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Bengals @ Cardinals Pregame Chatter/Game Thread


HoosierCat

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8-1 coming off of an humbling loss, going away to a 7-2 team....not easy. Now factor in the Palmer/Lewis/Bengals back story and we gotta bit of a game on our hands.

This is, in my opinion, a MUST WIN game. Lose it, coupled with a Steelers win, and the AFCN is blown wide open - an 8-1 start could come down to a single game vs pittsburgh.

We really need to step up for this game. Stop the penalties, stop the opponents 3rd and silly long conversions, stop failing to convert our own 3rd downs.

Please move away slightly from the quick lateral pass to the receiver that bore little fruit vs Houston     

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It's not a must-win game. We'll see how it goes, but I like their chances better now than I did yesterday. If recent history tells us anything, they usually bounce back strongly after a bad loss (remember NO after the Cleveland debacle?).

It's funny to watch this from the other side. Back in the bad old days, the Bengals, en route to another 3-6 win season, would alway have one of these games, where they unexpectedly beat a big bad team. And fans of those teams would mostly take the loss in stride, saying what I'm saying now: that was their Super Bowl. That was the high point of their year. I hope they enjoy it.

There's no way to characterize any loss as good, but the silver lining is that "knocking off an undefeated team" just came off the board as motivation for our last seven games. There are no more in-season Super Bowls to be won by beating Cincinnati. That anvil is now left to New England and Carolina.

On to Arizona. Quitty McQuiterpants awaits.

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Yep count me not worried about the Texans game either. If guys would have caught the ball, or the o-line would have blocked a little better, or if AJ wouldn't have fumbled the ball on a game winning drive, then the outcome would have been different. 

 

Oh well time to move on, not sure if they will win or not, but I like the offense against the cards defense so hopefully they get it going again! Give Dalton time! Yes and please hit mister Quitter a few times, and get him off his game

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I think that it's a must win, if the ultimate goal is to do more than qualify for playoffs. Must prove to yourself that you can win national games with regularity. Otherwise, you're perpetual playoff pushovers

after this there's a couple of other chances to change the mentality, but this is the big one to show that Houston was the fluke, not Cleveland. don't show up again and snowball becomes avalanche

 

 

 

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25 minutes ago, princeton said:

I think that it's a must win, if the ultimate goal is to do more than qualify for playoffs. Must prove to yourself that you can win national games with regularity. Otherwise, you're perpetual playoff pushovers

after this there's a couple of other chances to change the mentality, but this is the big one to show that Houston was the fluke, not Cleveland. don't show up again and snowball becomes avalanche

 

 

 

I couldn't agree more.  Last year's game against NO, after the primetime Cleveland loss, was NOT an away primetime game!  This year the game in AZ is!  PLUS the one in Denver is as well.  They need to get that monkey off their back and no better way to start than in AZ against Palmer!

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1 hour ago, princeton said:

Must prove to yourself that you can win national games with regularity.

Well, they're 1-1 after 2 in that category this year so I can't find much to complain about. As for last night, it looked less like one of the Bengals' usual prime time struggles and more like their usual post-bye lethargy. We saw that two weeks ago when they could only muster 16 points coming off the bye against a mediocre Pittsburgh D.Last night they could only put up 10 coming off the longest possible mini-bye. Time to get back on schedule this week.

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1 hour ago, HoosierCat said:

Well, they're 1-1 after 2 in that category this year so I can't find much to complain about. As for last night, it looked less like one of the Bengals' usual prime time struggles and more like their usual post-bye lethargy. We saw that two weeks ago when they could only muster 16 points coming off the bye against a mediocre Pittsburgh D.Last night they could only put up 10 coming off the longest possible mini-bye. Time to get back on schedule this week.

6

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1 hour ago, HoosierCat said:

Well, they're 1-1 after 2 in that category this year so I can't find much to complain about.

might be 1-2 after next week, which would be same old Bengals... so unless that's what they want to be, it's a must game. personally I thought that Houston was a must because anything can happen at Phoenix. But with their poor offensive performance, the Bengals changed everything.

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Odd little pattern developing this year. After rolling over Oakland and SD in weeks 1 and 2, the Bengals went to Baltimore in week 3 and in a close game, had to drive for a winning score in the final minutes.

In week 4 they rolled over KC.

In week 5, they hosted Seattle and in a close game, had to drive for a winning score in the final minutes (OT in this case).

In week 6, they rolled over Buffalo.

In week 8, they went to Pittsburgh and in a close game, had to drive for a winning score in the final minutes.

In week 9, they rolled over Cleveland.

In week 10, they hosted Houston and in a close game, had to drive for (and fail to get) a winning score in the final minutes.

In week 11...

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I certainly hope Carolina or NE lay an egg in one of their remaining games, and that an opponent has their superbowl game against them.

But if not, then we could be looking at a wildcard game instead of a bye with homefield advantage. If it comes down to that then the Houston game will be scrutinised a lot more and could come back to bite our asses 

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1 hour ago, Wraith said:

Add to this it has been more than two seasons since they have lost back to back games.

Yup, and that's interesting to look at, too. The last time they lost back-to-back weeks, they were in almost the same situation as the last two weeks. First, they lost the OT heartbreaker against Miami on Thursday night. Then they got the mini-bye until Sunday when they went to Baltimore (1 pm game) and looked, well, a lot like they looked after the mini-bye last night. The D played pretty well, holding the Ravens to 17 points in regulation, but the O was horrible, managing a grand total of 3 points in the first three quarters (over which they also missed a FG and Dalton tossed two picks). Dalton was sacked 5 times and the run game managed only 94 yards between BJGE and Gio (and the pass/run ratio overall was better than 2/1). They did manage to force OT thanks to the Ravens defender who tipped Dalton's Hail Mary pass into Green's hands, then lost in OT.

The following week they crushed Cleveland 41-20 (who were actually 4-5 at that point coming off a big win against division rival Baltimore...).

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Just to follow up, I looked at their other games coming off the mini-bye in the Dalton era. Basically they've looked good once, last year against NO after the Cleveland debacle. In 2013 you had the Baltimore game described above. In 2012 they beat the Eagles on Thursday night, then traveled to Pittsburgh following the mini-bye. Again, the D played great, holding the Steelers to 10 points. The O coughed up the ball three times, converted just 4 of 15 third downs, had a grand total of 14 rushing yards, and scored a whopping 6 points. They won 13-10 thanks to a Hall pick-6.

 

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21 minutes ago, BengalszoneBilly said:

The sentiment I'm hearing right now out here in Arizona is they are expecting to easily hand the Bengals their second consecutive loss on Sunday night.

I would expect that. I also expect that the pundit-o-sphere will go heavily, if not completely, in the tank for the Cardinals. To all of that I say good. It never hurts this team to be the underdog.

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Schticking to the last 7 games in front of them, this is what I'm feeling.  I can already hear the Steelers preparing to circle the wagons!

Many thought this team was different.  After the primetime egg last night, the only difference I'm seeing is 8 of their 9 or 10 wins this year, came all in a row!

Bengals

11/22  @ AZ (Primetime away game)  L  8-2

11/29  struggling Rams at home  W  9-2

12/6  @ Cleveland (Never beat them twice in a season)  L  9-3

12/13  Steelers at home  (Never beat them twice in a season, key injuries will occur)  L  9-4

12/20  @ SF (Assuming this is left as a primetime away game...)  L  9-5  (Even it not primetime, injuries will show up big from the Thugsburgh game)

12/28  @ Denver  (Primetime away game)  L  9-6

1/3  struggling Ravens at home  W 10-6 or L  9-7  (Could go either way, can't imagine them beating them twice in a season, 2 years straight)

Steelers

11/22  Bye

11/29  @ Seattle who is floundering  W  7-4

12/6  busted up Colts at home  W  8-4

12/13 @ Bengals  W  9-4

12/20 @ Denver L  9-5

12/27 @ Ravens  (will not lose to Ravens twice in the season)  W  10-5

1/3 @ Browns (Playing for the division with mental toughness will carry them)  W  11-5

AFC North

Steelers  11-5  (Division Champs)

Bengals 10-6 or 9-7  (Probable Wild Card Team)

 

 

 

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And so it begins...

Quote

Bengals owner Brown: I never wanted to trade Palmer

Possibly the most obvious headline in the history of mankind.

Quote

Cincinnati Bengals owner and general manager Mike Brown was certain his team would be playing against Carson Palmer long after the star quarterback was traded away.

Brown, though, said Palmer expressed an opposite take in trying to talk his way out of Cincinnati.

"We sat here in the office on a couple of occasions and argued about what the future should be for him and us," Brown said. "Whether he really believed it or not I rather doubt. But my argument then with him was, 'You're a top quarterback and you've got real productive years in front of you.'

"He would say to me, 'Oh no. I'm all beat up. I'll be lucky to play another year or two,' which I didn't take to heart."

More at the link, and more of the interview with Mike promised to come today (oh joy). This is the most interesting nugget: Carson allegedly wanting out because he was getting beat to kingdom come. Given the horrid olines he routinely played behind post-2006, it's not hard to believe this was at least part of his thinking. I doubt it was the sole reason, though.

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Just for kicks I looked up the 2010 roster. Only 16 players left from the Palmer era, just two of whom are on offense, Moobs and Whit (though technically Peerman is an RB tho he plays almost exclusively on teams and Clark Harris is officially a TE).

On D and teams there's Geno, Dunlap, Peko, Sims, MJ, Pacman, both F&LNRs, Hall, Nelson, Huber and Nugent.

Can't hurt that such a big chunk of the D knows the Golden Boy well...

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