rd best team in the AFC. With the way Dalton is playing I think they can score with everyone in the AFC and probably have the 2nd best defense (to KC). I don't expect a run, heck I want to see a playoff win, but stranger things have happened.

I agree with you on Dungy, he should know better. Sometimes its better to be sober rather than say something provocative. Add to it that Minnesota had not won a game on the road, and the unlikeliness continues. The Steelers game was fodder for "the Bengals don't win these type of games." Although every week, good teams get beat by having unlikely plays happen that make a difference. It's hard to win games in the NFL, and a few unusual plays can create an upset, which that game was.

As for the current trends, I'd say the Bengals and Broncos are playing the best and pretty even, who knows about the Patriots, they have been an odd team this year, hard to predict. The wildcards, as far as tough playoff game, I like you don't want to see any part of Ravens and Steelers because of defensive matchups that consistently give us fits, home or road. I'd like our chances against the Chiefs or Dolphins at home and be surprised if they could keep up.

[UKFlounder]

The weird thing about the Patriots is they beat Baltimore 41-7, but it did not seem like that big of a blowout. 2 TDs came in garbage time, so it was 27-7 with a few minutes left, and early in the 4th quarter it was just 20-7, with New England's offense sleepwalking through the vast majority of the 2nd half.

Even the Patriot's defense seemed to be allowing Baltimore opportunities to get into it, but the Ravens would screw things up (going for it on 4th & short near the goal line, then later missing a short FG for instance)

The Patriots were a better team & the Raven's offense was pretty bad, but I thought 41-7 was a misleading score. 20-7 seemed a more accurate reflection of the game to me - New England was better by a few plays, but not quite by 5 TDs as the final score showed. They did get the TD to make it 27-7 & basically end the game, but they had 17 points by the first minute or 2 of the 2nd quarter and then sleepwalked for a while

Then again, maybe the score is all that matters, but i was not overly impressed with New England, especially on offense, in that game, and this was a week after they lost at Miami.

[RedFanAlways1966]

Then again, maybe the score is all that matters, but i was not overly impressed with New England, especially on offense, in that game, and this was a week after they lost at Miami.

Only Ws and Ls matter in the NFL. The only place the final score matters in football is the college game... and it makes me laugh and shake my head. It also causes college coaches to run it up (to hell with that thing called sportsmanship).

[New York Red]

Jon "Krazy Legs" Kitna is back!

[top6]

Back to the topic of sell-outs and blackouts, Reedy is not optimistic about their ability to sell out the first playoff game.

Kind of sad.

[RedFanAlways1966]

Back to the topic of sell-outs and blackouts, Reedy is not optimistic about their ability to sell out the first playoff game. Kind of sad.

Not your blog/article, but a little early for this IMO.

[HeatherC1212]

Back to the topic of sell-outs and blackouts, Reedy is not optimistic about their ability to sell out the first playoff game.

Kind of sad.

They'll sell plenty of tickets to the playoff game when people actually know the date and time of the game. It's hard to sell tickets to fans when the higher ups can't give you the specifics until after this weekend's games are over. I agree that it's way too early to be calling doomsday on a playoff game being a sellout. I'd buy tickets to it myself if I wasn't going to be out of town at the time but I wouldn't be buying them until next week.

[medford]

like heather said, they'll sell out, rather easily once the opponent, date and time are set. At this point, that 1st game could be next weekend, could be in two weekends. It could be saturday, could be sunday, could be at 1:00 or 4:00 or at night.

Lets just say, for instance, the NFL decided to cancel all games this weekend and awarded the last spot to Pittsburgh. Those 10,000 tickets would sell out by midnight. Now, there is no other fan base that would represent their team for a playoff game in Cincy like the steelers would, but no matter the opponent, there is going to be a chunk of fans of the team that come to cincy to watch their team in the playoffs.

People are more apt to purchase tickets the closer the game gets as well; I'm not worried about the team selling an additional 10,000 tickets b/w this weekend and next Thursday.

[New York Red]

Umm ... 5 Browns named to the Pro Bowl, but only two Bengals? I didn't think the Pro Bowl could become an even bigger joke than it already was, but somehow it has.