Week 15: Bengals vs Steelers - The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Wow! Where to start? Let’s start by addressing the “Off the Deep End” fans blaming Dalton and clamoring for the firing of Lewis. Dalton did not lose that game. Nor did Lewis. That game was lost by players and play callers. This game was lost mostly by players who make their living on special teams and most notably, the Bengals Pro Bowl caliber Punter, Kevin Huber. The special teams gave up 14 points. The Defense gave up 16 points. The offense scored 20. Dalton and Lewis did not: drop any punts, did not tackle (or fail to tackle), did not receive a penalty, did not fumble and did not (presumably) call the terrible plays that were being called on Sunday night.

 

With that out of the way, here’s the Week 15 Good, Bad and Mostly Ugly…

 

The Good

Nugent Emergency Punting – Punting is not easy and an injury to a punter, especially in the first quarter can have a huge effect on a game. Give Mike Nugent credit for filling in for Huber admirably. They weren’t pretty punts, but he had 2 punts for 80 yards and netted 40.0. He actually had a better night punting than Huber (2 for 86 and a net of 4.0).

 

Brandon Tate – Tate is one of my favorite punching bags, but on Sunday night he was one of the few bright spots. Tate had 4 returns for 131 with a long of 52. Tate’s 52 yarder came with the Bengals down 24-0 and set up the Bengals first touchdown and gave the Bengals life and an opportunity to make a comeback run.

 

Andy Dalton – The Dalton haters are going to be up in arms, but Dalton played pretty well. 230 yards, 2 TDs, 0 turnovers 1 sack, a 86.4 rating. Sure, his completion percentage was not where you would like it to be (25/44 - 56%), but given the cold and windy conditions, combined with the fact his receivers weren’t helping him out (5 drops), it was a pretty good night for Dalton. Let’s put it this way, Dalton played well enough to win and had very little to do with the Sunday night loss.

 

 

The Bad

It was hard to decipher what constituted “Ugly” and what constituted just “Bad” but suffice to say, there were plenty of both.

The Offensive Line – After 2 games of improved play, the line fell on its’ collective face in Pittsburgh against a poor run defense missing 2/3 of their starting d-line. 3 poor performances stood out to me.

a)      Andrew Whitworth – After pumping him up all last week and referring to him as the best and most athletic guard in the NFL, Whitworth looked like a rookie guard against the Steelers. He had 2 penalties for 15 yards (false start and holding) and constantly was getting beat in the run game and ending passing plays in Dalton’s lap. I am not concerned about Whitworth going forward, but to have a leader like him play so poorly in a big game like that was very disappointing.

 

b)      Kyle Cook – In the spirit of the Christmas season, atop the Bengals wish list needs to be a center not named Kyle Cook or Eric Ghiaciuc. Though he escaped this week without a penalty (a rare occurrence for Cook), he managed to continue sucking at keeping opponents out of the Bengals backfield.

 

c)       Andre Smith – Certain players concern you with how they will play once they get a contract. Andre Smith would fall into that category. After a very good year in 2012, Smith has had a less than impressive 2013. Smith had another penalty (false start) and continues to lack the effectiveness he showed in 2012 in both the run game and passing game.

 

The Defense – Overall, the defense had a decent game. They didn’t surrender a drive of more than 60 yards and of the 30 points, the defense was only responsible for 16 (1 TD and 3 FGs). Without the special teams blunders, the Bengals win this game.  

a)      1 Sack – The Bengals now have just 1 sack in the last 2 weeks against 2 offensive lines that have allowed 70 sacks on the year. That is discouraging and concerning for a team that greatly needs a pass rush to hide the injuries in the secondary.

 

b)      1 Turnover – Along with the discouraging sack totals is the 1 turnover in last 2 games – and that one turnover was an interception that pinned the Bengals at their own 2 yard line and resulted in a 5 play series, a short punt by Nugent and a short field for the Steelers which resulted in a FG. Given the issues the Bengals have had scoring at times, the offense could use some help by the defense giving them some short fields. One short field on Sunday night could have given the Bengals a chance at a comeback.

 

c)       Guys Named Dre Kirkpatrick – It is becoming more and more apparent (and more and more disappointing) why Kirkpatrick has had problems cracking the starting lineup. His night started with a 15 yard face mask penalty on the first play of the game which allowed the Steelers to flip the field position on the Bengals which resulted in the dropped punt. Also, according to Pro Football Focus, he was credited with 4 missed tackles – including an embarrassing attempt where he was hurdled by Le’Veon Bell.

 

d)      Tackling – For the first 12 weeks, the Bengals had been a very sound tackling team. For the last 2, they have not. While, I am not going to over react and start panicking over what seems like a 2 week blip, but I am starting to become worried.

 

Penalties – 6 penalties for 50 yards – though I will count it as 5 for 40 since I can’t fathom how Nelson got a taunting penalty based off the replay.  Either way, 5 penalties for 40 yards is still too many and they were critical penalties. Kirkpatrick got his token penalty out of the way with a 15 yard face mask on the first play of the game (ironically it was probably the only tackle he didn’t miss all night) which allowed Pittsburgh to flip field position and started the Bengals demise. Andre Smith got a false start on 1^st down inside the Bengals own 20 to put a drive in an immediate hole. Ghee received likely the first false start I have ever seen on a gunner and Whitworth had 2 huge penalties (false start and holding), each coming on a 2^nd and 10 and pushing the Bengals back to a much less convertible 2^nd and 15 and 2^nd and 20. They failed to convert both.

 

Drops – According to Pro Football Focus, the Bengals receivers had 5 drops! Hawkins had another drop which killed a drive and lead to 14-0 deficit, and Green, for all the great things he does, continues to drop too many catchable balls. Sure, the amazing catches he makes may cancel it out, but that is no excuse. He is now tied for 4^th in the NFL with 7 drops.

 

Harrison Injury – The injury to Harrison, especially as early as it happened, was huge for the pass rush. Without Harrison, the Bengals struggled getting pressure on Ben and paid dearly for it.

 

Burfict – I went the entire game without noticing him. Sure, he lead the team in tackles (12) like he always does, but I don’t recall seeing him make any plays. The only play I remember seeing him on was allowing Bell to beat him on the 4^th down conversion.

 

Officiating – Is it just me, or has the officiating the last few weeks just been brutal? And it isn’t just the Bengals games (Minnesota and Cleveland lost games last week on terrible PI calls and Detroit likely lost a game Monday night on a terrible PI no call). It is embarrassing for the league. While there were plenty of bad calls going both ways, it seemed like all of the big and critical bad calls (or no calls) went against the Bengals. Most glaring was the cheap shot on Huber on the punt return. The guy put the top of his helmet into Huber’s chin (a penalty under about 3 rules), and yet not one official saw it. I can assure you if Burfict made that hit, on any player, let alone a punter, he gets flagged. While a flag would not have brought Huber back, it would have negated the touchdown that put the game out of reach. If the penalty is called, Pittsburgh gets the ball on their own 35 yard line, up 14. Instead, they took a 21-0 lead, energized the crowd beyond belief and likely ended the game. Anyone else find it ironic how Reggie Nelson got flagged for taunting when replay shows no taunting body language (words alone shouldn’t get a taunting flag), yet Huber gets a helmet to the chin, a broken jaw, a cracked vertebrae, busted teeth and an end to his Pro Bowl season and not one official saw it? In a league “concerned” about concussions, where brush to the helmet is a penalty, the officials decided that was a clean and legal hit? I sure hope Ed Hochuli and his crew are downgraded big time for that debacle.

 

The Ugly

Special Teams – There are 3 units that make up a football team: 1) Offense, 2) Defense and 3) Special Teams. The offense and defense were not great on Sunday night, but they were good enough to win. The special teams lost the game in Pittsburgh.

a)      Kevin Huber – His night was short, but prior to being put on the “nearly dead” list, Huber had a night to forget. For most of the year, Kevin Huber has been one of the best punters in the NFL and should be in the 2013 Pro Bowl, but on Sunday night, he was terrible. It started with the dropped punt that put the Steelers on the 1 yard line, leading to the first Pittsburgh TD. The conditions were rough, the wind played with it, but it was catchable. My biggest problem is this: given the cold, the wind and the fact that his job is to catch a snap (on punts and FGs) why the hell did Huber not have gloves on? Then, on his second and final punt, Huber let fly a terrible punt (38 yards), in the middle of the field and directly to one of the most dangerous punt returners in the game. The punt was returned for a TD, Huber was left sprawled on the ground searching for his chiclets and the game was essentially over before it really ever began.

 

b)      Punt Coverage – Lane integrity is the most important part of kick and punt coverage. Suffice to say, on the fateful punt mentioned above, the Bengals had no lane integrity. About 4 unblocked Bengals were in front of Brown when he caught the punt and all over ran Brown, resulting in Brown’s TD. The worst offender on the punt coverage looked to be rookie Jayson DiManche who failed to break down and force Brown into the coverage.

 

c)       Peerman – While I believe this was another blown call, the signal made by Peerman was close enough to a fair catch signal that I can excuse the referees. Either way, it was a huge play that resulted in the Bengals, already down 7-0, being pinned inside their own 10 again, rather than being out on the 44 where Peerman was actually tackled.

 

Offensive Play-Calling – The game plan got thrown out the window pretty quickly, but I have one issue before the game plan was blown up and one issue after. On the first drive of the game, with the game still 0-0, the Bengals start with BJGE in the back field and on 3^rd and 1, Gruden again went with BJGE and for what feels like the 800^th time this year, BJGE came up short. When he came to Cincinnati, he was known for 2 things, not fumbling and picking up short yardage. I have not been impressed with either so far. Bernard can’t do worse than BJGE has been doing in these situations. My second issue with Gruden came once the Bengals were down big. In the second half, down 30-7 there was no urgency in the offense. The Bengals needed 4 scores and yet rarely utilized the no-huddle and continued to move as if they had been informed that the game would have 5 or 6 quarters.

 

Defensive Play-Calling – The issues in the secondary may have resulted in some of the inabilities of the Bengals to get to Ben, but on the only TD given up by the defense, the Bengals rushed 2 guys and had Peko in coverage? Miscommunication or not, that can’t happen. Worse yet, despite having 9 guys in coverage, Antonio Brown was able to get wide open in the end zone.

 

Team Preparedness – A coach’s job is mostly accomplished before the game ever starts. The head coach is responsible for preparing the team, but much of what goes on during the game has little to do with the head coach and much more to do with the coordinators. So, while I don’t blame Lewis for much of what occurred on the field, the team seemed overwhelmed on Sunday night…as they have for almost every big game. And that, I put on Lewis.

 

End of Half Management…Again – If a book is ever written about how not to manage timeouts and end-of-half situations, this Bengals coaching staff will most certainly be the authors. Down 27-7, the Bengals got the ball back on their own 20 yard line with 2 timeouts and 1:14 to play. Plenty of time to get into FG range and the Bengals were in desperate need of points…any points. They come out throwing, which makes sense, but on 2^nd down, after a Dalton scramble, the Bengals don’t call a timeout and let the clock run down. Then, after they convert on 3^rd down, they call a timeout with just 21 seconds left. After another completion to the Bengals 41, the Bengals then decide to let the clock run out with one timeout in their pocket. I have never been more confused as to what a team was doing at the end of a half, and to be honest, I am not sure the Bengals knew what they were doing either.

 

BJGE – He has never offered anything in the passing game. In 2013, he is offering very little in the running game (3.4 ypc). But, he has always been able to pick up the short yardage situations, right? Not so much. I don’t have the stats on his 3^rd and 1 and 4^th and 1 conversion percentage this year, but my eyes tell me it isn’t good and therefore my brain tells me BJGE is serving very little purpose on this team right now.

 

Jermaine Gresham – In my 32 years, I have never been more nervous when a guy has the ball than when Gresham has the ball. I simply root for him to go to the ground with the ball in his hands. Too many times he does not. I am amazed how a guy is 6’5” 260 lbs and has such issues holding onto a football. While his fumble did not lead to Pittsburgh points, it may have cost the Bengals precious points. How Gresham has made 2 Pro Bowls is beyond comprehension to me. I see no way the Bengals bring him back next year and I would be more than happy to drive him to his next team.

 

Lack of FB – Remind me why the Bengals cut Conner and Pressley? They struggle in short yardage situations and when they do bring a FB in, the only guy they don’t bring in is the only guy on their roster listed a FB (Charles). While I love seeing Peko back there, should he ever get hurt playing FB, this coaching staff will be to blame.

 

The Steelers Image – We hear all the time about the “Steeler Way.” Well, in the last 3 weeks, a team that is constantly praised for their integrity and how they do things and the “Steeler Way,” has given us: 1) a head coach interfering with a punt return (replay is pretty clear that it was intentional or gross negligence at best), 2) a player blatantly grabbing and twisting another man’s “bits and pieces,” and 3) a player putting the crown of his helmet to a punter’s jaw, breaking his jaw, busting his teeth, fracturing his vertebrae…oh, and giving him a concussion. And then there is the 1970’s Steel Curtain – a unit fueled by steroids, yet never mentioned in the steroid talks. As much as I don’t like the Yankees and the Red Sox, the “Yankee Way” and “Red Sox” way seem to have some credibility to me and lack dirtiness. The “Steeler Way,” just like the “Cardinal Way” in baseball, is nothing more than playing dirty, whining when things don’t go your way, and then hiding behind your franchise’s history and championships when you are called out.