The Bengals come into the Meadowlands looking like one of the worst teams in football.
They lost their opener 17-10 to a Ravens team led by rookie quarterback Joe Flacco then fell flat in their home opener, getting thumped by the Titans 24-7. But as last year’s Giants taught us: Two games does not a season make.
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“Well, we lost two games and you just get ready to play. You get back, you grind, you chop wood, and you get going,” Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said. “We have to play better; we have to put positive plays behind positive plays.”
The problems for the Bengals have been coming in all three phases of the game.
“We haven’t made enough plays to win the football games,” Lewis said. “We haven’t scored points on offense, we have allowed some explosive plays defensively that have hurt us, and special teams-wise, although we have made some positive plays, we need to make some more. I think all in all we haven’t played well enough to win the football games.”
And the Bengals still have a load of athletic talent on the offensive side of the ball with Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh. The fact that Johnson and Houshmandzadeh each missed time during the summer could be a reason for Cincinnati’s slow offensive start.
“It has been something that we have been dealing with,” Lewis said. “I thought they had good weeks last week and they are getting closer to where they need to be, but you try to explain to people that how you got to where you got to you got because you worked extremely hard and any time off that task you are going to have a little bit of a setback.”
Lewis could be running out of time to turn the Bengals around; many believe he could be fired if the team does not show improvement soon. That could be difficult against a Giants team firing on all cylinders after lighting up the Rams 41-13.
“They are very confident and they are playing well right now,” Lewis said.
“They are taking care of the football, they have had one turnover in their two football games, they are running the football obviously very effectively, they are pushing the football vertically in the passing game, defensively they are limiting their opponents in the running game and they are putting them in third-and-longer situations where you have an opportunity to have an advantage.”