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Will the bengals make the playoffs


losersaywha

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jonathan vilma, as a rookie last year, was the leader of a good jets defense. his supporting cast is not that much better than ours, if it is.

between marvin simplifying the defense, our vets knowin their roles and not havin to "fill-in" for injured players (i.e. madieu at corner and both safeties; landon at mlb; injured kim herring) and the presence of the two rookies, our defense will be a lot better. it hasn't been but a year that anyone on our defense has had to fight off depth and "win" their position. this depth and competition will bring out the best in every player we have. we had a ton of injuries last year...there was no cohesion. when our "future" mlb nate webster went down, we had to adjust, and adjust with rookies nonetheless. we rarely started the same defense in consecutive games.

i think this year will be a year that (assuming injuries are minimal and we have a good camp) the defense understands what their jobs are and will gel together. geathers provides a pass-rush we haven't had. his presence puts justin on the weaker left side, where he can hopefully have an easier time pressuring.

i don't hear much about bryan robinson, but this dude is a run-stuffing monster. he's no kris jenkins or shaun rogers, but he and john thornton provide a tough tandem of dt's to run through.

barring injuries, this defense is heads above where we were last year. pollack and thurman both seem to have that "it" factor that you can't teach. they have drive. they are natural leaders. they will do nothing but help our defense. nick barnett was his team's leading tackler his rookie year in green bay, jonathan vilma emerged as a GREAT mlb in his rookie year, landon johnson led our team in tackles as a rookie. i don't see where rookies can't be great defensive players, especially for a defense that isn't that great to start with.

You're right, you don't hear much about Bryan Robinson, I forgot all about him.

Personally, I'm not saying rookies can't be great...just that its not likely. But we've got to play 'em, even as rooks they're probably the best guys on the roster at their positions. Nothing left for us to do but hope for the best :D .

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Ummm Marvin already has the draft picks writen in as Starters,

Pollack & Thurman will be starting.

but you cant depend on rooks being amazing, well as i looked at previous drafts 5 of the 31 players will be probowlers, they could be like peyton have a bad first 2 seasons then come and do amazing, it just takes time to develop

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Bengals.JPG

Am I the only one who noticed that the QB in this picture is Jon Kitna, with a some nice photoshop work changing the 3 to a 9?

Just thought it was kind of funny.

When I first looked at it I thought it was Kitna. But that is Carsons face...at least it looks like it.

However, the arms don't look like they are big enough to be Carsons, so they would have to be Kitna's. The other thing is Corry obviously wasn't here with Carson starting.

If you are going to switch Kitna with Palmer..do us a favor and change out Cory to! lol

lol sry my bro just found it online, searching, well he didn't photoshop it cause hes computer dumb lol instead of cory, picture him as Rudi lol

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That is a pretty old picture to have PDub in the top 3. Are you sure they didn't swap out Akili?<_<

But to the point of the thread...the defense did improve significantly with Pollack, Thurman and Robinson. They also improved with the DL realignment, and by having guys like Madieu and Landon getting a year of experience under their belts. And since when is Marvin against starting rookies?

And keep in mind that we don't need to improve that much to make the playoffs. If Carson were as good in the beginning of last season as he was in the end, we would have picked up at least 1 more win and we wouldn't be having this conversation.

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But to the point of the thread...the defense did improve significantly with Pollack, Thurman and Robinson. They also improved with the DL realignment, and by having guys like Madieu and Landon getting a year of experience under their belts.

I can't agree. I expect some improvement, but "significant"? <shakes head> Landon and Odell, since they both appear to be competing for the same job, essentially cancel each other out; either Johnson's experience or Odell's raw ability will be on the bench at any given moment. Athletically, Pollack is a huge upgrade over Hardy, but in terms of experience it's an equally big step back. Robinson is a stopgap. Tony Williams stunk, the Great Fourth Round Hope, Askew, can't stay heathy, Marvin had to find someone to fill that hole. Robinson will do, but he's hardly the answer to our d-line problems. And at safety we still have Madieu and then several guys who have never been in my kitchen.

On the brighter side, yes Madieu will continue to grow, and the shuffling of the ends seems like a promising idea to me, hopefully it produces more pressure and sacks. And while I'm not counting on it, someone -- Pollack? Thurman? someone? -- could blossom into a star. Heaven knows we're due for some luck. But in any event I expect it will take time for the D to gel.

Looking at the sked, the Bengals get a bit of a break on that point. Over the first five weeks, our D faces the worst, fourth-worst, and 10th-worst offenses of last year (Chicago, Cleveland, and Jacksonville. Houston isn't that scary, either (15th in yards, 21 in points last year). Only the Vikes, who had the No. 3 offense in 2004, are a big challenge.

After that...it gets a bit hairier. Over the last 11 games, the Bengals' D comes up against four of last year's top 10 offenses: KC (1), Indy (2), GB (4) and Tenn (10). Overall, the Bengals' actually face a slightly tougher offensive sked this year than last: in 2004, the average rank of the opposing offense was 18; this upcoming season, based on last year's rankings, it's 16.

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:D I think they make it for the simple fact that they were the only team to return all 11 starters on O...Palmer WILL be better this year, If the O can score enough points aka INDY and help the D out until they start to gel in the 2nd half of season they have a good shot... B)
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