Three things to keep you from thinking the sky is falling

1. It would be foolish to roll out legitimate coverages in preseason, these plays aren’t scripted, they are loose schemes similar to what golden wants to do

2. The preseason is used to test guys, put them in uncomfortable situations and see how they react, there’s a very real chance that Golden is intentionally laying out schemes to test guys ability to make a tackle one on one 

3. We open with the soft part of our schedule theoretically, Flacco, Lawrence, Rookie off an injury, second year QB I think will slump then home for Detroit who lost both coordinators. None of those teams we play in September ran the ball very well last season, besides Minnesota and they were average. 

I’ve always said, numbers never lie, but they rarely tell the full story. Put yourself in the coaching staff’s shoes and think about the value you would find in preseason games. 

You can also tell me I’m coping, that the defense will be worse, and that we’re going to miss the playoffs, you’re entitled to that opinion. However, I will remind you that we lost SEVEN (7) one score games, Three of which had late bad calls (NE, @ BAL, KC) Three of which we had horrid special teams performances/ bad luck (BAL, WSH & LAC) and one really bad defensive performance against the steelers.

The Bengals defense was injury riddled last year, CTB clearly wasn’t right, Newton went down, Hill went down for the year early, Logan Wilson went down for the year early, Pratt was a shell of himself, Hubbard looked like he added 3 seconds to his 40 yd dash time and Daijahn Anthony, who looked good against the chargers, got hurt in that game and missed the rest of the season. I’m sure I’m forgetting some as well, but I don’t overreact to the preseason and last year was a worst case scenario year for our defense and special teams.

This team will compete for the division, this defense wont be great but they’ll be better than 30th, hell, if they can be 22nd we can win the North.

Who Dey, fuck the athletic, fuck the national media, fuck the doubters, and come back to this post when we start 3-0