The Bengals' revival and other NFL thoughts

(1) I think the NFL should launch an investigation to determine if the City of Cincinnati has slipped performance enhancing substances into the water supply at Bengals’ headquarters. Without some sort of nefarious plot, I don’t know how to explain that the Bengals are 4-1 and sitting atop the AFC North division. After their huge victory over the Baltimore Ravens, the Bengals are enjoying their longest win streak since 2006. In addition, it is the first time since 2005 that Cincinnati has started a season with four victories in their first five games. The most interesting statistic for the Bengals is that they are already 3-0 on the road, which matches the road win total for the last two seasons combined (3-13 in 2007 and 2008).

I’m not really sure how the Bengals have put together such a hot start. From a defensive perspective, Cincinnati has been pretty mediocre (17th ranked overall), especially against the pass where they are 26th in the NFL. They have generally been good rushing the passer and getting off the field in 3rd down situations, but the rest of the defensive numbers won’t impress you. The situation on offense is not much better as the Carson Palmer-led unit is only 21st overall in the NFL. What they lack in raw numbers on both sides of the ball, they have more than made up for it with a grittiness and belief in each other that is impossible to teach. You either have it or you don’t and for most of their existence the Bengals have lacked both.

The most encouraging sign for Cincinnati is that they have found different ways to win football games. Even the one game they lost, they should have won because they outplayed the Denver Broncos. The Bengals put themselves in the position to that game because they were highly successful getting off the field on third down. Their big mistake was that their offense did not score enough points to shut the door completely on the Broncos. In the second week of the season, the Bengals captured their first win of the season because they put the screws to Aaron Rodgers, sacking him six times and generally making his life a living hell. In addition, they relied on a strong running game and big plays from Carson Palmer, who contributed four total touchdowns.

The Green Bay game was the first appearance of a recurring theme that has been an integral component of their other three victories: big plays from Carson Palmer. Against the Steelers in week three, the defense certainly played huge with a defensive touchdown and stout defense in the red zone, but Carson Palmer saved the day with a clutch drive late in the game to clinch the win. Palmer carried his Captain Comeback alter ego into the Cleveland game as well. He saved his teammates from the fire again with two extremely clutch drives late in the game. He led an 11 play, 70 yard drive to set-up the tying touchdown in regulation and he led a 14 play, 67 yard drive to set-up the winning field goal in overtime. He saved his best for last with arguably the best drive of his career when you consider the opponent and the circumstances that surrounded the game. The Bengals had been bullied by the Ravens for years, but finally stood up to them with a dominating performance from their defense and another career-defining drive from Palmer. The defense only allowed 12 first downs and 257 total yards. The defensive effort set the stage for the heroics that Palmer had saved for later in the game. With time running out quickly, Palmer led the Bengals on an 11 play, 86 yard drive that culminated with a 22-yard touchdown strike to Andre Caldwell with only 22 seconds remaining. With one calm, cool and collected aerial strike, the Bengals had exorcised another huge AFC North demon and had put themselves squarely in control of the division.

Even though you have to give lots of credit to Cincinnati for winning this game, the Ravens have to be kicking themselves for the second consecutive week. They didn’t play well by any stretch of the imagination, but they had the game in their grasp and allowed the Bengals to sneak away with a big victory. In the end, the Ravens have no one to blame but themselves. Just like last week in Foxboro, mistakes absolutely killed the Ravens. They turned the ball over twice and committed 10 penalties for 76 yards, including three huge infractions that greatly contributed to the Bengals’ winning drive. The biggest penalty was a pass interference flag on 3rd and 16 that preceded the touchdown to Caldwell. The Ravens better clean up their mistakes because I think that the Bengals are very close to being for real and Baltimore might not be able to make up ground if they continue to shoot themselves in the foot.

(2) Another team that deserves a closer look is the Denver Broncos, who are also inextricably connected to the Bengals as a result of their Houdini-esque escape in week one. After defeating the New England Patriots on Sunday, the Broncos are still undefeated at 5-0 and arguably the biggest surprise of the 2009 season. They are living the charmed life right now because they have aced every test they have been given thus far. First of all, the organization seems to have hired the right man to lead the rebirth of the Broncos. I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical about the hiring of the boy wonder, Josh McDaniels, but he has the team drinking the Kool-Aid and they are playing out of their minds right now. Secondly, they seem to have hit home runs with the rest of the coaching staff, especially the hiring of Mike Nolan to lead the defense. All Nolan and company have done is turn the laughingstock of NFL defenses in 2008 into the 2nd ranked defense in the entire NFL in 2009. Finally, the Broncos have hit all the right buttons with their personnel moves, even when they had to make the extremely tough decisions. They decided to trade their former franchise quarterback to Chicago and Kyle Orton is playing more than adequately in the McDaniels’ precision offense. They benched their mercurial wide receiver, Brandon Marshall, at the end of the preseason and he has responded with outstanding games the last two weeks. Coach McDaniels is definitely the King Midas of the NFL because everything he is touching is turning to gold.

I don’t think the Broncos are going to go 16-0 this season, but I do think it is time to acknowledge that something special is happening in the Mile High City. The Broncos were definitely in need of a new message coming from the head coach after the long tenure of Mike Shannahan and McDaniels has been more than prepared to let his players know that it is his way or the highway. Now that they are winning, the team is reaping the benefits of the message, which is only going to give the players and the coaching staff more confidence as the season wears on. The increased confidence will allow them to weather the storm when the inevitable dip in performance comes. Honestly, I think that Denver has an opportunity to run away with the division because the Chargers are head cases and the Raiders and Chiefs are abject disasters.

I was especially impressed by the way that the Broncos corralled the Patriots’ offense throughout the game, especially after making adjustments at halftime. For most of the game, the Broncos forced Tom Brady to be extremely patient and dink and dunk his way down the football field. This tactic was extremely effective in the 2nd half as the Broncos’ defense held the Patriots scoreless and allowed only 63 yards passing from Brady. As a result, the Broncos handed Brady just his fourth loss as a starter when leading at halftime. I’m still not convinced that the Patriots are a good team and nothing they did on Sunday changed my opinion. They still have not proved anything on the road and they look like an ordinary team to me. Their offense has lost quite a bit of the dynamic nature it has had over the last couple of years and the defense has lost so many of its core veterans that it does not strike fear into anyone. Conversely, the Broncos have shown a new kind of dynamism on offense and their defense has been torn down and rebuilt into one of the better units in the NFL.

(3) I’m not sure what to make of the San Francisco 49ers after they allowed the Atlanta Falcons to score a franchise-record 35 1st half points en route to a 45-10 woodshed beating. The defense that got torched by the combination of Matt Ryan, Michael Turner and Roddy White was the same defense that had pretty much dominated the Cardinals, Seahawks, Vikings and Rams through the first four weeks of the season. I don’t know if the Falcons are this good or the 49ers are this bad, but I’m pretty sure that the extra week to prepare did wonders for Atlanta. They were able to do whatever they wanted to do. They rolled up 28 first downs, nearly 500 yards of total offense and controlled the time of possession. They were deadly in the red zone (4 out of 5) and extremely efficient on third down (8 out of 14). Ryan completed nearly 70% of his attempts and averaged an eye-popping 15 yards per completion. Ryan’s favorite target on the day was Roddy White, who snagged eight balls for a franchise-record 210 yards receiving. His biggest play was a 90-yard catch and run in the 2nd quarter and opened the floodgates on the blowout.

The 49ers have to be wondering what the heck hit them on Sunday because I don’t think anyone had an inkling that this type of game was in the offing. The 49ers ran into a buzz saw for which they had absolutely no answers. The Falcons had five plays of 20 yards or more. The 49ers came into the game having surrendered only 11 “big” plays all season long. Even though the defense looked completely lost, I don’t think the 49ers have a long-term problem on that side of the ball. I think we all witnessed a part of the maturation and growing process for an NFL defense that is trying to make the move from mediocre to elite. The bigger issue for San Francisco is what to do about the putrid offensive production from Shaun Hill, Glenn Coffee, et al.

The 49ers entered the game 28th in the league in total offense and pretty much lived up to expectations. They were only able to scrap together 279 yards of total offense and they turned the ball over three times that effectively handed the Falcons easy scoring opportunities. A Shaun Hill interception on the 3rd play from scrimmage for the 49ers was intercepted, which led to a four play, 21-yard drive that ended with Michael Turner plunging in from the seven-yard line. Later in the game, the 49ers fumbled on a kick-off return that gave the Falcons the ball on the San Francisco 38-yard line, which quickly led to a three play, 38-yard drive to the end zone for Atlanta. The 49ers are not good enough to hand their opponents great field position and expect to have a lot of success. As the season has progressed, I’m starting to believe that the 49ers have a playoff caliber defense. Unfortunately, without Frank Gore, San Francisco does not have any offensive talent that I would call playoff caliber. For their sake, we can hope that the recently signed Michael Crabtree can be the game-changing player that the 49ers’ offense so desperately needs.

(4) I don’t think anyone can save the Cleveland Browns or the Buffalo Bills. They not only embarrassed themselves and their respective cities, but they set the game of football back about 50 years with their putrid showing on Sunday. This game was so bad that Cleveland had the same number of punts as first downs. If I had paid to see this game in person, I would have demanded a refund immediately. For God’s sake, the MVP of the game was Cleveland’s punter, Dave Zastudil. On his nine punts, the Bills had a total of seven return yards, which is amazing considering that Buffalo has one of the more dynamic returners in the game. The Browns downed three punts inside the Bills’ five-yard line and the average starting position for Buffalo on the nine punts was the 15-yard line. Without Zastudil’s punting heroics, the Browns probably would not have overcome the steaming pile of elephant feces that Derek Anderson produced.

Anderson’s day was like one of those 18-car pile-ups on the highway that is horrific to look at but you can’t stop yourself from gawking. I actually started to feel sorry for the guy as the incompletions started to multiply, especially in the second half. After halftime, he had as many interceptions as he had completions, which resulted in a zero quarterback rating. He was so horrible that I started to think he was actually trying to screw things up. He only completed 11.8% of his attempts, which was the lowest completion percentage by a winning quarterback since the merger. The saddest part is that he still didn’t play poorly enough for Brady Quinn to get his job back. Thank goodness that Cleveland has Lebron James because the Indians are awful and the Browns are squarely in the running to be crowned the NFL’s worst team. If Bron Bron skips town next summer, the entire city might be put on suicide watch. Even though they finally broke their 10-game losing streak, their inability to score points is alarming. The Browns failed to score a touchdown for the third time this season and the ninth time in their last 11 games. It certainly doesn’t help that Coach Mangenius has traded away their two best offensive weapons, Kellen Winslow and Braylon Edwards, since taking over the top job in the off-season.

The saddest part of this unfortunate match-up is that the Cleveland Browns, despite all of their recent struggles, were not the worst team on the field. How do you even explain the terrible brand of football that the Bills are playing right now? Buffalo has no lost 12 of their last 15 games, including consecutive games to winless teams following their 38-10 shellacking at the hands of the Miami Dolphins. This season they have lost three games in a row and have only scored 20 points combined in those three losses. Their offense continues to look anemic and their poor play has placed Coach Dick Jauron right back on the hot seat. I guess firing their offensive coordinator earlier in the season was not the cure-all that the Bills organization thought it was going to be. Unfortunately, for Bills’ fans, they are going to have to endure several more weeks of Jauron-ball because owner Ralph Wilson has not made an in-season firing since canning Hank Bullough 23 years ago. Wilson kept Gregg Williams to the bitter end of a 6-10 season in 2003 and Mike Mularkey to the end of a 5-11 season in 2005. The way that the Bills are playing right now, not even Toronto is going to want them.

(5) Well, well, well how about those fighting Seattle Seahawks. While we are on the topic of what has gotten into the Cincinnati Bengals, we should probably take a closer look at what the Seahawks ate for their pre-game meal. I didn’t even expect the Hawks to win the game and they end up blitzing the Jaguars 41-0 behind the triumphant return of Matt Hasselbeck. Even though he was not at 100%, Hasselbeck still gives the Seahawks a better chance to win than Seneca Wallace. In the 2nd and 3rd quarters, the Hawks scored four touchdowns, while they had only scored three touchdowns in the previous 10 quarters with Wallace leading the way. Hasselbeck played great the entire games, but he was most deadly on first down. He was seven for seven on first down for 121 yards, three touchdowns and a perfect passer rating of 158.3. Overall, he threw four touchdown passes for the first time since turning the trick against the Arizona Cardinals on December 9, 2007. His virtuoso performance against Jacksonville is further proof that the only way that the Hawks have a chance to win is if number eight is running the show.

In addition to Hasselbeck’s return, the most encouraging part of the entire day was that T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Nate Burleson were both huge factors. Burleson has flashed this kind of brilliance before only to recede back into the shadows the following week. I’m hoping that he can carry his tremendous performance into the coming weeks because he is capable of being one of the best receivers in the NFL. I also think that this was T.J.’s coming out party. He had played okay through the first four games, but this performance demonstrated why the Seahawks shelled out the big money to snag him in free agency. He set the tone with the 34-yard touchdown reception in the 2nd quarter and then he showed why he is such an outstanding red zone target with a 13-yard score in the 3rd quarter. I’m hoping that this game is just the beginning of a wonderful partnership between Hasselbeck, Houshmandzadeh and Burleson.

The offense was explosive but the defense might have been even better as they once again flashed their Qwest Field persona. They absolutely shut down the Jaguars’ offense that had come into the game riding a nice little hot streak. Instead, the Hawks gave them no room to maneuver and completely choked the life out of their offense. The Jags only managed 10 first downs the entire game and were a pathetic 2-13 on third down. Their running game was completely neutralized (15 carries for 38 yards) and their passing game was limited to dink and dunk passes. The Hawks played like they normally do at Qwest Field with great aggressiveness and ferocity. They once again fed off the sell-out crowd, which helped the defense finish off the shutout and hold the Jags to under 200 yards of total offense. I’m pretty sure that they will bring the same level of intensity next week, but what happens when we head out on the road again. Is it possible to bottle up a little of the 12th man energy to take on their next trip? I find it so amazing that the Hawks’ defense plays like polar opposites when they are away from Qwest. Why is it so hard to bring the same take no prisoners, gang tackling, spit in your face and talk about your mama attitude on the road? It will be up to Jim Mora and Gus Bradley to solve this conundrum because the fate of the Hawks’ season hangs on it.