One can take a quick look at the Bengals' roster and see the strengths and weaknesses of the team. Despite what some fans and critics believe, the quarterback position is a strength of the team. The team is pretty deep at running back with Benson, Scott and Leonard, and the offensive line is gifted in the area of run blocking.
On defense the team's greatest strength is Leon Hall and Jonathan Joesph at corner. We have a strong linebacker corp with Dhani Jones, Keith Rivers and Rey Maualuga. The defensive line is solid at tackle with Domato Peko leading the way alongside with Tank Johnson, Patrick Sims and others. The defensive end position is still a mystery, and it hinges upon how well Antwan Odom comes back from his Achilles injury.
But, for as many strengths as the team has, they have an equal amount of weaknesses. On offense our line isn't very good at pass protection. Cincinnati's offensive line was inconsistent all year long; at times it felt like we were watching Willie Anderson and Levi Jones in 2005, and at certain points I could have sworn I saw Stacy Andrews and an injury maligned Levi Jones on the field.
We can look forward to watching Andre Smith become the starter, and Kyle Cook was was pleasant surprise at center. Whitworth held his own at LT, although it's still plain to see that he's a better LG than LT. Evan Mathis and Livings were never all that impressive at LG, and the team doesn't currently have a right guard, but we'll get to that later.
Perhaps a bigger weakness on offense is the lack of quality wideouts. Ochocinco was the only WR who was polished before the Antonio Bryant signing, which was needed. Still, some feel that Cincinnati should look for another wideout, and many of those people are clamoring for Terrell Owens. Personally speaking, I think that he carries too much baggage and a wide receiver corps that sports Ochocinco, Antonio Bryant and Andre Caldwell is pretty good.
The offense lacks tight ends who are...well to put it bluntly, we lack tight ends who don't suck. Daniel Coates has never shown that he's anything more than an average at best blocker who has bad hands, and Chase Coffman can't get onto the field. Reggie Kelly is unsigned and coming off of an injury and J.P. Foschi hasn't shown anything to merit optimism other than he isn't Daniel Coates. Strangely enough, Foschi is a free agent and Coates is under contract.
Our fullback situation is a strange one. Jeremi Johnson appears to be an adequate fullback, but it feels like every year he's overweight or hurt. He no longer possesses the ability to be a pass catching threat out of the backfield, and after watching him play it feels like he's not the same blocker that he used to be. Still, he's serviceable, and as long as he's healthy he's not detrimental to the team.
The offense needs to resign Bobbie Williams at RG, Reggie Kelly at TE, look at but not necessarily sign another FB and look at left guards as well.
The defense has its fair share of weaknesses as well. We aren't very well off at safety. Before Roy Williams got hurt, he was playing very well for us at strong safety. The problem is that his health is a huge question. When he's on the field he's good, but he hasn't been able to stay healthy for roughly three seasons. Chris Crocker is a good tackler, a leader and a guy who has great football smarts, but he is only an average free safety. I don't think that there's any free agent safety who is an improvement for the team. It really looks like we're going to have to find a guy who we like in the draft. I know that a lot of people are high on Ndukwe, but he's never been good in coverage. He does have a knack for making big plays, but for as many highlight picks or hits there's just as many botched coverage breakdowns and missed tackles.
Middle linebacker is also a concern. Dhani Jones is a solid player who has an incredible football IQ. However, he's in a similar situation as Crocker in regards to what his physical ability lets him do. That being said, he's one of my favorite players. I think that we have his replacement in Rey Maualuga, which means that at some point we have to find either another MLB or another SAM to account for Maualuga moving to MLB.
Then we get to DE. We have tremendous depth at DE. I think that Michael Johnson is going to be an absolute monster in this league. He's very fast and quick, he has some of the longest arms I've ever seen, and he's stronger than people give him credit for. The team is going to need him to step up next year because we won't know how Odom's Achilles is until he gets onto the field. Also, Robert Geathers is not what we thought he was. When we gave him a big contract we thought we locked up a budding pass rushing beast. Maybe it was the move to linebacker, maybe he overachieved or maybe it was a little of both, but he's not that guy and he never will be.
Taking a DE early in the draft is a respectable move, and while we a great DE rotation, we're not sure if our stud DE will be the same.
The team also needs a pass rusher. I don't think it matters if the pass rusher is a DE or a LB, but we need one. Cincinnati managed to have the fourth ranked defense overall (yards per game), and was stout against the run and the pass. The thing is that we were average at rushing the passer with the 16th overall sack total for defenses. We had 34 sacks. A fourth of those came from a guy who played in six games. That's not good enough if we want to get out of the first round of the playoffs.
I'm not trying to pick on our defense. They're obviously the strength of this team and Zimmer turned a ragtag group of castaways into one of the best defenses the NFL has to offer.
If Cincinnati focuses on these areas of weakness and don't regress in their areas of strength the team should make a big push for the second round of the playoffs.
Thanks for taking the time to read this.
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