Little Things Plaguing Bengals Threaten a Potentially Great Season

On paper, the Cincinnati Bengals' season thus far doesn't seem to be going too poorly. They have a 3-1-1 record, and though no longer in the lead in the AFC North, they are still very much in the running. They won their first three games of the season, all convincingly, while being bested by an angry and motivated New England Patriots team in Week 5.

They are weathering the storm of injuries to receivers Marvin Jones and A.J. Green, are committed to running the ball and possess the same prodigious depth on defense they have for the past few seasons. Everything should be rosy for the Bengals right now.

But things are not so rosy. In fact, the Bengals are in peril of wiping out all of their gains this season. And it's not any one thing or any large thing—it's a bunch of little problems that have compounded to threaten their chances of earning a fourth straight postseason berth or first place in the division.

The problems are the defense—especially the pass rush and run defense—as well as red-zone scoring and kicking field goals. Penalties, too, have haunted the Bengals this season, with the team averaging seven per game. 

Last year and in 2012, the defense was the Bengals' crowning achievement. It held opposing offenses to a total of 1,544 rushing yards and six rushing touchdowns and had 43 sacks on the season, with Wallace Gilberry and Carlos Dunlap leading the way with 7.5 apiece and Geno Atkins earning six before suffering a season-ending knee injury.

This year, the Bengals defense is giving up a 29th-ranked 141.4 rushing yards per game and allowed 147 rushing yards to the Panthers in Week 6 and a whopping 220 on the ground to the Patriots in Week 5. The defense has totaled just eight sacks through five games—only seven teams have fewer.

Player	Sacks
Carlos Dunlap	3.0
Wallace Gilberry	1.5
Reggie Nelson	1.5
Robert Geathers	1.0
Darqueze Dennard	1.0
2014 Total	8.0
2013 Total	43.0

With a defense like that, it's no surprise the Bengals finally found themselves losing in Week 5 and giving up 37 points to the Panthers in Week 6. But it is a surprise this is happening.

The defense, with the exception of departed free-agent defensive end Michael Johnson, is mostly unchanged. Even though defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer left to be the Minnesota Vikings' head coach, the Bengals promoted Paul Guenther from within to take his place. It did not seem as though the defense would suffer a continuity problem, yet here it is.

The same players who struggled against the run in 2013 are struggling against it in 2014, based on Pro Football Focus' grade (subscription required). Domata Peko, Margus Hunt and Brandon Thompson all have negative run defense grades this season—as they did last year. Gilberry has actually improved. 

Dunlap and Vontaze Burfict are both still performing well against the run, just not as well as they did a season prior. The absences of both Johnson and James Harrison, a bit-part run-stopper in 2013, seems to have affected their ability to stop the run, as has Atkins' slow start after his return from injury.

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But it's also a matter of discipline, which could be a result of the switch from the fiery taskmaster Zimmer to the more laid back Guenther. Suddenly, execution is off and tackles are being missed with increased frequency. There is no toughness to the front seven on a consistent basis and now teams can simply run at will against the Bengals.

Unsurprisingly, this has left the Bengals with the seventh-worst offensive time of possession. The offense, which has been performing well in both the passing and running games, cannot get on the field long enough to make an impact. With fewer and fewer plays available to the offense, it cannot counteract what the defense is doing with its time on the field.

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But the offense hasn't been doing its job in the area that matters most: the red zone. The Bengals are averaging 3.2 red-zone trips per game this season but are scoring touchdowns only 56.25 percent of the time, the same as the Houston Texans and Tennessee Titans.

The Bengals are settling for field goals far too often compared to how many yards, and over the last two weeks, points, their opponents are earning. And the field goals aren't a given this year either, which is another of their small-yet-significant problems this season.

Kicker Mike Nugent has made only 11 of his 17 field-goal attempts this year. He missed a 36-yard attempt against the Panthers that would have won his team the game in overtime. He made just one of four attempts against the Atlanta Falcons, a game the Bengals luckily won convincingly. He also missed one of his two attempts against the Patriots and one of his six against the Ravens.

The Bengals aren't just leaving points on the field by failing to score consistently in the red zone, they are doing so through Nugent's missed field goals—field goals that have been attempted from reasonable distances. While seven points are better than three points, three are better than zero. That's 18 points Nugent has thus far cost the Bengals.

The seven penalties the Bengals are averaging per game have hurt them as well. Four penalties against them in the Patriots game cost them 37 yards and also gave the Patriots two additional first downs. The Bengals had 13 penalties for 119 yards against the Panthers, five of which kept Panthers drives alive and advanced them down the field. 

Game	CIN Penalties	Penalty Yds.	Opp. Pen. 1st Downs
@ BAL	4	45	2
vs. ATL	7	55	2
vs. TEN	7	50	4
@ NE	4	37	2
vs. CAR	13	119	5
Total	35	306	15

The penalties are just one indication that the Bengals aren't the sharply executing, disciplined team they have been in the past. The poor tackling and execution in the run defense also point to a lack of discipline, as does the team's struggles to score points in the red zone—touchdowns or field goals.

Taken individually, these look like relatively minor problems the Bengals can address. But taken as a whole, especially given their prevalence over the last two games, it becomes less surprising the Bengals lost to the Patriots and wound up with what could be a costly tie to the Panthers a week later.

These issues are what cost the Bengals wins in both games. And with the dangerous Indianapolis Colts up next, followed by the division-leading Baltimore Ravens, these issues continuing could mean more losses in the future. 

Just struggling against the run, just failing to get points in the red zone or just committing too many penalties is one thing—it's the combined effect of all three that is most troubling. Slowly and steadily, the Bengals have been making mistakes that have snowballed, week by week. If they cannot control it, that snowball will grow large enough to crush them.