Yeah, this loss hurts. It hurts deep. To see my "great" and "playoff bound" (which I truly think they are) Bengals lose to such a horrible team upsets me. I guess Oakland now has a QB after benching Russell.
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Yeah, this loss hurts. It hurts deep. To see my "great" and "playoff bound" (which I truly think they are) Bengals lose to such a horrible team upsets me. I guess Oakland now has a QB after benching Russell.
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I'm not going to get too down about this. It was a bad loss but these things happen. Every team in the division lost today, and they all did it to a terrible opponent except for the Ravens. As long as we bounce back next week I won't get too worried. The Bengals lost due to turnovers at crucial times. It happens.
Well, that was brutal. It was 17-10 with the Bengals driving near the end of the 3rd Q when I got to church. The Bengals have timed two QB changes on the week they play a bad team twice now, and both times they've struggled. Makes you wonder if it makes film study an unknown and D gameplanning more difficult.
Oh well, at least we still have our one game D lead and two winnable games at home to get back on track.
Two thoughts:
1. The Bengals should sign Bruce Gradkowski this off-season to be the 3rd QB -- if for no other reason than to prevent him from popping up every few years to beat them.
2. The Bengals will continue to have red-zone issues until they address the glaring problem at TE. Chase Coffman was supposed to do this, but apparently he's too stupid to figure out the playbook -- or whatever reason is being given for him not being on the field.
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Scott had 61 yds on 1 carry, he can't pound it inside the tackles like Benson. The failure to take shots throughout the air to put this game away is beyond me.
What an ignorant loss. That was the worst play calling that I've seen all year. We weren't even trying to score points... just run out the clock.
What a wasted opportunity. With the Steelers and Ravens losses, the Bengals could have been 2 games up with 6 to play....now they must hang on precariously, hope they don't Bungle the remaining "gimmies", and hope the Ravens can help us out be beating the Steelers at least once.
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Palmer 8 of 10 for 120+ early on, throws 12 total passes the rest of the game.
As others have said, this was a let-down that you could see coming a mile away. An underachieving team, playing at home with a new QB matching up with a team traveling across country after a bruising, emotional division win. They're still 7-3 and in charge in the division which is what matters most. It was simply a game where key mistakes killed them. Johnson's fumble took the W away and Caldwell's fumble likely did the same thing. You can criticize the coaching but if either of those two things don't happen, we're likely talking about how we're thankful we made it past a trap game with a win. If it is going to happen I'd rather it happen against Oakland than against a division team.
I put this loss on the silly turnovers and the play calling. While they balanced the runs with the passes, they just didn't seem to be calling the right type of passes. After the first two drives, Oakland's D started to step it up and put pressure on Palmer whenever he dropped back to pass. Instead of calling some quick outs or slants to keep them honest, they seemed go back to the old slow developing pass plays and runs up the gut.
And for all the runs, I didn't see many play actions. I would have liked to have seen more running plays with Scott and Leonard or Johnson in the backfield so that Oakland would have had more difficulty knowing whether the run was coming up the middle or to the side.
However, the fumbles by Palmer, Jeremi Johnson and Caldwell killed them today. Palmer and Johnson I can forgive because they've done well in the past. IIRC, Caldwell has had issues protecting the ball on kick returns before. I'm hoping Benson comes back next week or Larry Johnson is ready to handle more carries so that Scott can handle kick off returns in addition to his RB duties. I don't ever want to see Caldwell back for a kick again.
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They went up 14-0 on the Browns earlier this year also, and barely won that one in deep OT. I think you're going to hear a lot this week about the Bengals learning a lesson that they need to put bad teams away, but they already had the opportunity to learn that earlier in the year.
Today didn't really change anything, they're even still the #2 seed in the AFC right now, but it's a huge missed opportunity.
The Larry Johnson signing irritates me even more now also, Scott clearly is good enough to fill in when Benson is hurt. Johnson isn't worth the distraction, even if it was minor.
Last edited by Redsfaithful; 11-22-2009 at 08:45 PM.
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
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