The dumbest descriptive now, among NFL talkers, scribblers and other assorted experts, is also the most overused:
Statement game.
Seems like every team, every week is playing a statement game. Except, possibly, Detroit. If you know what statement the Lions are making, please let us know. How many statements have the Bengals either made or tried to make this season?
Six?
Yes. Six. Six games, six statements. Every statement-filled one. The Bengals ought to consider hiring an additional PR person. Executive Vice President in Charge of Statement Making.
Game 1 was the Joe Burrow Statement. How will his return from a knee injury be? Will he make a statement?
Game 2: Can the Men win on the road? If you intend to be good, you have to win on the road. Road wins are statements.
Game 3: Can they win at Pittsburgh? That’s an eternal statement game for Cincinnati.
Game 4: Can they avoid a letdown v. bad Jax, after the emotional W at Pittsburgh?
Game 5: Win a game against an elite team. That’s a statement.
Game 6: You have to win the games you’re supposed to win. We don’t stink, check it out.
It’s all nonsense, of course. If the Bengals win in Baltimore Sunday, you shouldn’t be planning a trip to LA (SoFi Stadium) in February. Unless you want to see the sun in that black hole of a month.
If the Bengals can go to B-town and swipe a win from the smoking hot (and equally injury-ravaged) Ravens it would be a sweet addition to their credibility column and will give them further reason to believe in themselves. That is huge for a young team unaccustomed to success.
It probably won’t dim the brilliance of Lamar Jackson.
It won’t eliminate Cincinnati’s need to play the rest of its schedule that includes KC, SF, the 4-2 Chargers and four more division games.
It won’t put a magic shield around the Bengals to keep them free of injuries.
“Statement games’’ aren’t statements. Every game is a statement.
That’s my statement.
HOWEVUH. . . A win Sunday would be significant. I wrote in August that this would be the Bengals Verge Season. Next year, 2022, would be the year they’d make the most notable leap. Right now, they’re ahead of schedule, thanks mostly to the defense, which has held things together as the more-hyped offense figured things out.
The D is holding opponents to 18.5 points per game, 5th-best in the league. It’s 5th in DVOA, a mystical measure of success devised by Pro Football Outsiders that I couldn’t define if I were the Second Coming of Lawrence Taylor, by way of Chuck Bednarik. If you’re into other statistics you don’t understand, Yahoo says this:
According to Ben Baldwin’s database, the Bengals defense ranks third in opponent success rate (40.5 percent) and seventh in expected points added allowed per play (negative-0.3). Cincinnati has given up explosive passes at the ninth-lowest rate (8 percent) and is 19th in explosive run rate allowed (11 percent), per Warren Sharp’s database.
Meantime, before the W against the Lions, the Bengals were averaging 22.8 points a game, 20th in the league.
Most years over the past 30, Pittsburgh’s D just busted the Men in the mouth, without much fear of retaliation. For most of the past couple decades, you could add Baltimore to that list.
The Bengals weren’t as strong or physical or as willing to engage. That’s not true at the moment. Vonn Bell and Jessie Bates will hurt you. Sam Hubbard and DJ Reeder play with attitude. And the newcomers (Owuzie, Hendrickson, Logan Wilson, Ogunjobi, Hilton) have overachieved. For now, the D is a tribute to the good works of the personnel staff. When is the last time we said that?
The Bengals are rolling, earlier than anyone could have imagined.
MEANTIME. . . The Ravens have won five in a row from a hospital bed. Their latest huge injury was to All-Pro left tackle Ronnie Stanley, who will undergo ankle surgery. His season is over. He joins CB Marcus Peters and RBs JK Dobbins and Gus Edwards and a bunch of other guys who are watching without helmets on.
Their scrap-heap running game is a great example of how important a front office and head coach can be. Yahoo!:
This is why John Harbaugh is one of the NFL's best coaches and the Ravens always win. They have an uncanny ability to develop players and make adjustments. They lost multiple running backs, and just found old veterans like Le'Veon Bell, Devonta Freeman and Latavius Murray on the street. They lost top cornerback Marcus Peters for the season, but Sunday they still shut down the Chargers' skill-position players. They confused Chargers quarterback Justin Herbert by disguising coverages and blitzes. They also got a ton of hidden yards by outplaying the Chargers on special teams.
This is what the Ravens do. They figure out what they have and utilize it well. Stars leave and new players step up. They rarely beat themselves. And the 5-1 Ravens emerged from a challenging stretch as the clear favorite to win the AFC North.
The Ravens crushed the 4-1 Chargers 34-6 last Sunday. Off-the-street RBs ( Latavius Murray, Devonta Freeman, and Le’Veon Bell) each had a rushing touchdown.
Which prompted the Baltimore Sun to note, "this was a statement win for Baltimore against a division leader.''
Sigh.
Now, then. . .
31 YEARS AGO TODAY. . . The Reds finished off the Oakland A’s to win the World Series. That feels like six lifetimes ago. Except for the generation-and-a-half of Reds fans not yet born in 1990. It feels like nothing for them.
I’ve never had more fun covering a sports team. The ’99 Reds were close; so were the ’88 Bengals and, believe it or not, the interim-coached UC Bearcats after Huggs’ ouster.
Eric Hicks, 6-foot-5, playing center. Awesome.
Tony La Russa, ’90 A’s manager, said many years later that he knew his team of studs was in trouble even before the Series began. They took the Reds so lightly, they played homerun derby in batting practice before Game 1.
IF MLB EVER GOES TO ROBOT UMPS, blame Laz Diaz. He was dreadful behind the plate last night in Houston’s 9-2 rout of Boston in Game 4 of the ALCS. Home-plate umpire Laz Diaz has missed 21 ball-strike calls tonight, according to @ESPNStatsInfo, via Jeff Passan’s tweet. That is the most of any umpire this postseason.
It was 2-2 in the 9th, two out, two on, when Boston reliever Nathan Eovaldi threw a 1-2 curve to the Astros’ Jason Castro. It was clearly strike three. Diaz called it a ball. Castro then got a hit. The Astros got several more. Houston won, 9-2. Egregious.
I don’t like anything that removes the human element from any sport. I think the biggest question here was, why was Diaz working the postseason in the first place? His grades say he’s not a good umpire.
But I’d consider using robots to call balls and strikes. You?
PERSONALLY. . . We celebrated the life of my Aunt Doris Frazier yesterday in Hookstown, PA. She was 93. As recently as last week, Doris was powerwashing her house and pushing mulch around. Be grateful for the gifts you’ve been given. They are ample.
TUNE O’ THE DAY.PD loves this tune.
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