…And, shockingly, it’s not good news. In honor of the outstanding WDR post commenting on Hobson’s Choice over on Bengals.com, let’s go through some of Bengals’ Offensive Coordinator Bob Bratkowski’s thoughts on his team’s total lack of an aerial attack, playcalling variety, or general explosiveness. To set the stage, however, let’s start with what WR Andre Caldwell thinks about the situation – you will notice his views seem to echo the general Bengal follower consensus:
“We’re not going down the field as much and they’re sitting on a lot of out routes. They’re scheming us like that, I think we need to take a couple of shots down the field to open things up. They’re not respecting us going deep. We haven’t been doing it much.”
Interesting, verrrry interesting. Now, what about Bob?
Bob: “The (Vikings) had a good plan, they jammed the heck out of the receivers. They rode them up the line…
B-Flow: And it’s already getting awkward…
Bob: “and rode them up the field five yards and let the four-man rush get there. With the noise in that building it doubles the job of the offensive linemen. It makes it harder. The hope was that we could run it and hit our play-action shots down the field and they really didn’t want to give us that.
B-Flow: This seems like a good time to bring up Gameplanning 101. “The hope was that we could run it and hit our play-action shots down the field.” Really, Bob? Really? That was the plan? We are talking about a team that using advanced statistics was 19th vs. the pass and 1st – that’s right, number 1, best in the league – vs. the run and our plan was to run it and then work play-action? Using conventional statistics the Vikings have a similar split, 16th vs. the pass and 6th vs. the run, and this is AFTER giving up only 94 yards through the air against over 100 on the ground vs. the Bengals. Given these numbers, how can the gameplan POSSIBLY be to do what we always do, attempt to run it up the middle on the best DT tandem in recent NFL history? This doesn’t even bring up the fact that Arizona provided a perfect blueprint of how to beat the Vikings last week, namely, throwing the football on 22 of 32 first half plays en route to a 21-10 halftime lead. This means that either Bobby knows his wideouts cannot get open – note that this may be because a) they aren’t talented (not likely), or b) because they haven’t run a pattern over 8 yards since week 2 and therefore are having every route jumped as described by Andre “Einstein” Caldwell above, you decide – or that he is too stupid to understand that the best teams are the best teams specifically because they are MULTIPLE, and can run or pass as is dictated by a combination of situation and opponent. It’s all well and good to “stamp your will” on a football game by “doing what you always do,” but given the overwhelming evidence against this strategy vs. this particular opponent it comes across as stubborn and myopic.
The second problem with this quote is “they really didn’t want to give us that.” Uhh… WHAT? The opposing team “didn’t want to give you” what you wanted so you just shut it down? What does that even mean? Of course they didn’t want to give you that, they don’t give ANYONE that, that’s how they succeed! They stop the run first and foremost, and sit two safeties over the top to prevent big hits on play-action. IT’S THE SAME VIKINGS DEFENSE IT HAS BEEN FOR 5 YEARS!
Bob (continuing to enlighten us on the Vikings defensive tendencies): “They said they were going to stay in a two-high (safety) shell most of the game and jam the receivers and see if we could beat them by just running the ball.”
What an excellent decision by them! What was your strategy to counteract this? What? You didn’t have one? Further, your lead back actually DID rush for 6 YPC against this elite defense, and you still didn’t sniff the opponent! And why, pray tell – and this is directed at Carson as well – is it that anytime a team even so much as suggests they might show/stay in a cover-2 that you basically concede attempting a throw over 10 yards? People still throw on a cover-2, Bob. Seriously, you yourself used to do it in 2005! Are you telling me in 2005 and 2006 when Carson averaged almost 4000 yards per season, a 65% completion rate, 30 touchdowns, and, most importantly, almost 12 yards per completion that opposing defenses never showed you a cover-2? I understand that you’ve swapped TJ for Coles, but if nothing else hasn’t this season shown us that TJ was a product of Chad and not the other way around? And it’s not exactly like TJ was a burner in the first place. Yes, the Chris Henry loss hurts, but you weren’t exactly winging it down the field when he was there – the guy never had more than 3 catches in a game. One last point on this one, if you were saying you didn’t want to throw beyond 10 yards because it was too risky against the cover-2, well, I wouldn’t agree with it but it would at least be somewhat comprehensible. What has actually happened, however, is that you’ve simply cut the field into 10 yard windows so it’s like you’re throwing in the Red Zone all the way down the field (notoriously more difficult because less space to defend), and as a result Carson is throwing incredibly dangerous balls into triple coverage all over the place except they’re on 6 yard ins instead of 50 yard bombs. 50 yard bombs present a risk-reward proposition that is acceptable, as an interception usually turns into nothing more than an early punt – a punt, btw, that would be about 15 yards longer than your punter provides on a weekly basis. An interception on a 6 yard in, however, is a big problem. The risk-reward of throwing to a triple covered 6 yard in is not acceptable. The 6 yard ins are all triple covered because the safeties are jumping routes like they’re LA cops on Rodney King. I apologize for the crudeness of the comment, but it’s getting ridiculous. It’s called a slant and go, Bob, Jon Gruden yells about them every Monday Night. He calls them “sluggo’s.” Read up on them.
Bob: “There were guys that struggled yesterday,” [Bratkowski said of the receivers trying to get open] “Part of the plan was to jam the receivers and drop the linebackers deep, which means by the time you combine the pass rush and the receivers getting jammed, they’re a little slow to the break points, and the pass rush gets to you. If they had more time in some cases they might have got open. They didn’t have the time and they were getting ridden off the line of scrimmage and we didn’t get off the line as well as we should have.”
B-Flow: I am not even going to grace this admission of lack of athleticism in his wideouts directly, but I will point out 2 things: 1) the Vikings corners outside of Antoine Winfield are atrocious, 2) you, Bob Bratkowski, oversaw the drafting of one “Jerome Simpson” in the 2nd round of the 2008 draft. I put “Jerome Simpson” in quotes because Bengal fans are unsure if, in fact, he really exists. He has dressed for zero games. Ever. Now, you drafted this gentleman ostensibly for his athleticism, but apparently you won’t let him play because “he can’t contribute on special teams,” and is “still learning the offense.” It’s been two years, and all you need the guy to do to open it up for you is play Chris Henry’s role of running straight down the field just to stretch the defense. You never threw to Henry anyway, so who cares if Simpson isn’t in the right place. At least he’s stretching the field. Maurice Purify and Quan Cosby are dressing instead. You didn’t deem either of those gentlemen draft worthy, and again, Jerome was a 2nd rounder. They are part of our league worst coverage units. We already have two wideouts who start and don’t play special teams that can’t run more than 10 yards (Coles, Caldwell), why not start one who can at least run that far and get off a goddamned jam? Oh, and you know what else is really good for beating a physical cover-2? A good receiving tight end that can split the seam. Yea, like you drafted in the 3rd round – that’s right, the number 1 receiving tight end in NCAA history. Oh, what’s that, you decided to IR him for the season because you “weren’t going to dress him?” Why? Oh, because he doesn’t contribute on special teams… Sigh. When did our ST coach become the most powerful man on the team?
Bob [from Bengals.com on the ridiculous screen at the end of the half]: “Bratkowski said one of the receivers didn’t release quickly enough and get downfield fast enough to aid the guard in his block.”
B-Flow: Bob, you called a screen pass with the clock running and 11 seconds to go in the half after you had just run a draw with 2 timeouts and used neither of them from your own 30 yard line and you are contending the problem is that a receiver didn’t release quickly enough to get a block on the corner? Really? Of course Hobson won’t mention that receiver was Coles – I know, I watched the tape because I am psycho – because Hobson loves Coles and was quoted only last week as saying what a great blocker he was. Too bad he isn’t as all objective measures confirm, and this play highlights. Dammit! You got me distracted, Bob, again! The real problem here is, when you are on your own 20 (as the Bengals are to start every possession after a kickoff when Bernard Scott isn’t playing, thanks Quan!) with 25 seconds left, you can either kneel or go for the FG, but nothing inbetween. When you ran a draw the first play that was disappointing and stupid, but, you could at least have argued for the surprise 20 yard gain there. Either way, after that play, based on the result of that play you must a) call one of your two timeouts remaining to try to continue to get to FG range as there are now 16 seconds left (5 more ticked off as Carson tried to rush the team to the line for no reason), or b) assume the 9 yard draw wasn’t enough to get to FG range in time, and just run into the locker room. That’s right, YOU DIDN’T EVEN HAVE TO RUN A FREAKING PLAY! Not only did you, stupidly, but you compounded that stupid decision with an even more unfathomable one by calling a screen to an essential FULLBACK with 11 seconds to go in the half and the clock running at your own 30!?!? If there were no defenders on the field Brian Leonard could not have run into FG range and gotten out of bounds in time to kick anything better than a 60 yard field goal. There is no possible logical explanation for this playcall. “We were trying to get the FG” is not acceptable, nor is “we wanted to run out the clock.” The screen was the wrong call for either of those options and frankly to spend more time on this is infuriating.
Bob [and finally, on my boy Andre Smith, 6th overall pick]: “He had too many critical mistakes and it’s from a lack of playing. He’ll be a good player. He’s shown signs in the last three weeks. He’s had outstanding blocks. He can’t have those critical mistakes, particularly with the (small) amount of plays. Two crucial mistakes and not playing every down, what happens if you play every down?”
First of all, if two critical mistakes from an O-Lineman is too many to warrant playing time, then I’m not entirely sure we’ve got 5 on the roster who can play on a weekly basis. Fortunately for Bengals fans, we’ll never have to find out what happens if he plays every down, because despite being the best RT on the roster RIGHT NOW, if there’s one thing we’ve learned from Bob over the years it’s that he prefers the known quantity over the relative unknown even if that known quantity is a known suck and the relative unknown has upside. Roland we know cannot pass block (we even go so far as to insert Anthony Collins in at RT on passing downs), and we also know is an inferior run blocker to Smith, again, by objective measures. However, because Bob knows what to expect from Roland – suckiness – and doesn’t know what to expect from Andre – random mistakes with potential for awesomeness – he goes with what he knows. This is also what happened with Purify and “Jerome Simpson.” It’s also what happened with JP Foschi – who couldn’t make a roster in preseason – and 3rd round perfect fit for our team Chase Coffman. The Bengals aren’t good enough to win against reasonable teams with those players. If Bob doesn’t figure that out soon, this team is certainly incapable of going beyond the divisional round, and potentially capable of losing their last 3 to miss the playoffs altogether.
