[ Blue Man Sings The Whites ]

[ I Am Bengal – Hear Me Roar (Page 2) ]

So, Week 1, and my patchwork Bengals made their way to San Diego to take on LaDainian Tomlinson and the Chargers. The keen-witted reader will recall that three players - Joe Andruzzi, Bernardo Harris and Daniel Graham - were making their very first start in Cincinnati colours, while our future francise quarterback (never underestimate the power of positive thinking) Akili Smith was still out with a case of turf-toe he'd somewhat improbably picked up on a grass field two weeks previous.

Malingering little ratbag.

Offensive gameplan - run them to death. Defensive gameplan - stop Tomlinson, make Brees have to beat us.

"Pleasedon'tletthemrunatourleft, pleasedon'tletthemrunatourleft..."

The game started well enough, our rebuilt offensive line holding strong as we edged toward the halfway line, Lorenzo Neal and Corey Dillon prodding and probing at the tough Charger defence, picking up yardage in little fits and starts. With the ball at our 43, we go to the play-action for the first time, Jon Kitna faking the handoff before turning downfield and seeing that the new golden boy, tight end Daniel Graham, has gained a step on the linebacker trying to cover him. Kitna rifles the ball in, Graham dodges one incoming tackle, breaks a second and is away, off downfield and gone to the tune of a 57-yard TD. 7-0.

Easy game this, isn't it?

Which was, truth be told, probably what the Chargers were thinking when Kitna put up two interceptions in the two following drives, one of which goes for a touchdown and the second for a 45-yard field goal. It could have been worse, but at the end of an eighty-yard drive, Tomlinson coughs up the ball on the two-yard line and we fall on it gratefully.

So, a minute and a bit to play in the first half, deep in our own territory. We run Dillon twice to buy a bit of space, then give the ball to Kitna to air out. After all, what's the worst that can happen? Oh, wait, I know this one, the worst is that he could underthrow Peter Warwick by about three miles, the ball could get picked off by Quentin Jammer and then run all the way back to put San Diego up 17-7 going in at the half.

Mental note to self - never, ever do that again.

Christ. Okay. Slightly revised plan. Every time we throw it, we get intercepted, right? So the LAST thing they'll expect is for us to throw some more, yeah?

Genius. Foolproof. We go for it - and, amazingly, it seems to work. Daniel Graham, in particular, is getting open left, right and centre - the Chargers just seem completely unable to cover him and slowly we claw our way back into the game, first with Chad Johnson, our slot reciever, sliding into the endzone on a sharp in-route then, with four minutes to play and the Chargers going for a third-and-long that would have put them in a great position to run out the clock, CB Jeff Burris gets inside his reciever's slant and picks off Brees' bullet-pass. Four plays later, Corey Dillon takes the ball in the flat and breezes through the San Diego defence to give us a 21-17 lead with three minutes left. All our defence needs to do is hold for one more Chargers drive, and we'll somehow be out of here with a win. Can they do it?

Can they hell.

Wallop, wallop, temporary false hope as we hold them for three downs, oh no, wallop, 24-21 San Diego, 67 seconds left. Brilliant. Out troop our offence for one last shot, more out of hope than expectation.

Graham gets open up the seam - we're on halfway, forty seconds left. I outsmart myself a bit, sending Dillon on the draw that just eats up more time. 25 seconds, 46-yard line. Two missed passes, then Willie Jackson gets into a yard of space up the right touchline, scampers upfield and ducks out at the 23 to stop the clock with 1 tick left.

Okay. This is the point where not picking up a decent kicker is suddenly looking like a really bad career decision. So. Trust Rackers, the patron saint of bad kickers, to hit one the better part of forty yards and put us into overtime where our defence is likely to prove every bit as effective as it has for the last fifty-nine minutes and fifty-nine seconds, or gamble it all on death or glory?

Only one choice, isn't there, really?

I elect to go to one of my favourite plays from '02 - Single Back, Normal, Split End Quick Hit. The slot man breaks hard crossfield behind the linebackers, and the tight-end runs a post that crosses the slant-route about fifteen yards downfield. Hopefully, there's a second or two's confusion for the safeties as the recievers cross in front of them, and in that moment as the FS and SS try and work out who to cover, one or other offensive players come open. While all this is going on, the X receiver runs a deep-ish in-route, the Z takes a fly-pattern while the HB stays home to block.

Deep breath, quick prayer to the pigskin gods, try and block out the Chargers' crowd who are going absolutely ballistic, snap. No blitz, thank God - the only problem with this play is that there's no outlet receiver if the defence comes with a lot of pressure - the line holds steady, but, hell, the nickelback's dropped into a zone, he's right in the passing lane for my split-end, Chad Johnson, as he passes the safety at close to Warp One.

But wait - who's this? Strolling into the endzone, seemingly completly unnoticed by anyone wearing blue, as wide open as wide open can be... Don't rush it, don't rush it, plant your feet, Kitna you muppet... back goes the arm and WHAM! Daniel Graham takes the pass, the zebras hold up both arms and the crowd are deathly silent, stunned, while players in funky tiger-striped helmets dog-pile in the middle of the endzone... We've only gone and won it!

Easy game this, isn't it?

Final score - CIN 28-24 SD, Player of the game, of course, in his first NFL start, tight end Daniel Graham - 12 catches for 220 yards and two scores.

1 and 0, baby, YEAH!

...

I'm a slow learner, but I usually get there in the end. The first job once we were back in Cincinnati was to move the training ground and not tell kicker Neil Rackers where we were going to. Heh heh heh. In his place came Gary Anderson (OVR 82), the Old Man Of The Hills, who hopefully had at least one decent season left in him (which is one more than Rackers is likely to manage in his whole career...)

To the home opener, then, and the Cleveland So-Called-Browns. The last-gasp win the previous week brought us into the game with a great head of steam, which it took all of one play to dissipate - William Green taking the handoff and catching my defence in the middle of a game of Musical Statues, zipping upfield for eighty yards and the game's opening score. Magic. Oh, and following our three and out, Green tacked another fifty yards onto his numbers for the season, setting up a field-goal to put the Oranges up by ten easy points.

It's looking like there's a long afternoon ahead, but Akili Smith is finally back in the lineup and keen to show what he's got to offer. He's not making highlight-reel plays, but he's perfectly efficient, making sure he hits the open man, or grabbing a few yards with a quick sprint-and-slide. The Oranges can't afford to key on our running game and we're slowly grinding out yards, just like we planned.

You remember the plan, right?

Smith gets our opening score on a quarterback-keeper from two yards out. The Browns reply through Andre Davis' fourteen yard catch-and-dodge, but in the main Tim Couch's receivers seem to have buckets for hands, and even when he can get the ball away past a rampant Sam Adams, he's being rewarded with deflections and drops and the tide is definitely turning our way. Akili opens his passing TD account for the season with a toss to Peter Warrick, and a twenty-five yard Anderson field goal takes us in to halftime all square at 17.

Anderson tacked on another field goal in the first drive after the break, and in the middle of the fourth quarter Corey Dillon slashed through the tiring Cleveland line to make it 27-17 and pretty much iron-clad the win.

Pretty much.

We seem, however, to be under some kind of obligation to make these games interesting, and so for the benefit of the paying spectator we proceeded to give up an 84-yard TD return from the ensuing kickoff, and then to make things -really- interesting, we decided to let the Oranges recover the onside kick that followed. Surely we weren't going to surrender a lead in the final two minutes for the second week running?

Nope, not this time, bucko. Cleveland's Keystone Receivers gave us all one last chance to see their hilarious portrayal of men allergic to pigskin, and that was game over.

Final score, CLE 24-27 CIN, and we move to 2-0, laughing in the faces of the naysayers. 

...

So, off we go to sunny Atlanta, so much more than an airport and the Coca-Cola bottling plant, at least according to the mermaids.

On the game's first play from scrimmage, we call an off-tackle run to the left side, a nice little loosener just to get the Falcons defence used to the steady diet of running they're going to be eating all night. The ball's snapped, and straight out of the blocks is Willie Jackson, hitting his cornerback with a block that almost puts the poor kid into the crowd. Jackson, showing his veteran savvy, immediately cuts back to engage the free safety who's desperately trying to get in on the play. Meanwhile, Daniel Graham has locked up the outside linebacker, Lorenzo Neal has assassinated the strong safety and all of a sudden a completely untouched Corey Dillon has a hole in front of him you could comfortably drive a tank through. Dillon plugs in the afterburners and like a bat out of hell he's gone, gone, gone for a 74-yard TD scamper.

So, the game's second play from scrimmage... Sam Adams comes marauding up the middle of the line, Vick sees three hundred pounds of lard rumbling in his general direction and wisely decides that it's time he and the ball parted company. He launches one deep in the direction of Shawn Jefferson, but Donovan Greer reads the play and nips in front, making a fingertip interception at full stretch. We drive down to the 8 yard line, where Atlanta call a play that I can only assume is written up in their book as The World's Most Obvious Corner-Blitz. Willie Jackson audibles into a slant pattern behind the hapless blitzer, Smith hits him in an absolute acre of space and we're 14-0 up in the first quarter.

I think we've managed to get past the whole slow-starting problem.

The Falcons nick a field-goal, but basically for the first time this year the game's going exactly to plan, and we're just playing smashmouth football, Dillon and Neal grinding out the yards, mixing in play-actions and the odd little spread formation, keeping hold of the ball and keeping control of the clock. Corey Dillon goes in twice more to cap off long, time-consuming drives, Neal scores when he catches a pass off the play-action from ten yards out, Atlanta just never get into it - Vick's last contribution being another lobbed pass put up under pressure that nickelback Jeff Burris picks off for his second interception in three games. Hmm, bit of a ball-hawk, this boy...

Final score CIN 35-3 ATL. Player of the game is Corey Dillon, who just carried the load for us all night - 146 yards from 27 carries with 3 TDs, plus another 21 yards from two catches.

Season record 3-0. Who'da thunk it? Admittedly, two of our wins have come off teams who're 0-3, and in the other we used up our next couple of years' supply of luck, but what the hell...

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(c) daniel roe 2003