The Run Defense

[derekshank]

Not to get into this whole discussion again... but it's a bye week. I was looking over the games, and our rushing defense problem didn't really become a problem until week 4 against Houston. The problem lasted exactly 4 weeks, and we have had two straight solid games.

Granted... our solid games have come against Cle, Min, Chi, GB, and Bal... but they have been solid games nonetheless.

Against Houston we gave up 126 yards.

Against Jacksonville we gave up 181 yards

Against Tennessee we gave up 118 yards

Against Pittburgh we gave up 221 yards

The point is, we had 4 VERY bad games (2 of which we won anyway). Our average rushing yards/game over that period was 161.5. If you take away those 4 bad games, our average is 94.4 yards/game. That would put us at 8th in the league in rushing defense.

I know we are not that good... so don't hear me saying it isn't our weakness. It is still an area of worry every time we are on the field... but maybe it isn't quite as bad as we thought. Maybe Marvin is still working with them, and they just had a bad stretch there.

We will see what we are made of against the Colts. Edge has the most yards in the league after 1st contact... so it will be a good test to see if we are only able to stop bad running backs... or if indeed, we just had a bad stretch of games.

My guess is we need to keep getting turnovers to win... but here's to hoping.

[Stripes]

I don't think there is any doubt the run defense is improving. Last year, for much of the first half of the season, we were dead last in this category. As the season wore on, and the young defense settled in, they were able to improve that problem a lot. This year, I believe we are seeing the same story develop. The difference is, when the changes are becoming more evident, we are starting from 23rd in the league rather than 32nd. I think we have a good shot at fishing the year in the top 17 in run defense. We will see if we have changed a bit against the Colts and the Steelers.

[walshfan]

Our run defense is bad... 30th in the league in YPC and pretty much at the bottom in YPG as well..

Having two tackles that cant free up gaps for our backers to make tackles and poor tackling techniques by the front seven have led to this delimma..

Is it improving??? We'll see when the Edge comes to town...I hope your right.....

[HoosierCat]

I know we are not that good... so don't hear me saying it isn't our weakness. It is still an area of worry every time we are on the field... but maybe it isn't quite as bad as we thought. Maybe Marvin is still working with them, and they just had a bad stretch there.

I think the quality of the opposition played a pretty big role in the results you cite, but that said, yeah, the run D has gotten better at some things. We are giving up a boatload of yards, we're solidly in the basement on that front...but the bengals rank right in the middle of the pack (about 18th) in the number of 20+ yard rushing plays they've allowed (just 5 through 9 games). By contrast, we gave up a lot of big plays last year. We also rank 24th in terms of first downs allowed by rush...but the difference between our 24 spot and the No. 12 spot is just 1 first down a game. If we hadn't lost Madieu I think we'd look much better.

[BengalszoneBilly]

You know, that's the thing that just blows my freakin' mind about the stark differences between what Defensive Coordinator Marvin Lewis did with his past defensive units at Baltimore and Washington, and what present Bengals Head Coach Marvin Lewis is doing here in Cincinnati.

It appeared with his previous employers, he'd get hired on, go to the first training camp scrimmage and seemingly reach into his pocket and pull out a packet of "Acme's Instant Kick Ass Run Defense Sports Drink" mix when nobody was looking, then he'd mix it in with the Gatorade. Within no time at all he'd have that teams run defense rated in the top 5 to 10 of the NFL!!

All I can say is Acme must have quit making that s**t, because Marvin Lewis has had ample time to spike the Bengals Gatorade. Unfortunately the teams run defense, albeit improved some from a year ago, is stll a far piece from ranking among the best of the NFL!

[ArmyBengal]

Our run D blows goat nuts and playing weak offenses is not a true description of us improving. We will see in the next few weeks ahead, but until then, we are still getting ran the F**K over and to say it's a shame we don't have our safety (which it is) to stop the run is pathetic. D-line is marginal at best and we all need to stop making excuses for them. When we win, it's not as big of a problem, but when we lose, we look like the same laughing stock D line we have had for the past how many years ??? Anyway, this is still the main need going into the offseason...

WHODEY !!!

[Kirkendall]

Who cares? The rush defense being "30th" translates to the TEAM being 3rd in points allowed in the NFL?! The other team STILL has to score, and we ain't allowin' that.

I'll take that any season!

[BengalszoneBilly]

The other team STILL has to score, and we ain't allowin' that.

I'll take that any season!

We ain't? Uh-Oh. Well it appears that the majority of Bengals defensive players didn't get that memo in the days before the Steelers came to Cincinnati!

[HoosierCat]

Our good scoring defense is IMHO due to our ridiculous turnover ratio more than anything else...which is why I didn't place any particular notice on our decent rushing TD showing. But with all due respect to armybengal, no, our run D does not blow goat nuts. Small toy poodle nuts, possibly, but goat nuts seem way too big. For all the yardage we are giving up, we are not giving up big plays on the ground or an inordinate amount of rushing fiirst downs, and both those facts represent an improvement over last year.

Bottom line for me is that I have to think if the bengals had the offseason to do over again, knowing then what their record would be right now...once they reached agreement on draft pick compensation with the Eagles (as it was reported they did), they ought to have backed the Brinks truck up to Corey Simon's door and started throwing in bags of money until he said uncle.

Ah...but hindsight is always 20/20, ain't it?

[Spain]

When are you guys going to understand that we are paying for the whole that Madeiu w. Left in this D. Yeah when did it go to hell ! The day Williams went down. You going to miss a bad ass like that.

[derekshank]

Actually, we did stop a damn decent rushing team in Chicago. They are 6th in the league, averaging 130.8 yards/game, and we held them to 102.

In fact... it shouldn't so much be measured as how many yards you allow per game, as much as how many yards you allow compared to the average the other team usually gets.

In the 7 games we've won, our opponents have a combined average of exactly 101.5 rushing yards/game. We have held them to 102.5 yards/game. Only 1 yard more than their average

These numbers also include two bad games against Ten, and Hou... and while these numbers don't indicate that we are a top 10 rushing defense... it doesn't seem to indicate that we "blow goat nuts." We seem to be about average... holding teams to about what they average on the ground.

In the two games we've lost we allowed 72 yards more per game than those teams averaged.

So in my assessment of how the season has gone so far, with our offense, and good pass defense... all we must do to win is hold a team to their average rushing the ball, and we should win.

This means... if we can hold Indy to around 134 yards on the ground, we should be in that game, and able to win it.

Who cares? The rush defense being "30th" translates to the TEAM being 3rd in points allowed in the NFL?! The other team STILL has to score, and we ain't allowin' that.

I'll take that any season!

Fair enough Kirk... and unless Pittsburgh holds Clevland to less than 10, we should stay in 3rd. Chicago is 1st holding teams to 11.9 ppg, Indy 2nd at 12.8, and we hopefully stay at 3rd @ 14.9.

9 Games into the season, and we're 3rd... that stat isn't a fluke anymore past mid-season. We are good... if we can stiffen up our run D at all, we will be really tough.

[buck3y3d]

Uh, most of the games you highlighted involved high turnover games. You can't run when you're way behind and trying to catch up. The Bengals run defense is pretty awful.

[pedroza29]

The one and only thing that i disagree with Marvin Lewis on is defensive speed. Of course we need it in the secondary and even in the linebacker position. But our D-line in my opinion is too small and gets thrown around like rag dolls when a decent running team is across the line. Until we get some big hogs in the middle, the run defense will always be horrible.

[Stripes]

The run defense will show significant improvement through the rest of the season, on the growth of one Odell Thurman. There's no doubt that the defensive line is poop, but Odell will save them.

[derekshank]

Uh, most of the games you highlighted involved high turnover games. You can't run when you're way behind and trying to catch up. The Bengals run defense is pretty awful.

Well, that would ordinarily be true... but not every team that we have stopped was way behind.

The Cleveland game was not a huge turnover differential. They had 3 turnovers, we had 2. It was fairly even... and the game was tied at 10 when they stopped running the ball. They just weren't getting consistent yards.

When we beat Minnesota, they gave up on the run because it wasn't sustaining drives for them. They did get down by 14 early... but it was early enough that you don't just give up on the run if it is productive. They had two early turnovers that resulted in a 17-0 start of the game... but if you go back and watch, they stopped running the ball, because they were not moving the ball consistently, not merely because they were losing (although this is the one game you can make that argument for).

Against Chicago we were only up by 10 points for the majority of the game. Thomas Jones just wasn't as productive as usual. With Orton playing as badly as he did, if the running game was productive, they would not have kept calling passing plays.

We were only up by 5 on Baltimore with less than 7 minutes left in the game... and had only 1 turnover... no INT's. They just didn't run the ball well, like most people thought they would.

Against GB, despite the high number of INT's we were only up by 7 for the vast majority of the game. That would lead them to run the ball more often to avoid the INT's... they just weren't effective on the ground, so Favre had to keep throwing the ball.

I'll agree that we are not great at stopping the run... but don't attempt to take away our decent games. We have played well several times this season.

We aren't dominant, but we often hold teams to their average. Teams have bigger games against bad run defenses, and bad games against good run defenses... and average games against us. This would seem to indicate that we are an average run defense. No more, no less.

With our line, we get pounded when our offense doesn't show up (like against Pittsburgh)... but if we can maintain a decent time of possession, we can slow teams enough for our secondary to exploit them.

Like I said earlier... the Indy game will tell us a lot... I just don't see a need for mass panic like a lot of fans do.

[buck3y3d]

Uh, most of the games you highlighted involved high turnover games. You can't run when you're way behind and trying to catch up. The Bengals run defense is pretty awful.

Well, that would ordinarily be true... but not every team that we have stopped was way behind.

The Cleveland game was not a huge turnover differential. They had 3 turnovers, we had 2. It was fairly even... and the game was tied at 10 when they stopped running the ball. They just weren't getting consistent yards.

When we beat Minnesota, they gave up on the run because it wasn't sustaining drives for them. They did get down by 14 early... but it was early enough that you don't just give up on the run if it is productive. They had two early turnovers that resulted in a 17-0 start of the game... but if you go back and watch, they stopped running the ball, because they were not moving the ball consistently, not merely because they were losing (although this is the one game you can make that argument for).

Against Chicago we were only up by 10 points for the majority of the game. Thomas Jones just wasn't as productive as usual. With Orton playing as badly as he did, if the running game was productive, they would not have kept calling passing plays.

We were only up by 5 on Baltimore with less than 7 minutes left in the game... and had only 1 turnover... no INT's. They just didn't run the ball well, like most people thought they would.

Against GB, despite the high number of INT's we were only up by 7 for the vast majority of the game. That would lead them to run the ball more often to avoid the INT's... they just weren't effective on the ground, so Favre had to keep throwing the ball.

I'll agree that we are not great at stopping the run... but don't attempt to take away our decent games. We have played well several times this season.

We aren't dominant, but we often hold teams to their average. Teams have bigger games against bad run defenses, and bad games against good run defenses... and average games against us. This would seem to indicate that we are an average run defense. No more, no less.

With our line, we get pounded when our offense doesn't show up (like against Pittsburgh)... but if we can maintain a decent time of possession, we can slow teams enough for our secondary to exploit them.

Like I said earlier... the Indy game will tell us a lot... I just don't see a need for mass panic like a lot of fans do.

We will have to agree to disagree. I think YPC is a better barometer of success. Most of the teams you mentioned had good yard for carry totals prior to the point when they stopped running.

The exceptions to this would be Chicago (Our 1 decent in game in my opinion)and Green Bay (who played a third string running back). Watching a couple games on tape, all I see is the D-line getting swallowed up. Most of the time our LBs make tacklers in pursuit.

[Columbusbengal]

Bottom line for me is that I have to think if the bengals had the offseason to do over again, knowing then what their record would be right now...once they reached agreement on draft pick compensation with the Eagles (as it was reported they did), they ought to have backed the Brinks truck up to Corey Simon's door and started throwing in bags of money until he said uncle.

I'm not sure there's any clear evidence that Cory Simon would have helped our defense that much. The stars of the Indy defense don't seem to include Simon. On the other hand, I sure agree that Madieu Williams would certainly have helped our defense. I also think Nate Webster would have helped. He seemed like he could be on the verge of a very good career when he got hurt last year.

[ArmyBengal]

Regardless, name your nut of choice and the run D blows it !!! All the turn overs make our run D look great due to being up and the offense needing to throw to catch up. Like I stated before, when we lose, our run D looks like hell. The main focus of my disgust is the D line and hating hearing how all 11 need to step up. The front 4 have to do more. I will say this again as well... Madieu going down SUCKED, but if our ability to stop the run was dependant upon our safeties, then I'm even more disgusted. You've got to be kidding me right ?? This team is SO CLOSE it's not funny, but the inability to stop a running team will render our "high powered" useless. I'm not as pissed off as I am disappointed that this issue has not be addressed as strongly as the coaching staff made it sound like it was such a priority for the past two off seasons. Agree Simon would have done nothing but help our D line.

WHODEY !!!

[The_Next_Big_Thing]

Blah Blah Blah.... The turnovers force other teams to pass? Hrmn... check me if I'm wrong, but haven't we failed to score on many of those turnovers? You would THINK your analysis would hold some merit, but it doesn't.

The ability of ANY teams run defense is safeties.

[ArmyBengal]

The turnovers themselves don't force teams to pass, the fact that we were up in all of those games (DUE TO THE TURNOVERS) does force the other team to pass. The outcome of those games could have been very different had we not been up early. In regards to the run D being dependant on the safeties... Fine, the fact that ours seems to lay in the hands of only ONE player IS pathetic... I'm not arguing with you here NBT, but to think our run defense is better than alot of people here claim it is, is the inability to take off the rose-tinted glasses...

WHODEY !!!

[duus]

I'll be convinced that we can compete on the 'run defense' side of things when we hold a Steeler team to 100-120 total team rushing yards. That happens, and then I agree. Not until then. (btw ... I still am not one that believes that you have to have that sort of run stopping D to win, but it sure helps!)