The 24-7 sports news microscope has grown so intense that not only does everyone overreact to week 1 NFL action, but the media has also started mocking their own sweeping conclusions while they're concluding. "I know we're overeating about one game, but the Bears are amazing!" "Is Joe Flacco an elite quarterback?" "Cancel the season. Baltimore and San Francisco have earned byes to the Super Bowl. Sorry New England and Chicago, you lost in the conference championship games." Fans and analysts alike always splice the caveat in, but nobody can help themselves. Then of course there's the flip side. For any team thought to be decent going into the start of the year, it's doomsday after an 0-1 record. Heaven forbid somebody goes 0-2. Then the stats start flying around about the chances of making the playoffs and the chances of getting struck by lightning while holding a fifty cent piece and sneezing on the Lombardi Trophy are roughly equivalent. It's maddening, but at the same time it's hard not to get sucked into it. The national consensus heading into the season didn't give the Bengals any shot at breaking through this year, but Bengals fans like every other fan base had high hopes for 2012. Consequently, last Monday's game was quite a gut shot for Cincinnati supporters. Here is my take on the game and my attempt at talking everyone in Cincy off the ledge...
The Sky is not Falling Cincy Fans:
The walls of Bengaldom shook after the Monday night debacle in Baltimore. It's hard not to be dismayed when early season optimism is squashed right out of the gate with a 44-13 clubbing. While I was hoping for Cincy to show well in the game, once the dust had settled I wasn't too worried about it (I'm much more worried about the season-ending injury to starting weak-side linebacker Thomas Howard suffered in practice this week. If you break it down, it might be the one position on the entire roster other than center where there isn't an obvious backup plan. Stay tuned. This could be huge) . Yes, the Bengals defense got kicked in the teeth. Yes, the offense's inability to score TD's in the red zone was just one example illustrating their lack of polish and execution. But it's a long season and what happened in week 1 doesn't necessarily indict the entire season. The defense played bad, but that doesn't make them a bad defense. It's like when the Bengals thumped the Bears a few years back. The Bengals offensive scheme skewered the Bears defensive scheme. If those two teams played again that same year? Who knows. I do not think that Cincinnati's personnel stinks. I think they can execute better and will improve, and the coaches think that too. It's a long year. Time will tell if we are right. Don't lose hope yet. There were bright spots. The offense moved the ball. The offensive line, everyone's question mark heading into the game, played great. Remember it's much more important to be hot at the end of the season than at the beginning (ask the Giants and the Packers). This is still a young team with talent that benefits from boards to the face like this. I might even stretch as far as to say that beating Baltimore in week 1 might have been worse for this team than getting their clocks cleaned. It would be like a greyhound catching the rabbit before the race is over. They're not quite ready for that. Now, the bar is set. They know where they have to get to. And they get another crack at Baltimore in week 17. They smelled the rabbit. Now go get that freaking thing. Besides, this wasn't a game they had to win. That's this week. In the first half of the season, they just need to beat the inferior teams. If they can go 4-2 to start, they can afford to drop a couple of games when the competition stiffens and still be in good enough shape to rebound and make a push towards the postseason.
That's it for now. I'll try to check back in in a few weeks. Hopefully it's not another "Don't panic" post!
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