Bengals vs Colts Game thread

[membengal]

Fwiw, I NEVER am one screaming for them to run the ball more, and last night confirmed why. Stupid gameplan from the get go. Took the ball out of Carson's hands and limited CJ's and Housh's touches.

On the list of flawed gameplans the Bengals have come up with, that one was right a the top. A Colts team, coming off of the embarrassment of what happened at Jax, and angry and at home, was going to be loaded up to deal with the run. The Bengals, who possess a world class passing game, mothballed it to run into the angry and embarrassed Colts. Dumb. Dumb as ever I have seen.

Only good thing is that I assume I will NEVER have to hear from the contingent on here that thinks the Bengals don't run enough ever again.

No, Anderson's injury didn't help, but even before that they had gone away from Carson too much. Palmer had only 16 attempts as the 4th quarter started. Criminal.

And, is anyone really surprised the Bengals couldn't slow Indy down? Our D matches up horribly with them, we needed to be prepared to score with them, and instead acted like we had Rex Grossman at quarterback. Shameful.

[schweinhart]

Only good thing is that I assume I will NEVER have to hear from the contingent on here that thinks the Bengals don't run enough ever again.

You assume wrong...They should've ran the ball even more last night. Palmer was geting whacked, nobody apparently could get open underneath the way the Colts receivers did and when Palmer did have time, too many of his throws were crap. The 1st drive pretty much set that tone: Rudi gets a 1st down on 2 handoffs then carves out another 5 before Palmer throws a garbage ball to Chad that would've got 20 and then runs right into Freeney coming way around the backside for a wonderful fumble. If anything, I'd rather see Palmer throw less because he doesn't seem to be able to hold on to the effing ball any more and when he does too many of his throws wouldn't hit the broad side of a barn.

My beef with the run game last night was the failure of the blockers to knock their man back on the 2 FG drives: 1 and G from the 6 turns into 3rd and G from the 9 and a Chris Henry drop in the endzone with a Whitworth hold, 3rd and 1 from the 12 turns into a loss when Rudi gets stood up in the backfield. The Bengals punch it in both times and they got the lead 21-17 midway through te 3rd.

[HoosierCat]

No, Anderson's injury didn't help, but even before that they had gone away from Carson too much. Palmer had only 16 attempts as the 4th quarter started. Criminal.

Actually, he had more than that, but the passes never got off because he was taken down. Really, I dont see anything wrong with the run/pass ratio. Let's go through the first three quarters worth of drives:

1st drive: 2 runs, 3 passes, including the play on which Palmer is sacked dropping back and fumbles.

2nd: 8 runs, 4 passes. Solid drive goes 66 yards and ends on an incomplete pass to Henry in the end zone that would not have counted even if he caught it, because Whitworthless got called for holding. Graham FG. Maybe they should have run it more, not less.

3rd: 2 runs and a pass, then a punt. It's muffed, Bengals recover, and theres 1 pass, 4 more runs, including a 12-yard TD scamper by Rudi. I'm assuming you don't have a problem with that run?

4th (begin with 0:08 remaining) 1 run, 1 pass attempt (sacked), end of half.

5th: 3 runs, 2 passes, FG.

6th: 1 run, 2 passes, punt.

7th: 4 passes, 4 runs, FG. 4th quarter starts half way through the drive.

I see a pretty balanced attack plan. Only time it got heavily run favored, the second and third drives, they scored 10 points. The run was working just fine. The problem was that the line could not protect the QB. When they tried to pass Carson had guys in his face immediately, causing bad things to happen -- sacks, fumbles, incompletions.

[schweinhart]

3rd: 2 runs and a pass, then a punt. It's muffed, Bengals recover, and theres 1 pass, 4 more runs, including a 12-yard TD scamper by Rudi. I'm assuming you don't have a problem with that run?

Let's not forget 1 of those runs was the ever-pointless end around to Chad Johnson on 1st down for nothing and the pass was a sideline go to Henry 50 yards downfield with no chance of completion (but probably Palmer's best throw of the game).

That might be the grounds for wanting more throws -- bombs, which is an obvious Palmer strength. But he's got to have time to get it off. Palmer nevr adjusted the way Manning did to take what was given and it didn't look like the playcalling did either. Manning had most of his throws right over the middle instead of going deep and Manning probably could've went deep if he wanted to because he had time. Palmer needs to learn to be more like Manning in that regard and better yet more like Troy Aikman. He's just not there yet and I'm being to think he's extremely sloooooooow witted.

[HairOnFire]

Palmer needs to learn to be more like Manning in that regard and better yet more like Troy Aikman. He's just not there yet and I'm being to think he's extremely sloooooooow witted.

Let me make sure I'm hearing you correctly. You think a pro bowl player with one of the highest QB rankings in the NFL despite running one of the most complictaed offensive schemes in the NFL is a slow witted tard?

Upon reflection I can think of only one proper response. Please cancel my subscription to your newsletter immediately.

[stilldiesel]

Don't worry about it. We got our ass kicked in Indy on MNF last year and still beat them in the playoffs.

[duus]

Don't worry about it. We got our ass kicked in Indy on MNF last year and still beat them in the playoffs.

Exactly. And a very good and accurate memory. Too bad your 'friends' that troll around here don't seem to maintain as good a recollection. They are convinced that this single road game somehow proves we could never have won road games in the playoffs last year.