Sunday, December 26, 1999
Team's defensive stats are misleading
BENGALS INSIDER
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati Enquirer
The Bengals defense is stalking noteriety instead of history, but is it the true villain?
They are giving up 30 points a game, and if they keep their average in the last two games, they will give up the fourth most points of all-time with 474.
Yet before making defensive coodinator Dick LeBeau the scapegoat and replacing him with head coach Bruce Coslet's good friend Pete Carroll, consider where the year-long gaffes of the special teams and the offense's early turnovers left this defense.
Nearly half the 414 points allowed - 183 - came following turnovers at scrimmage or special teams foul-ups that included fumbled punts or kicks; blocked, deflected or short punts; or kickoffs that went out of bounds.
Almost one fifth of the points - 80 - have come on drives of 37 yards or less.
While the best defenses in the NFL use LeBeau's zone blitz scheme, including the two teams the Bengals play to end the season, he has been asked to work miracles here with a raw secondary and three starting second-year linebackers. They've used five different cornerback combinations with players who began the season with barely 20 NFL starts among them.
And still, they've improved over last year. What was the league's worst run defense, allowing 4.7 yards a pop last season, has shaved off a yard to 3.7. They already have 32 sacks, four more than last year.
Yet there is some wondering that while Coslet adjusted on offense during the season, LeBeau has doggedly stuck with his man-to-man coverage. But the facts are that LeBeau did adjust, going to a pure four-man line that's been a big factor in the three-game winning streak, and the young corners have improved since opening day.
But the Bengals don't have time to be young and improving. Two big blows to LeBeau's second tour in Cincinnati:
People in the organization misjudged strong safety Sam Shade's pass coverage skills compared to the players they kept and let him go to free agency. Management also paid dearly for offering former Pro Bowl cornerback Ashley Ambrose less than free agent Jeff Burris in the winter of '98, and they ended up with neither, unable to survive a career-threatening and season-ending knee injury to second-round pick Charles Fisher.
DILLON AND ANDERSON: Corey Dillon is Bengals running backs coach Jim Anderson's fifth Pro Bowl selection. James Brooks went three times and Harold Green once. In 16 seasons here, Anderson has presided over 1,000-yard seasons in half of them, with Dillon and Brooks accounting for three each and Ickey Woods and Green one apiece. Anderson said Dillon has ''a pinch of all of them.''
He's talking about Brooks' scatback ability, Green's quick feet and Woods' big-back attributes. Dillon may not be as quick as Brooks or as big as Woods or as rangy as Green, but Anderson seems to think he's a nice brew of those who came before him.
This is why position coaches are important and why Bengals President Mike Brown gave Anderson a raise and an extension when the Bears tried to sign him in the offseason.
Dillon was a delicate case when he arrived three years ago, angry he had dropped to the second round because of his juvenile record, because he hadn't stayed in one college for very long and needed some consistency. Anderson, who can exasperate players now and again with his constant harping on atten tion to detail, gave it to him on a daily basis. Dillon's agent, Marvin Demoff, saluted Anderson and Coslet last week for how they handled his client's adjustment to the pros.
You don't think Dillon has matured? How about when he said after he was named to the Pro Bowl, ''I'm not representing myself. I'm representing my high school, college, the kids in the neighborhood who look up to me. I represent Seattle.''
That griping he wasn't getting the ball enough earlier in the season? Don't mistake passion for petulance.
For years this locker room has needed anger and emotion and he gave it to them.
And guess what? Who was right? When he has carried 22 or more times this season, the Bengals are 4-0.
WILLIE KNEW: Right tackle Willie Anderson has graded 98 and 100 in his past two games and looks to be coming into his own in his fourth year. But he knew he wasn't going to make the Pro Bowl even though, he's having the best year of his career.
''When you constantly play on awful teams every year as a lineman who doesn't put up stats, I don't even look to go,'' Anderson said. ''I just try to play my butt off and hope to be paid as a Pro Bowl player.''
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