Final.

Go Reds.

Flacco looked excellent tonight, just shy of 300 yds. I was also happy to see Reed's int TD. He breaks the NFL record for int return yards.

Go Reds.

 

UK basketball starts in about a month......

Ugly! Bengals aren't even close to being a top tier team. 6-10 to 9-7 potential. They will beat crappy teams and get beat by good ones just like last year.

Please form an orderly line and exit the bandwagon from the rear. Jumping from the bandwagon should be avoided.

I'm not letting one game kill my hopes for the season but my Bengals have lots of work to do.

Zimmer will need to pull out every trick he knows to get this defense into shape. They have shown me nothing through the pre-season and game one. There is one point of optimism for me - I thought the offensive line looked really good until the game got out of hand and the Ravens were able to just unload.

Who did not play tonight besides Dre'? Won't he help alot in the secondary? Leon had a tough night. I thought Hawkins and BJGE looked good tonight. Boldin's TD was NOT a TD. Didn't complete the catch and the ball hit the ground.

At the risk of sounding insane I was encouraged by the offense. I thought they looked good (before it got out of hand and things went downhill). BJGE ran the ball well, Dalton threw fairly well, I am hopeful.

 

I thought (not hindsight) that they should have went for the 4th and goal at the 1 yard line, down 7, 3rd quarter, as underdogs, on the road.

Ugly! Bengals aren't even close to being a top tier team. 6-10 to 9-7 potential. They will beat crappy teams and get beat by good ones just like last year.

 

They call it overreaction Monday after the first week of Sunday games, and same thing can be said after the first Monday night game. Ravens won every phase of the game, so no excuses about this game. However Ravens also pounded the crap out of a would be playoff team last year in the Steelers in the first game of the year last year too. They made the Steelers look just as bad as the Bengals tonight. So way to early to decide how they will do for the whole year.

At the risk of sounding insane I was encouraged by the offense. I thought they looked good (before it got out of hand and things went downhill). BJGE ran the ball well, Dalton threw fairly well, I am hopeful.

 

I thought (not hindsight) that they should have went for the 4th and goal at the 1 yard line, down 7, 3rd quarter, as underdogs, on the road.

 

I was good with the field goal there. You need two scores to win and it was a momentum thing. They walk away feeling good with that drive. Unfortunately, our defense is nonexistent right now. That is not even an average NFL D right now.

As for the game I am looking at it like I did after the Bengals got pounded by the Lions last year in the preseason. Even in this bad loss, there were some things I really liked and think will help them do very well.

 

1. The line looked good run blocking and pass blocking before the Ravens got up by a lot and started pin their ears back and just rush Dalton.

2. Short yardage situations were already much better in this one game than they were all year last year. (Sure wish Lewis went for it on the one yard line though.)

3. Really liked how they used Hawkins in the slot and think he will be a very good weapon for Dalton this year.

4. The defense had opportunities to make some picks. I know that they have to actually come through and complete the pick, but they did put theirselves in position to make those plays which is encouraging.

5. As far as we know the Ravens could end up being a top 5 offense this year, which would make it a little bit better for why the Bengals defense had such a tough time. They have 3 very solid receivers now with Jones there, two good TE's and obviously Ray Rice. They also seem to not be as conservative, which helps Flacco.

6. The schedule gets much easier for the next 6 games. So there is time to get things fixed and get a lot of confidence and momentum built before they hit the real tough part of their schedule.

 

So there are things to build off of that I am encouraged about. Obviously plenty of things to fix though. Like the defense has to play much better, and they have to find a way to get Gresham involved he was a complete non factor tonight. It didn't help that he short armed a pass because he got scared of Rey Lewis.

I was good with the field goal there. You need two scores to win and it was a momentum thing. They walk away feeling good with that drive. Unfortunately, our defense is nonexistent right now. That is not even an average NFL D right now.

 

Its one game, so hard to say they are not even an average defense right now. The Ravens lit the Steelers up last year to on opening week, the Ravens did that last year with not even as good of an offense last year. The Steelers went on to have a top 5 defense even after that beating. So the coaches for the Ravens have to get credit. Two years in a row they have made a top 10 defense look very bad on the opening weekend.

 

Bengals looked bad but way to early to over react. Just like if the Bengals go out and shut down the Browns next week and pick off Weeden 4 times, it would be an over reaction to say they are great. To early in the year to really know anything yet.

I will always cheer on my Bengals so no jumping off the bandwagon for me. I knew coming in there would be little chance we win. Ravens trying out a new offense, on a night honoring a former owner. I saw positives and negative. I hope Andy improves. We don't have the great recievers outside of AJ so Andy is going to need to make some good throws, which he didn't do tonight. I still think we are in for a good season. 15 more chances.