While the offense has been slow to start in recent seasons, the Bengals could usually count on the defense giving them a chance to win games. That hasn’t been the case in three losses, and Cincinnati needs to find solutions before what players consider a “must-win” game Sunday at Arizona (1-3).
“We’ve played four games, and it’s three out of four … (with) really the unforced errors,” Anarumo said. “We’ve had some untimely penalties, but (at Tennessee), when you’re in a game like that, where it’s going to be a tight, it’s just us and the Titans, right? It’s going to come down to the fourth quarter. It’s going to come down on a field goal. And that’s just the way those last three, four matchups have been. And we didn’t put ourselves in that position. We didn’t give ourselves a chance.”
The Bengals rank 18th in points allowed and 24th in yards allowed, but Sunday’s second quarter made it feel a lot worse. Most alarming is how a traditionally strong run defense has struggled, allowing the second most rushing yards per game in the NFL this season.
Anarumo chalks that up to poor tackling. Against Tennessee, he counted 12 missed tackles.
“We’ve got to do a better job wrapping up and getting more guys to the ball, but certainly not a want-to or effort or any of that,” Anarumo said. “Sometimes that happens. It’s unacceptable that many. We average four or five. We’ve been one of the best tackling teams in the league. It’s not where we’re at right now, so we’ve got to do better on that.”
Titans running back Derrick Henry, whom the Bengals had held to 62 yards rushing or less the past two meetings, finished with 122 yards and a 29-yard touchdown on which he broke three tackles. Cincinnati now faces the sixth-best running game in the league with the Josh Dobbs-led Cardinals offense averaging 143 rushing yards per game. Arizona running back James Conner has 318 yards rushing and two touchdowns on 62 carries (5.1 yards per carry), and Dobbs adds 141 yards and one touchdown on 24 carries.
Linebacker Logan Wilson said the defense just needs to go “right back to the fundamentals.”
“Whenever you look at the film, it’s never as good as it seems, it’s never as bad as it seems,” Wilson said. “A lot of those things that happened Sunday, that have been happening to us on defense have been things that we’ve been doing, not necessarily what the other team has been doing. So, you just want to learn from those things, keep moving forward and control what we can control right now because we are where we are at this point in the season. Right now, we just need to take it one game at a time.”
Eliminating the explosive plays and getting off the field on third down will be key against the Cardinals.
Bengals coach Zac Taylor highlighted a run for 50 yards that Dobbs made against Dallas on the second play of their Week 2 game, Arizona’s only win. Dobbs, filling in for still-rehabbing quarterback Kyler Murray, is averaging 5.9 yards per carry, which ranks second best in the NFL among signal callers.
Similar to Murray, he’s proven capable of extending plays out of the pocket and he’s also been efficient on designed runs. Dobbs was acquired via a trade from the Browns just two weeks before the opener and proved to be a better alternative than veteran backup Colt McCoy, who was released four days later.
“He’s done a really nice job, he’s really smart,” Bengals coach Zac Taylor said of Dobbs. “He’s been effective and efficient. He’s made some good plays with his feet. That’s shown up on those key downs, third downs he’s made some plays. … He’s been in this offense before, coming from Cleveland. I know he and (offensive coordinator) Drew (Petzing) have been together, so he didn’t walk in blind. He walked in with an understanding. He’s done a really good job of executing, helping them move.”
Wilson said the Bengals just need to pay attention to the “small details” to get back on track defensively this week, but the Cardinals have seen on film what Cincinnati has struggled with and try to use that to their advantage. That will be the case until the Bengals clean up their mistakes.
“They run a lot of different schemes, and they like to check your oil on plays that we have failed to do well at, so I think they are kind of expecting some of those plays, that’s kind of what they’ve done to other teams,” Wilson said. “They are a good team. Their record might not indicate that but they are better than it shows.”
SUNDAY’S GAME
Bengals at Cardinals, 4:05 p.m., Fox, 700, 1530, 102.7, 104.7
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