Re-inventing the loss....

It would seem that every week the Bengals find a new, creative way to lose, but still manage to do all the other little things wrong in the process. Take Sunday's loss as an example, the offense fought and battled hard just to let the defense blow coverages and miss gaps. With less than 3 minutes in the game the offense drives down field again and amazingly does the same thing that they did before halftime last week. They have a timeout available and they could have spiked the ball. Had they done either of those, they would have had enough time to at least run one play and still have time for a field goal. Hell, they could have run their famous draw play and still call the timeout to kick the game tying field goal.

My big issues with all this is, besides the obvious clock management issues I have been harping on is that they had a chance to win the game and instead settled for the field goal and the tie. They play not to lose. In a game where the defense struggled to really stop the Giants, Marvin was content in going into overtime and possibly giving the Giants the ball back, which is exactly what happened. And hey, what do you know the Bengals lost. Mo tried to convince me that it was Palmer's fault that the ball was not spiked, but I know it was Marvin, Palmer has a head set in his helmet and was told to get up to the line and run a play.

Special teams was again pitiful. They again gave up at least to big returns to give the Giants good field position. One was a punt return and the other was a kick return. It is amazing week after week there are just some things that you can count on from this team; bad play clock management, horrible special teams coverage, Palmer not having enough time to throw, and the opposing quarterback having all day to throw.

Pet peeves and annoyances.

They are not the New York Giants, or the New York Jets for that matter. They play in New Jersey. If I am New Jersey I am pissed, just like Kentucky should be pissed that we call it the Cincinnati airport, it is in Kentucky! lets face it New Jersey does not have much to be proud of, but they have two football teams that call their state home and they cannot even claim them. New York is like and older brother that threatens to beat up New Jersey if it tells anyone that they play there. Yet another reason I hate New York, damn bullies. I am waiting for the day that New Jersey just doesn't exist anymore, New York just quietly takes them over and no one notices or cares. Too bad we can't do that to Canada.

I know I said something about this before, but can we please get some "analysts" that know anything about the Bengals? Listening to the broadcast again this week was painful, they were ripping the Bengals for most of the game and even when the Bengals looked like they might actually win they sounded so uninspired and almost defeated when talking about the possibility. It was like they were rooting for the Giants. Couple that with the fact that they called everyone on the team Chad. "Chad Perry caring the ball for a 3 yard gain," "Chad Palmer drops back to pass," swear to god that happened twice.

Why do the Bengals insist on doing a quick snap and kneeling when the defense is offsides? I know that it works for the most part, but it is a free play, even if they turn the ball over they would get it back because of the penalty. Why not take a shot and run the play and see what happens? I mention this because it almost did cause a fumble and there was no flag. The defense was clearly offsides and Ghiaciuc snapped the ball to Palmer quickly and Palmer was not even there, he was busy changing the play, probably because he saw the blitz coming. There was no flag and luckily Palmer was able to recover the ball, but that is exactly why they need to just run the play and not worry about the offsides.

Why was David Jones covering Plaxico Burriss for half the game? I know Jonathan Joseph was out, but shouldn't our number one draft pick at corner in Leon Hall be covering their best receiver, one of the best receivers in the league? Not David Jones the wavier wire pick up out of Wingate College. I guess it really didn't matter too much since the Giants did not exploit it that much, but I found that to be odd and had potential to be dangerous, the Bengals were playing with fire for sure.

While the offense looked better, still they need to remember how to score a touchdown in the red zone. Twice had a chance in the red zone and had to settle for field goals, can't leave points on the field against the defending Super Bowl champions.

Third and twenty five and they run a draw, enough said there.

Game Disappointments.

Levi Jones. He gave up three sacks and had a false start penalty on third down. In 2005 this guy was a pro bowl alternate, he was a first round draft choice, he is covering Carson's blind side. I sure hope Collins is ready to go soon because I can not take much more of Levi's bullshit.

Chad Johnson. Still not getting separation and still not catching the ball. Thrown to 4 times and had one catch, unacceptable. The worst part is that he is going to start to blame coaches and Palmer for his lack of effort and will probably blow up what little team chemistry this team has.

Marvin Lewis, see above. I will stand by if he manages 4 wins he will save his job. I don't know why, but he will. If he goes 0-8 he might get fired....might. But it would take him only winning 3 games before Mike would consider firing him. Keep in mind that Mike would have to eat money on Marvin's contract if he fired him and we all know how Mike is with money.

Game Balls.

Chris Perry. Or Chad Perry depending on who you believe. The second half was tough, blocking got worse as the game went on, conditioning issue? Plus the Bengals were forced to throw the ball more often. But in the first half Chris Perry made me believe finally that he might not have been a total waste of a pick. he ran to the hole, he made cuts, he scampered for a 20+ yard run and a touchdown.

Domato Pecko. Looked good and strong. Got penetration against the run and seemed to always be around the ball. Plus Dan Deirdorf had some sort of man crush on his hair.

Antonio Chapman. Finally emerging as a good number three receiver and decent punt returner, nothing like getting value out of an investment made three years ago. Funny I said number three receiver, Palmer threw to him more than Chad and he caught every ball thrown his way. Six receptions for 70 yards. Chad had a total of 3 for less than 30.

T.J. Houshmanzadeh. Twelve catches for 146 and a touchdown. Finally Palmer has his go-to-guy back. That and I saw him make a monster block earlier in the game.

Carson Palmer. 69% completion percentage, no interceptions, first touchdown of the year, 286 yards and a 98.9 passer rating. And he led them down field with under 3 minutes to play and other than the play clock blunder had them in position to win. Finally a Carson Palmer like game.

Quote of the game.

"Fly fat ass fly"

That was Me in reference to Brandon Jacobs sudo jump at the goal line to score the touchdown. I think the Bengals were just as surprised as I was since they did not stack anyone over the top to stop him.

Anymore when I watch this team, even of days that they do play acceptable football, like this past Sunday they will find a way to lose. Maybe this bodes well for the 0-16 dream, but that is what you get with Marvin Lewis at the helm.

Side Note.

Poor Tony. While my friend did close on a house on Friday, which is a joyous event and I am very happy for him. He, however, lost several other more important things. One; I beat him in the semi-finals in our keeper baseball fantasy league and moved on to defend my title as lord and ruler of fantasy baseball. Two; I beat him in our fantasy football keeper league to move to 3-0. Lastly; I got to watch the Dolphins, lead by none other than Chad Pennington, beat his beloved Patriots, led by his latest boyfriend Matt Castle. This is really funny because a week ago I tried to explain to him that Matt Castle was nothing and that I would rather have Chad Pennington with a bad, neh, non-existent shoulder leading my team. Chad has played in the NFL, started in the NFL and in the same division. He knows defenses, can make reads, and most importantly he can still hand off to Ronnie Brown!