| October 08, 2003 | « Previous Story | HOME | Next Story » | Posted at 09:02 PM |
Running Backs: Travis Henry had a great game and showed a lot of heart. He played with bruised ribs and had one shot before the game. He was feeling the pain the whole time, but still kept pounding the ball and had 25 carries for 85 yards and 1 rushing touchdown. Henry also had 2 nice catches in the game. The first catch was a beautiful 9 yard screen over the middle and Henry took it from the 10 yard line into the endzone for the touchdown in the 3rd quarter. Henry also caught a 5 yard pass to help move the ball closer to the field for Rian Lindell’s game tying field goal at the end of the 4th quarter. It’s about time….Sam Gash was used in the game and caught 3 balls for 32 yards. He was also responsible for some key blocks to help out Henry. Sam Gash was used for some Grade: A
Wide Receivers: Thank God for Eric Moulds! He seems to be the only receiver that can catch a ball. Eric Moulds had a great game, catching 9 passes for 99 yards. He also made a few plays in the drive that forced overtime and then had a great catch and run to take the ball to the 7 yard line and draw a face mask penalty. Moulds did drop one, but Josh Reed dropped 2 and Bobby Shaw dropped one, too. However it wasn’t just the receivers’ faults. Bledsoe also helped out by overthrowing every receiver at least once. There was also some good coverage on Bobby Shaw and Josh Reed too. This helped to raise my grade a little bit. Grade: B
Tight Ends: Dave Moore had some good blocks on Travis Henry’s runs, but was also guilty of allowing a sack on Drew Bledsoe. Mark Campbell was a goat and a hero from the game. On one of Drew Bledsoe’s sacks, Mark Campbell let the guy right in to sack Bledsoe and also dropped a pass. However, he caught a sweet 20-yard pass from Bledsoe in overtime to keep the drive going on a 2nd and 8. Grade: C+
Offensive Line: The Offensive line had an average game. They opened up some holes for Travis Henry and helped keep the running game going. Trey Teague also made a key block to help Henry get into the endzone on that beautiful screen pass at the end of the 3rd quarter. However, he also had a bad snap that was too high for Bledsoe to get hold of. Luckily, Drew Bledsoe picked the ball up and threw it away or the play could have turned really ugly! The pass blocking was horrible and could not handle the blitzes. Bledsoe was sacked 4 times and did not have much time to throw. Mike Williams was beaten for a sack and looked pretty bad too. He did redeem himself, later in the game with a nice block on Henry’s touchdown catch. It was nice to see run blocking, but where is the pass blocking we saw in the first 2 weeks? Grade: C
Defensive Line: Not a bad day for the defensive line on Sunday. Pat Williams was a monster and had 7 tackles, including 4 of them for losses. He also helped stop the run as the line allowed only 69 yards rushing to the Bengals. Aaron Schobel looked good and had a nice looking interception on a zone blitz, caused by pressure from London Fletcher. The other side of the line was very quiet and was beat a few times by RB Rudi Johnson. Ryan Denney had 5 tackles, but none of them were for a loss of yards. Ron Edwards played well in Sam Adams’ absence. He had two tackles and also forced a fumble. Grade: B+
Linebackers: Takeo Spikes looked hungry and had 10 tackles. He was all over the field and helped rush Jon Kitna a few times. Jeff Posey helped sacked Kitna and forced a fumble. He also had 5 tackles. London Fletcher had some nice blitzes, including one that helped force the interception. Fletcher also had 6 tackles. Overall it was a good game for this unit, but they got burned a few times by over pursuing the ball carrier, including the Rudi Johnson’s 16-yard touchdown run. Grade: B-
Secondary: Antoine Winfield led the team with 12 tackles. He had a good game and helped keep the receivers out of the endzone. Nate Clements was burned badly a few times, but made 7 tackles and kept his receiver out of the end zone. Kevin Thomas was a goat for a couple plays, but also made a nice play to break away a touchdown pass to Peter Warrick. Lawyer Milloy looked really good when he got himself ½ a sack and also forced a fumble. He ended the game with 6 tackles. Pierson Prioleau lost his starting job to Izell Reese, but had a really good game as he executed the blitzes really nicely. He put a lot of pressure on the quarterback. Grade: B-
Special Teams: There was only one bright star on this unit. Rian Lindell was a perfect 3 for 3 on his field goals, including the one score on the board against the wind. He also did a good job kicking off with 4 out of 6 kickoffs within the 10-yard line, including one that was a touchback. Brian Moorman shanked a punt and had some minor problems with the wind, but still averaged 43.1 yards per punt. The return team didn’t do much as no holes seemed to open up. Antonio Brown had no room to run on any of the punts and only averaged 2 yards per punt. He did a little better with the kick returns and averaged 22 yards per return. The coverage units were okay, except for one punt where Peter Warrick ran it back 30 yards. The goat of the day was when Coy Wire went to block a punt and roughed the punter, instead. This brought an unnecessary 15-yard penalty on 4th and 8 and gave the ball back to Cincinnati. This changed the game around and could have been the game breaker, but luckily, Bledsoe and the offense woke up at the end of the 4th quarter to get a game tying field goal and force overtime. Grade: C+
Coaching: Dick LeBeau did a good job installing the zone blitz schemes against the Bengals and found a way to pressure the quarterback, because the ends can’t seem to do it. Kevin Gilbride showed he is not afraid to run the ball once in a while and tried to give some confidence in the line and in Travis Henry at the end of the game, when he let Henry run the touchdown in. Gregg Williams didn’t have this team pumped up and energized as we hoped they would be. They looked flat and were almost beat by the Bungles, until a jolt in halftime seemed to wake them up. Maybe it was all the booing or something else. Who knows? Whatever it was, it was nice to see and hopefully the team will carry the emotion from this win to beat the Jets in New Jersey. We’ll have to see how they play next week, but it will be interesting to see if they can keep it up. Grade: C
