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Win or lose, I'm proud of the team this week.


BengalszoneBilly

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I KNOW WE LOST and the season is over but lets all face it we played our ass off and almost pulled of what NO ONE EXPECTED us to even come close.

Yeah, it's a great story. I expect it to be on the cover of "Almost Magazine" this month.

The Bengals lost. They played well against a good team... but that's part of their history. They play up to the competition of better teams and down to the competition of worse teams.

I was being a bit tongue in cheek with my earlier post about not wasting a good draft position. But I did see things from this team I liked that I hadn't seen previously. I expected Palmer to have his nose broken or worse. This was the best pass rushing team in the NFL... but he hung in there and drove the field.

There were many that were losing their faith in Palmer. I for one just thought there was too much trouble with the rest of the team for him to succeed... but I saw him play well again when he was overmatched. I have renewed hopes for a hall of fame career from Palmer with eventual Super Bowl rings (although not this year). He is the hope of this franchise, and I hope to see him build on this game for the rest of the season.

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Has anyone considered that the Giants probably overlooked us? That they probably didn't practice for us? That they were sleepwalking? We didn't play up to the level of an elite team...we played our best and the elite team played poorly and we still lost.

Let's all be realistic...

All week Coughlin made it clear that they weren't overlooking us. I don't feel like the elite team played poorly as much as it was that we played really way. Our gameplan was to shut down Plax and the run, which we did. A few mishaps allowed other players to beat us. Although we lost, I was very pleased with our performance and I wouldn't count us out.

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Well I saw a team that played with the super bowl champs and hung in there with a banged up def. backfield. We have lost to 3 teams that have not lost a game yet, so hang in there guys.... B)

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Well I saw a team that played with the super bowl champs and hung in there with a banged up def. backfield. We have lost to 3 teams that have not lost a game yet, so hang in there guys.... B)

While the Bengals are looking like the Bungals of the 90's they aren't as long as Carson Palmer plays at a high level. Lose him and they become the Bungals.

Lets wait till we see how they play against Cleveland before anointing the Bengals as contenders to win 4 games this season.

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I would agree with the original post. It was a solid effort, I just wonder where was it in week 1 and 2. It is easy to nit-pick about this and that and the fact that they settled for field goals instead of touchdowns on two occasions, but the effort was much, much better.

I'm not thrilled about the loss, but sometimes you play well and lose and you play poorly and win, unfortunately the Bengals fit into the first category this week

Was it a perfect game? No. There has never been one played, but if they maintain that effort they will win their share of games this year.

Let's clean the Clowns clock this week and go from there.

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Think about this phrase: "Win or lose - I'm proud of them"...

Same thing you'd say if your mentally-slow unathletic scrawny little brother took on the neighborhood bully and got his ass handed to him and sent to the emergency room.

Guts is fine but this is the NFL. All of these guys are supposed to be at parity in terms of ability. Unfortunately the patterns and tone we are seeing are eerily familiar to the Bengals of the 90's.

I will cheer my ass off for them but I'm not proud and I'm not optimistic. I've had plenty of mediocre and poor football over the years and I just don't have a taste for it anymore. I don't care if they DO beat the Browns this weekend. They have already showed me that they've come into the season half-assing it.

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Think about this phrase: "Win or lose - I'm proud of them"...

That wasn't the complete phrase I used. I said "Win or lose I'm proud of the team this week."

After the prior two game I would have never uttered these words.

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I've said this since early Summer on this board, but Bengals fans have to understand that this is a rebuilding year. Out of the 22 players that start, only 10 started at least 10 games for the Bengals at the position their starting now. What that means is that they're either starting at a completely different position, starting for the first time or are FA's/rookies who are transitioning. Furthermore, the defense is learning a whole different system, which is far different than Bresnahan, who was already on the stafff when he was promoted and used a lot of the same terminology and schemes. Our secondary is comprised of 3 2nd year players and a 3rd year player, which essentially rookies backing up at every position.

Offensively, we have a new RB, new FB, new starting TE (in 2 TE sets), new starting RT, and a C and LT coming back from injuries that limited them last season. Our Pro Bowl QB and WR's have all been injured or playing through injuries. Rookies backup at many of these positions, as well. The Bengals are the 4th youngest team in the NFL, with an average age of 25.8. To top if all off, they are playing one of the toughest schedules in football in going head to head with the AFC South and NFC East, the two best divisions in football. So, yeah, this '08 Bengals team is not the '05 team by a longshot. Most of the starters and major contributors (Rudi, Thurman, Pollack, Anderson, Steinbach, James, O'Neal, Adams, Robinson, Smith, Ohleate, Williams, Kaesviharn, etc.) from that team are long gone. We should take pride that this team is able to be competitive against the Super Bowl champions and two other undefeated teams, so far. For those that think that "moral victories don't count", just look at the "moral victory" the Giants got in losing to the Pats the last game of the season....That was the final time they lost in '08 and every player pointed back to that game. We have a chance to do the same thing this season.

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