D E F E N S E ! !

[HoosierCat]

Now compare that boring ending to the drama filled scramble we just witnessed where the Bengals had to rally for a late TD to tie the game and a last second FG to win...

A situation that can be attributed to, among other things, multiple dropped passes by Chad, a bad day from Carson Palmer, an INT that set Cleveland up on the 19, and a dropped pick by O'Neal. None of which have anything to do with whether the D was focused on the pass or the run.

As for the Raven game, no...those 29 points can't be dismissed because they were produced by an offense that got back into a game by attacking a soft pass defense...the very thing I'm complaining about. You're right that the Bengals were no longer in a stacked run defense

Whoa, whoa, whoa....sorry, Charlie, but no dice on that bait-and-switch. You want to argue that the prevent D stinks or that our secondary isn't all it's made out to be, fine, but yes, we are talking about that stacked run D you so despised and want to make into the GUToBD. And they weren't in that, as you just admitted. Case closed.

game conditions dictated that, but they were most certainly in the softest pass defense that can be imagined.

Whooa, whoa, whoa again here, chief. I though it was spin when I referred to specific game conditions, like, say, two TDs called back by penalties in the first Cleveland game. No spin zone allowed.

Frankly, it's amazing to me that Bengal fans would complain as loudly as they did about the 1st half run defense of a Bengal team that wasn't allowing very many points or total yards surrendered, yet many of those same fans will turn around and make excuses for a defense that has been gashed for an average of 416 yards and 35 points per game against Indy, Baltimore, and Pittsburgh. In my opinion those numbers are staggering, and far too large for anyone to claim that they aren't an indicator of a major problem.

Wait a minute, what happened to the Browns game? Is it OK for me to make an argument leaving out the Indy game? Oh, never mind. Let me just ask a counter-question: in Pitt 1, presumably under the old defensive philosophy, we gave up 304 total yards and 27 points, mostly on the ground, and lost. In Pitt 2, we gave up 170 more yards but just 4 more points, and forced the Steelers to throw, generating 3 picks. And won. Yet this represents a "major problem?" How so?

[HairOnFire]

Well, I surely understand we can look at both sides of this. But the thing that pulls me to the 'second half strategy' side is the difference between the first game against the Steelers and the second. The first was clearly doing things 'the Steeler way'.

C'mon, what was Palmer's QB rating from the 1st Steeler game, and how many points did the offense leave on the carpet early? And how badly did the offense meltdown in the 3rd quarter? Yet somehow that game was supposedly lost soley due to the fact that the Bengals couldn't stop the run? Please.

No team can afford to be physically manhandled for 4 quarters, but if the Cincy offense takes care of it's own business that day it can dictate how the Steelers respond.

[HairOnFire]

Whooa, whoa, whoa again here, chief. I though it was spin when I referred to specific game conditions, like, say, two TDs called back by penalties in the first Cleveland game. No spin zone allowed.

It's not spin. By your description the first Cleveland game was a close affair filled with wire-to-wire drama...when in reality is a was a fairly easy win that lacked any nail-biting qualities. And the difference between our respective rants is that you seem more than willing to give Cleveland credit for points scored on plays that were called back due to penalty. Quite frankly, that seems far more contrived than my pointing out how the Bengals passed up the chance to score additional points at the end of a game because the outcome had already been decided.

[HairOnFire]

Whoa, whoa, whoa....sorry, Charlie, but no dice on that bait-and-switch. You want to argue that the prevent D stinks or that our secondary isn't all it's made out to be, fine, but yes, we are talking about that stacked run D you so despised and want to make into the GUToBD. And they weren't in that, as you just admitted. Case closed.

Not really. There's soft pass coverage and then there's the dreaded prevent defense. The common factor is that you're not gameplanning to stop the pass in either example, and as a result it's possible to give up a staggering amount of points in less than a quarter of play. But feel free to describe this as sound defensive strategy if you must, but the scoreboard says you're wrong, and so do I.

BTW, it took me two or three minutes before I figured out what GUToBD meant. It greatly pains me now to know that this is time I'll never get back.