Offensively, looked solid. Dalton was getting the ball to Green with little resistance, which I didn’t think they’d struggle with much, since they just lost Vontae Davis to FA. I was/am a little concerned with Green’s ball security, as he fumbled twice in the game, losing one. He just needs to tuck the damn ball instead of carrying it around like a hot potato.
Joe Mixon looked great on Sunday. Had just under 100 yards rushing, and somewhere around 45 yards receiving. He was averaging around 5.5 yards a carry, which tells me the OL has improved greatly over the offseason. Eifert snagged a few catches, AND STAYED HEALTHY DOING SO!!!1!11!11111 Dalton shook off his awful INT on the first drive and turned in a solid performance.
Defensively, Preston Brown had about as good of a debut as you can get with the Bengals. It’s going to be fun watching Brown and Burfict roaming in the middle of the defense together. Geno and Dunlap were more disruptive than I expected they would be. They were giving Indy’s OL fits most of the game. I thought Jordan Evans performed extremely well in that game. He had one breakdown where Ebron scored where I think he was expecting safety help over the top, and didn’t get any. I though the corners played some of the best football I’ve seen in a few years as a collective unit. Dennard had arguably his best game as a Bengal. Jackson had the best game of the top three CBs. Jessie Bates didn’t even look like a rookie in the game. He played every defensive play, and minus the breakdown at safety (which was on the SS, not Bates) played extremely well.
Would have thought Indy would test the secondary a bit more with a few more deep balls, but who knows how effective Luck would be in doing so. It seemed their offense was catering to the fact that he’s only comfortable throwing short and intermediate routes, and most of their plays reflected that. Tons of slants, drags, and dump offs. Their last drive consisted of all slants and dump offs, including three straight dump offs that they seemed content to continue to run, until Evans blew a play up 5 yards in the backfield. A play or two later, they brought their TE across the middle on what looked to be another slant, gained 13-14 yards, then Fejie blew that shit up. Put his helmet right on the ball and knocked it loose. Even had the awareness to pop back up, scoop the ball, and take it to the house.
All in all, it was definitely a great start. It’s hard telling how they’ll stack up against Baltimore, as I think their blowout victory was more a result of Buffalo being a complete dumpster fire currently. I think Baltimore’s biggest weakness is still their secondary, and Dalton can exploit that. No one on Buffalo was capable of exploiting that, which is why they were crushed. Should be an interesting Thursday Night game.
