There were a lot of surprises in the Cincinnati Bengals’ Week 8 loss to the New York Jets. Not one thing was more shocking than the way defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo’s defense played against the No. 32nd ranked offense heading into Sunday’s game.
The Bengals entered the matchup as one of the top defensive units in the NFL. New York was starting their backup quarterback Mike White and didn’t have their No. 1 wide receiver in Corey Davis. All signs pointed to this being a dominant performance for the Bengals.
The opposite happened as Cincinnati had its worst performance of the year. Head coach Zac Taylor said the team had 15 missed tackles. Anarumo said the Jets had 55 of their 511 yards of total offense on screens.
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“I just think it starts with just the fundamentals of tackling and again when you miss a season-high (tackles) and they have inordinate amount of yards after catch and contact, it's going to affect you and we did not do a good job on third down,” Anarumo said on Monday.
The Jets completed 54 percent of their third downs and kept the Bengals defense on the field far more than we’ve seen this season. New York also owned the time of possession stat keeping the ball for 36 minutes, 10 more than the Bengals.
Majority of the missed tackles appeared to take place at the second level of the Bengals’. Second-year linebacker Logan Wilson missed three tackles and earned his lowest grade of the season according to Pro Football Focus. Safety Jessie Bates, linebacker Akeem Davis-Gaither, defensive tackle Larry Ogunjobi and cornerback Chidobe Awuzie all recorded two missed tackles in the game as well.
Cincinnati’s performance against the Jets defensively raises plenty of questions as the team gets ready to host the Cleveland Browns (4-4). The Browns’ offense revolves around the screen game and their rushing attack led by Nick Chubb and if the Bengals couldn’t handle this part of the Jets’ offense, how will they fare against a more talented offense?
Chubb missed two games with a calf injury but played in the Browns’ Week 8 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers. Cleveland ranks No. 1 in rushing offense as they are averaging 161.1 yards per game.
“Chubb is one of the better backs in our league,” Anarumo said. “He's a big, strong guy so we have to do a great job of wrapping up. That's one of the things we didn't do yesterday is we had some block tackling going on where we didn't use our arms to wrap up so we have to do a better job with that. That's just not linebackers, that's all of us at every position, first and foremost. And then diagnosing all of the different runs that they have. The guys will have to study all of that and be in position like they were a couple of weeks ago.”
Team captain and safety Vonn Bell said he’s not worried about this team being accountable for what took place on Sunday. Anarumo feels the same way and the unit will be looking to head into the bye week with momentum and sit a top of the AFC North at 3-0.
“We just got to do a better job tackling,” Anarumo said. “I have confidence in the guys that we will get it fixed.”
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