Battle For Ohio

There were just too many old ghosts for the Bengals to try and beat Oakland on Sunday.  It was all set up.  We all saw this coming didn’t we?  There were just too many factors for the Bengals to avoid, it almost seemed like they were destined to lose this game.  Lets look at the evidence:

You would be scared too if the FANS you played dressed like this.

• The Bengals are 0-9 at Oakland.  That’s a pretty bad omen huh?  And don’t think the players and coaches didn’t know that, they definitely did.  Couple that with the fact that the Bengals were 1-4 in LA.  They are a combined 1-13 when having to travel to the left coast to play the Raiders.

• Cedric Benson getting hurt.  There is no one on this roster that can replace Cedric Benson.  Bernard Scott and Brian Leonard can combine to give you what Cedric does, but unfortunately I think cloning and gene splicing is still questionable ethics.  In the meantime, I guess we would have to be without.  Even with the Larry Johnson signing we still didn’t have what we needed with Cedric replacement.  Of course there was no way Larry was going to be ready to go in after not singing until Tuesday.  And kudos to Scott, who did have 100+ rushing yards, but he just isn’t the bruiser that is going to wear down that front seven.

• Signing Larry Johnson karma.  Larry is a bad guy and he is bringing his rain cloud with him.  The football gods clearly have decided to punish the Bengals for taking on the king of all turds, Larry Johnson.  Please take note that Larry’s former team managed to knock off the defending Super Bowl champions yesterday and his current team lost to one of the 10 worst teams in the league.  Ironic?  Coincidence?  Nope.  Just typical Bungles.

• The Raiders announce that they are starting Bruce Gradkowski.  Of course they would.  It probably wasn’t lost on Tom Cable and the Raiders that Bruce beat the Bengals back in 2006.  He was playing with Tampa Bay and due to a bull shit roughing the passer call on Justin Smith he was able to go on and beat the Bengals.

• Coming off two huge emotional division games in a row.  You could tell that the Bengals were throwing everything they had at the Steelers and the Ravens, anything to win.  Hell Cedric wanted to beat the Steelers so bad he went back in the game after his injury.  For two games like that guys get up really high for those games.  On the flip side, it is tough to get up for a game that you have to travel across the country for and it is a bad team going no where.  It is even tougher when you have been so emotionally high for the last two weeks, it is near impossible to keep that emotion up that high for that long, there was bound to be a let down, hence the Raiders game.

Here's the picture Tom sent to Marvin, with a note that simply said, "Your next."

• Tom Cable allegedly mailed a picture to Marvin Lewis of the busted lip he gave his assistant coach.  Tom Cable isn’t messing around.  I have no doubt that Thursday morning Marvin got a package and it wasn’t from Chad Ochocinco.  You know Tom mailed the pictures with no return address and the only note that was in the envelope read…”You know who this is and what you need to do on Sunday.”

So there is the evidence, we should have all seen it coming.  Of course if you didn’t see it coming before hand, you had to have seen it while watching the first half.  I know the Bengals went into the locker room at half time with the lead, but you got that feeling like they were trying to hand this game away.  What’s that, you want more evidence?  Alright:

• 5 fumbles, 3 lost.  You have to take care of the football if you want to win.  Andre Caldwell looked like he had been watching Chad Ochocinco run with the ball too much.  After that kickoff Andre was holding that ball out there like he had a chicken wing.  When are these guys going to learn that you have to cover and protect that ball, especially when you are in a lot of traffic like returning a kick.

• 1 interception, 0 touchdowns.  Carson did run for a couple, but he threw none, and he was the only one scoring touchdowns.  I think two things were a factor here. One; the loss of Cedric Benson scared this team away from running down near the goal line.  The Bengals missed his vision and explosivness.  Two; The loss of Chris Henry has taken away that fade route that he and Carson loved to run.  Plus losing a guy that is 6’4 hurts you in the red zone.

• 3 sacks for 36 yards.  Not sure what happened here.  The offensive line looked horrible all game.  They lost the line of scrimmage constantly and look out matched.  They were getting pushed around more than Tilla Tequila at Larry Johnson’s house.

• 8 penalties for 59 yards.  When I cared and was keeping track (the first quarter) the Bengals had two off sides and a holding.  A couple of those were at the exact moment that we got into the red zone.  Even Chad got called for off sides twice.  They hadn’t played this absent-minded in quite a while.

I say bring back Chad, at least he hasn't missed.

• 1 missed Field goal.  Good, another week I get to complain about our shitty franchise kicker.  What a joke.  Two weeks in a row he has missed field goals that he should have made.  The one this week was a chip shot and he still missed it.  How does he sleep at night?  Probably pretty well in what ever nice bed, in what ever nice house all that money bought him.  The good news is Shayne will go to hell.  One of the commandments is, “Thou shall not steal.”  Try telling me he isn’t stealing money from the Bengals.  Just so everyone knows, Shayne, who we franchised for his accuracy, ranks 31st in the league in accuracy.  The only people below him are guys that no longer have jobs.  For extra points he ranks 28th.  28th on EXTRA POINTS!!  You know, the gimmes!

This was a very disciplined team last week against the Steelers and now look at them.  I mean were these guys able to tie their shoes by themselves before the game?  They looked like they forgot how to play football.  This was such a horrible, disgusting game, but for all the reasons above, I found myself pretty serene.  I should have been mad, but since this was a typical Bengals loss, I was OK.

The Silver Lining:

Honestly I still think this is a good team and I think they will rebound and kick the crap out of Cleveland next week.  I think this was just your typical trap game mixed in with some of the ghosts of Bengals past.  No need to get critical Cincinnati.  Just calm down and let Marvin and Mike Zimmer get a case of the red ass and motivate these guys for next week.  This is and will continue to be a play off team, they just need to get past the stupid mistakes and play football for a whole game.  We are going into week 12 and the only game where they played a complete football game was against Chicago.  If they played like that every week they would be undefeated and being talked about to win a Super Bowl.  Big “if,” I know.

Would it have been nice to keep ahead of San Diego and New England for the coveted second seed in the AFC play offs?  Of course.  Would it have been nice to get some breathing room from the Steelers and Ravens, both of which lost over the weekend?  For certain.  But the good news is that because they lost, the Bengals loss isn’t too detrimental.  And we are tied with San Diego and New England for that 2nd seed, so there is still hope.  The Bengals just have to look at where they are at and focus the rest of the way.  They have a pretty easy schedule and they will get to play San Diego and really force the issue of that all important 2nd seed.

The rest of the season and the play offs are in your hands Bengals.  Don’t screw this up.  Don’t Bungle it.  Please.