I got a chance to watch the game at a private dinner, a high-end happy hour is what I will call it. Actually ended up being a few Bengals fans in the room, which is a bizarre thing to happen in Idaho, but I will take it. That was one of the more enjoyable Bengals games that I have watched. I think basically every unit performed extremely well against a very good Baltimore team and I am beyond encouraged with this team. I also thought the coaches on both sides had an extremely impressive game plans and our offense looks nothing like last year, which is great. My specific thoughts in no particular order:
1. Just generally, wtf is this team? We've all said it but damn, I didn't even recognize us. Dalton was mostly pin-point and made the right decision damn near every play. AJ Green is always great, but he put up his annual haunting of Baltimore in spectacular fashion last night. The coaches overall did an excellent job in their game plans with a short week. The crowd showed up. I also thought the officiating was pretty good overall. Nice to have an enjoyable NFL experience for once.
2. The offensive line looks night and day better. There were a couple holds in there, but I'll take that with the overall results. The addition of Glenn and Price are paying dividends imo, although I think the new OL coach deserves a lot of credit. Price went down but I think his injury does not appear very serious. I am also guessing a high ankle sprain. It's the NFL though, next man up until he can get healthy. That being said, nice to have over a week to get him healthy for Carolina, which will be a real test.
3. The improvement at safety is remarkable. I admittedly had no clue on Bates and was a little puzzled in the 2nd round...well, I am an idiot. Bates is phenomenal and a flat-out playmaker, absolute ball hawk out there. He made some rookie mistakes (see missing the pick on the John Brown deep post instead of knocking it down, although I like the aggression), but the talent is there and I like the way he plays. He will iron some of those mistakes out and be a real player here. Then Shawn Williams shows up in a big way. I had him as a huge question mark heading into the season, but he has elevated his play so far this season. And Fej is doing a pretty good job overall and provides nice depth. The Iloka cut was curious, but it looks to be working out so far.
4. As much as I was impressed with the improved safety play, I thought our LB corps did a great job considering that Brown and Burfict were both out. Evans is flying around, Vigil is making sure tackles, Nickerson looks good...put Brown and Burfict back in the mix and this should be a really good unit with depth. Other than safety, LB was the unit I was most concerned on heading into the year and considering being down our best 2 LB's, I thought the performance was great.
5. The DL looks downright dominating, but I am not as surprised on this one. Dunlap and Atkins are studs with plenty left in the tank, we know what we have there. But then Sam Hubbard comes in and looks like a damn star out there, I was jumping out of my chair for his performance...if he can keep up this level of play, QB's are going to be hitting the ground quite a bit. There were plenty of others that stepped it up too. Want to see Willis and Lawson get more involved.
6. The corner play is extremely good. I actually think Baltimore has a good WR corps that is very underrated, and I thought the coverage was mostly there all night. Jackson is a straight lock-down corner and is always in the hip pocket. By and large, I think he can take the top receiver from the opponent pretty much out of the game. He plays with a TON of confidence and I love it. Kirkpatrick's coverage is also very good, just needs to work on flipping the hips and adjusting to the ball when it is in the air. Dennard is starting to step up his game as well, great to have him as a nickel guy, though I think he would be fine outside at this point.
7. Ok, offense. The OL is without a doubt much improved, we are seeing some holes in the running game and Andy actually has some time to throw the ball. They had a great performance against a very, very good Baltimore front. Glenn was a critical pickup at LT and is playing well. The blocking scheme is actually cohesive and functional, the coaching is there. Price went down and we need him back, but the next man up mitigated his absence. Just please stay healthy and I think we have all the right pieces up front to be successful.
8. Andy fucking Dalton. THAT was a Thursday night performance I have been waiting for your whole career. He was remarkably precise when it mattered and his stats (other than the 4 TD's) will not reflect how well he played. His throw-aways were as good as his completions and he was very smart about taking his risks and not doing something stupid in the second half. Really happy to see him play well so far.
9. The WR's and TE's definitely showed up. We all know AJ is a monster, but Tyler Boyd really broke out tonight and showed he can be a legit #2. That was by far his best performance and I am cautiously optimistic he is going to be our first legit #2 since we had Marvin Jones. Ross is still brutally inconsistent and I know it is early in the year, but I don't ever see him warranting where we drafted him...looks to be a situational player at best...his hands are not improving and he is undersized, but it is what it is I guess, just hope for the best. Would like to see more guys get involved as the year goes on, but AJ and Boyd (plus our RB's) have done such a good job, they just haven't got the chance yet. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. At TE, Eifert is definitely healthy and is doing a great job, although I don't think he is going to return to his peak form from a few years back. But no worries there because Kroft is making his way back and Uzomah is definitely a pass catching threat. I like our TE group.
10. Joe Mixon...looks amazing. His flash when a hole opens up is unreal. He can catch it, run it and block. He has it all and he deserves to be our bell-cow, his performance speak for itself. And Gio is still a playmaker and critical to our offense, great to have him there.
11. Overall, the improvement is apparent and its great to be 2-0. But also being extremely cautious on all of it because as we know, we are the Bungles. Take it week by week.
As much as people bitch about the rule changes, I'm glad to see the safeties pulling up like Bates just did rather than trying to kill the WR.
Agreed, I thought we played really smart. Helps having young blood back there that does not have to make a huge adjustment with the rule changes, wondering if we will see more rookies be more adept to the rule changes.
Man, they stayed away from William Jackson tonight like the plague. That is a great sign.
Absolutely. Jackson will be avoided quite a bit this year I believe.