Seems like if it's not one thing, it's another...

[derekshank]

I think I now understand what has been wrong with this team... and it might turn out to be a positive thing...

It seems like every week, even when we win, we leave with the hint of a bad taste in our mouths. Those first two weeks, we pounded the Browns and Vikings, but Palmer had INT's in the endzone, and we had way too many penalties...

Palmer fixed the INT problem, but the penalty problems continued through week four... but hasn't been a big problem since, so in it's place we had very poor special teams play, and run defense against Jacksonville. The run defense problem came back against Pittsburgh...

We've had difficulties in the redzone, and on 3rd down (early in the year this was mostly a symptom of the penalty problem)...

This week we fixed the 3rd down conversion and redzone problem, but couldn't manage points off turnovers, or sustain long drives, which would have resulted in a loss against a team better than GB.

I guess my point is, we get on this forum every week, and have something new to complain about. It's annoying, because we haven't seen this team click on all cylinders yet, and really dominate the way we can.

The good thing though is that even with all the problems we've had, we are still 6-2... not to mention that each week we are fixing problems. Hopefully after the bye week we won't keep creating new problems.

Each problem we've had, we have shown the ability to fix... the problem has been having each problem fixed at the same time. If the offense can sustain long drives like it has shown most of the season... AND score in the endzone frequently, there will be very few teams that can match us. If our defense shows the ability to slow the run (we haven't really shown we can completely stop a team yet)... AND get turnovers, it will be a very difficult defense to match up against.

My point is we haven't played to our potential yet, and we still have the 2nd best record in the NFL. God be with the team that plays against us when we start clicking.

[Jet23]

Good call. Hopefully, nobody can accuse them of peaking too early. If all of the heartburn means they will be playing their best ball at the end of the season, It will be worth it.

[Stripes]

The last two seasons the Bengals started getting on a roll right around weeks 8-10. Let's hope the fast start didn't deflate us (a la 2002 Chargers who went from 8-4 to 8-8), and this trend can continue. The second half of each season under Marvin has been improved over the first halves. Each year we started 3-5, and finished 5-3. Another 5-3 run down the stretch, and we'll be 11-5. I think we can do even better.