Cincinnati Bengals 23 Kansas City Chiefs 10 (September 10, 2006)
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0 commentsby Estebistec
Coming into the game, the big story was the return of Carson Palmer. While Palmer did play respectably, particularly calling plays at the line in no-huddle mode, the story of the game at the end would be the turnover margin (+2 for the Bengals), the play of each team's offensive line, and the third-quarter injury to K.C. starting quarterback Trent Green.
In the beginning, both offenses started off very slow. The Chiefs had a three-and-out, due largely to a fumbled handoff on 2nd down by Larry Johnson. The Bengals, while converting once, would also punt quickly. On the Chiefs' second possession they really got going offensively, driving 67 yards to find themselves in 3rd-and-5. They elected to try running with Johnson, and when he came up short they settled for a field goal.
On the Bengals' next drive, their offense hadn't quite picked up, ending in 1:44 with a net loss of six yards. However, on the ensuing punt Dante Hall neglected to keep his eyes on the ball until he had caught it and muffed the catch. The Bengals recovered on the Kansas City 14. The Chiefs’ defense stiffened up at this point preventing the Bengals from advancing any (they would lose 5 yards on a penalty) and forcing them to settle for a field goal. The points would be the direct result of the game’s first turnover.
On the Chiefs’ next possession the Bengals’ defense would really start to get after the offensive line and sometimes into the backfield. Four minutes would take the Chiefs from their own 20 only to their 46, resulting from a sack on Trent Green after they had just gotten into Bengals’ territory. They were forced to punt.
The Bengals then really got into a rhythm both on the ground and through the air. They made the key adjustment of starting to use no-huddle (not hurry-up) as a key offensive ingredient and started to impose a lot of misdirection on the Chiefs. They drove 11 plays and 88 yards ending in a Rudi Johnson touchdown run.
On the subsequent Chiefs possession the Bengals pass-rush became further disruptive. Trent Green is sacked twice in a row and the the usually reliable Dustin Colquitt would get the punt off on the side of his foot. The ball would go out of bounds at the KC 37, giving Cincinnati great field position.
The Bengals got right back to work starting with two Rudi Johnson plays (a catch and a run) that would take them down to the KC 14. The Bengals then got Kenny Watson involved with an 8-yard catch and an 8-yard run around left-end for the Bengals’ 2nd touchdown. The Chiefs were down 17-3, surely a place they did not expect to find themselves at home in Arrowhead Stadium.
The Chiefs get the ball back, go three-incompletions and punt. The Bengals kneel and the half ends.
The Chiefs’ defense would make enough adjustments to keep the Bengals from having consecutive scoring drives in the second half. However they didn't often keep them from chewing up clock. On the Bengals' first possession Jared Allen sacked Palmer for -7 yards and forced him to fumble. The Chiefs didn't keep the ball long though, as just two plays later a Trent Green pass slipped through Samie Parker's hands and into the arms of Madieu Williams.
Later into the third quarter the Chiefs are driving and reach the 50. It’s 2nd-and-2 and as the pocket collapses again Trent Green scrambles right for 5 yards. As he’s sliding Eddie Kennison tries to block Robert Geathers but the defender's helmet ends up being driven into Green’s chest and his head violently whips on the turf. The game pauses for eleven minutes while he’s down on the field and in the end they carry him off on a stretcher and Damon Huard takes over. Green’s return is doubtful. Larry Johnson gets the team down the field on a 25-yard catch and run but Tynes would miss a field goal attempt, rendering the whole drive futile, and the team down a quarterback.
The Bengals get the ball back and again the Chiefs continue to apply sufficient pressure to keep the Bengals from waltzing into the end-zone. Carson Palmer has one pass for 14 yards. Rudi Johnson has one rush for 9, but other than that the Bengals remaining plays are ineffective and they settle for another field goal, putting them up 20-3.
On the subsequent Chiefs possession they end up in 4th down after Huard throws incomplete to Dante Hall, but the Chiefs are down far enough that the situation is desperate and they fake the punt. Colquitt hands off to Jarrad Page who finds enough running room to get the first down. However this effort would also be rendered moot, as after two plays more and 20 yards Huard would fumble the ball and the Bengals recover.
The Bengals go three-and-out again and the Chiefs find a little bit of rhythm with Damon Huard, highlighted by an 18 yard run by Johnson and a 23 yard pass from Huard to Johnson. On 4th-and-6 on the Cincinnati 9 Huard finds Tony Gonzalez in the end-zone for the Chiefs' first touchdown. There is now a glimmer of hope so they opt for an onside-kick. The Bengals recover the onside kick but go three-and-out. The Chiefs get the ball and after three incompletions Huard is sacked on fourth-down. The Bengals get the ball on downs, and while the Chiefs keep them out of the end-zone, they do get a field goal putting them up 23-10.
The Chiefs get the ball on their own 25 with 1:03 remaining. They have no timeouts left. An incompletion and a sack takes the clock down to 0:31. Huard gets off subsequent passes to Larry Johnson and Tony Gonzalez but the clock expires.
Player Performances: Bengals
Carson Palmer was as-advertised Sunday. While his stat line didn't show any touchdowns or a high quantity of yards that most expect, it also doesn't show any interceptions and it does show a good completion percentage. What it doesn't show was his efficiency in calling plays at the line when the team was running no-huddle. He had good balance then too, calling some of Rudi Johnson's best runs from no-huddle.
Rudi Johnson turned in an effective 28 carries for 96 yards and a touchdown. His average carry was an un-spectacular 3.4 yds/car, but on many plays the Chiefs keyed directly to him and held him to 1-2 yard gains, and even some losses.
The receivers were relatively quiet, the top two (Chad Johnson and Tab Perry) being held to just under 50 yards a piece.
The linebackers played hard and hit hard and rarely did it show that Odell Thurman was absent. The Bengals' secondary did a good job on closing to the ball, many times not allowing the big play to break. They all but silenced Eddie Kennison on the day and gave Samie Parker enough trouble to draw penalties from him.
Player Performances: Chiefs
Larry Johnson was effective when used, but his touches were split as 17 runs for 68 yards and 5 catches for 80 yards. The lack of rushing was due more to the game circumstance for the Chiefs (more on this below).
The offensive line really left alot for Trent Green to do on his own. The first few drives, the Bengals didn't really get at the Chiefs very well. Their pass rush isn't one of the most feared in the league. However, by later in the game, the Bengals' D-line had figured out the keys to the patchwork O-line employed by Kansas City. From the second quarter on Trent Green often wouldn't get his last step of the drop-back before a defender was in his face. He also spent four plays scrambling out of the pocket because of protection problems, the last being the one that knocked him out.
Tony Gonzalez had a solid day working with both quarterbacks, including the Chiefs only touchdown of the day. Dante Hall contributed solid plays in his own right, considering he's not one of the top two receivers on the team. Samie Parker once again showed flashes, but he incurred TWO offensive pass interference calls, both erasing what would have been first-down catches.
Damon Huard had a mixed performance. When he did throw, he did so effectively, having a solid completion percentage, effective yards, and the touchdown throw to Gonzalez. However, his ball-handling was rusty as was his timing of getting passes off, such that he had a fumble and a couple of sacks that were not completely the fault of the offensive line.
The defensive line was able to get reasonable pressure at times, including Jared Allen's sack/forced fumble. While Tamba Hali's name didn't come up often, he had a decent first game helping with quick tackles of Rudi Johnson for many of those short gains.
Conclusions
The Bengals managed the game well and simply adjusted better than the Chiefs. As was stated at the top of the summary, the main story would be Kansas City's offensive line play (or lack thereof), the turnover differential, and of course the injury to Green. However, if Green hadn't been injured, he still would have had to turn in a heroic performance to turn the game around. His offensive teammates hadn't exactly been keying to his leadership to that point.
It is interesting that after an entire summer of hearing Herman Edwards preach ball-control offense, the Chiefs went "pass-wacky" in an attempt to catch up to the Bengals from the second quarter and on. The offense was entirely unbalanced with 35 pass attempts to 25 rush attempts, and that includes 4 runs by Trent Green as a direct result of pocket-collapse. So by design (albeit in-game, come-from-behind design), they meant to attempt 39 passes and only 21 rushes.
This stat goes a long way towards telling the story the effect that the Chiefs' offensive line and turnovers had on the game, particularly because the Chiefs gained 18 first downs to Cincinnati's 12 and possessed the ball 3:54 longer.
The Bengals on the other hand, turned in 34 rushes and only 19 pass attempts. This is not very "balanced" either, but it also isn't very "urgent" or "distressed" when you can simply choose to run that much.
On a final note of conclusion, the Chiefs' defense is evolving as a unit. They are improving. The result of this game was a loss, but the old Chiefs would have given up more touchdowns. Chad Johnson would have danced in the end-zone. This unit did well to stop several drives. At the beginning of the game, they showed Palmer several looks and were able to confuse the Bengals offense early on. On the Kawika Mitchell deflection they showed heavy blitz only to back the linebackers off into coverage. All in all, the unit only allowed 236 yards of Bengals offense and a combination of turnovers and field position let the Bengals into the end-zone more often when the Chiefs' offense wasn't trying to hold the front-line together. Obviously the problems started to come from no-huddle, which resulted in misdirection. Their next step for improving as a unit is to react better in these situations, and not be fooled.
Date
September 10, 2006
