Good Things Said About Our Defense - Merry Christmas!

[damiancasey]

Defensive Players of the Week

Cincinnati safeties Chinedum Ndukwe and Marvin White, both rookies. After finding out on Friday they'd both be starting because of injuries to the starting safeties, they played with reckless abandon and helped torment Cleveland quarterback Anderson into four interceptions. Ndukwe and White combined for 11 tackles, two interceptions, three pass deflections and a fumble recovery.

"Intellective, instinctive and really eager to play," defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan said of his two second-day draft choices. "They played the kind of game they had to play for us to win today."

Coach of the Week

Cincinnati defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan. After losing a crushing game at San Francisco in Week 15, and then losing starting safeties Madieu Williams and Dexter Jackson in practice on Thursday (talk about when it rains it pours), Bresnahan simplified the gameplan so as not to overwhelm his rookie safeties and emphasized pressure on Derek Anderson.

"We had to establish the pressure game early and keep it going for four quarters," said Bresnahan on Sunday night. "I thought we played coverage well, and he [Anderson] threw a couple right to us."

It's a mark of a good coach when you've got nothing to play for, the other team has everything to play for, and you come out like the team that has something at stake.

This is from Peter King's "Monday Morning Quarterback" column on SI.com. I know many of you will rip his comments to shreds as meaningless BS.

To be honest, I think he may be giving us a little to much credit!

However...it sure felt good to be singled out for praise for once!!

[ArmyBengal]

"They played the kind of game they had to play for us to win today."

And what kind of game would that be there Chuck ?? The kind where your players actually give a f*ck ?? Amazing it took two rookies and 15 games into the season to get that kind of game...

Bresnahan simplified the gameplan so as not to overwhelm his rookie safeties and emphasized pressure on Derek Anderson.

And where was this simplfication all year ?? I mean appearently the rest of the guys haven't been getting it either, so you would think this would have worked a lot earlier in the season as well. I mean with all the new guys playing that is...

"I thought we played coverage well, and he [Anderson] threw a couple right to us."

And I suppose we should give credit to the coaching staff for this happening ??

Coach of the Week - Cincinnati defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan.

WHAT THE F*CK EVER !!!

WHODEY !!!

[cincy9275]

peter king is a f**king moron, a opinionated dick head that does not know his ass from a whole in the ground.

[jjakq27]

Simplify the gameplan...........apply more pressure................

Guess that means he gets signed to a long term deal.

[ShulaSteakhouse]

Yes, if the QB throws passes directly to our CB's and Safeties again every week like Anderson did, they'll be in good shape, and no changes are necessary. Breshnaham's system works very well when this happens. Genuis.

[Stripes]

Yes, Chuck has had a bad run here and should be fired.

That doesn't mean he's never capable of coaching a single solid football game.

[BengalszoneBilly]

Yes, Chuck has had a bad run here and should be fired.

That doesn't mean he's never capable of coaching a single solid football game.

Isn't that another way of saying "even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while"?

[Stripes]

Yes, Chuck has had a bad run here and should be fired.

That doesn't mean he's never capable of coaching a single solid football game.

Isn't that another way of saying "even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while"?

You could definitely make that argument, Billy, but I don't think blind squirrels coach in the NFL for one season -- certainly not three.

[BengalszoneBilly]

Yes, Chuck has had a bad run here and should be fired.

That doesn't mean he's never capable of coaching a single solid football game.

Isn't that another way of saying "even a blind squirrel will find a nut once in a while"?

You could definitely make that argument, Billy, but I don't think blind squirrels coach in the NFL for one season -- certainly not three.

I live in Arizona, home of the Cardinals, and I watched Denny "the blind squirrel" Green HEAD coach in the league for longer than that. He was even more blind than Chucky is. Doing a bad job, but amazingly keeping your job anyways, has a long and storied history in this league IMHO. Cincinnati is far from riding as the Lone Ranger in this one.

[jonahdsage]

I'm happy with the win, especially against the browns and the given situation. As far as this article goes and the idea of how well our defense played a few points:

first off, cleveland drove the ball right down our throats all day. Two of those interceptions came deep in our own territory. That was solid coverage by marvin on winslow in the endzone but if anderson through a pass 6 inches higher it was a touchdown. Fluke play that him in the facemask and we got a lucky bounce. Our defense was in no way stopping their offense . . . we just got some lucky breaks.

second . . . pressure on the quarterback? really? The one sack we registered was after 8 seconds or so of anderson skirting around in the pocket. We simply do NOT get pressure on the quarterback with any sort of regularity.

third . . . bresnahan, when we win with help from the defense, always gives the "we simplified the game plan etc." speech. how many times have we heard j. smith say that they were given the green light to just rush the qb and not do all the stunts? nothing works with any consistency. 15 games in and suddenly simplifying things works? that makes sense . . .

chuck just gets walked all over as a d coordinated and our defense often looks confused and lost on the field. you can't look at 1 game that makes up for the ridiculousness of 5 seasons worth of coaching. i was frustrated with brat and bres back in the magic season of '05. He's got to go and i do not for a second give him any slack or pats on the back because of the solid play we got from the safeties last week. sheesh.

[ShulaSteakhouse]

I'm happy with the win, especially against the browns and the given situation. As far as this article goes and the idea of how well our defense played a few points:

first off, cleveland drove the ball right down our throats all day. Two of those interceptions came deep in our own territory. That was solid coverage by marvin on winslow in the endzone but if anderson through a pass 6 inches higher it was a touchdown. Fluke play that him in the facemask and we got a lucky bounce. Our defense was in no way stopping their offense . . . we just got some lucky breaks.

second . . . pressure on the quarterback? really? The one sack we registered was after 8 seconds or so of anderson skirting around in the pocket. We simply do NOT get pressure on the quarterback with any sort of regularity.

third . . . bresnahan, when we win with help from the defense, always gives the "we simplified the game plan etc." speech. how many times have we heard j. smith say that they were given the green light to just rush the qb and not do all the stunts? nothing works with any consistency. 15 games in and suddenly simplifying things works? that makes sense . . .

chuck just gets walked all over as a d coordinated and our defense often looks confused and lost on the field. you can't look at 1 game that makes up for the ridiculousness of 5 seasons worth of coaching. i was frustrated with brat and bres back in the magic season of '05. He's got to go and i do not for a second give him any slack or pats on the back because of the solid play we got from the safeties last week. sheesh.

Yep, and again see my post above. I'm not sure King watched the game, but without Anderson throwing at least 3 horrible passes into coverage, they very well win that game. Anderson then didn't do anything to make up for his mistakes (something Palmer is at least capable of doing). The Browns went up and down the field at will until they turned it over again and again. That sort of scheme won't win you many games as the Bengals' have proven since Breshnaham has been here.

The young DB's played well, and are growing up finally, hopefully, that's about the only positive thing I can say about this defense. Guys like Geathers and Peko simply need some better guys around them at NT/DT and LB.

[Bengals44]

"They played the kind of game they had to play for us to win today."

And what kind of game would that be there Chuck ?? The kind where your players actually give a f*ck ?? Amazing it took two rookies and 15 games into the season to get that kind of game...

So true and just wait until those two are "Chuck-ised", they could easily regress rather than progress... Hopefully, they can overcome their poor coaching...