Multiple times while sifting through the rubble of the latest Bengals defensive debacle, coordinator Lou Anarumo repeatedly made a roller-coaster motion with his arm.
He used it to describe individual players and the group’s performance as a whole.
Up and down. Up and down.
Watching the Cincinnati defense this season has felt nauseating. Maybe nothing could make the stomach turn worse than the Eagles dropping 37 points Sunday with four touchdowns, three field goals and one punt for a dominant tidy performance.
The defense had solid showings against Daniel Jones and Deshaun Watson but returned to an all-too-familiar reality of inadequacy against quality offenses.
The Walkout: Eagles 37, #Bengals 17
🏟️ Hear from Ja’Marr Chase on “the sequence” and Zac Taylor, Mike Hilton and Joe Burrow about how they view the team.
🏟️ Counting all the ways they’ve put too much on Burrow.
🔗: https://t.co/CsRcgF1ti2
📺: https://t.co/lQ97T24JZl— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) October 28, 2024
Two steps forward, one step back.
“That’s how it felt yesterday,” Anarumo said Monday. “Everybody was frustrated. Everybody is frustrated today with it.”
Older players look old. Top picks selected to account for a possible decline aren’t developing. Even if Anarumo’s scheme is part of the problem, which it could be, there’s no way to know for sure because the execution is so inconsistent.
There’s no star walking through the door. There are no major changes to make. That’s why the hope for the rest of the season looking different has never been so bleak.
Asked why he thinks they can start leaving these types of performances behind them, Anarumo had few concrete answers. He had an encouraging meeting with his team Monday and wants to lean into extreme focus on the next game against the Raiders and little else. But primarily, he could only resort to belief and faith.
“You’ve got to believe that you’re going to keep getting better and you’re going to put some of those mistakes behind you,” he said. “I think that’s what we’re always striving for. I think it’s a good football team that we played, and we’re going to face multiple good teams coming up. I have faith in our guys, and faith in our team and faith in our coaches.”
Bad offenses have been their only salvation. The Bengals are now 0-4 against teams with a winning record and the defense has been scorched in each game.
How bad has it been?
If filtering out only games against teams with winning records, the Bengals are allowing scores on 63 percent of drives, which doesn’t merely rank 32nd in the NFL, but the 31st-ranked team is at 55 percent. The league average is 43 percent.
They’ve allowed touchdowns on 42 percent of drives, also worst in the league. For reference, the Steelers lead the NFL at a 12 percent TD rate against winning teams.
A closer look at three plays from Sunday’s loss illustrates why the situation feels more dire than at any point this season and allowing Jalen Hurts to complete 16 of 20 passes for 11.8 yards per attempt might have been their worst performance of the year.
• Third-and-16
• Time of game: 1:44, second quarter
• Score: Bengals 10, Eagles 3
• Result: 17-yard completion
No play more displayed the alarming state of the defense than the 17-yard conversion from Jalen Hurts at A.J. Brown on the Eagles’ touchdown drive just before halftime.
The Bengals finally created a third-and-long and were positioned to not only force a field goal, maintaining at least a four-point lead entering halftime but would turn the ball over to its offense with a minute-plus remaining before the break.
Instead, Anarumo dropped eight into coverage and kept a linebacker stalking Saquon Barkley out of the backfield trying to keep everything in front of his defense to lock in the field goal. But Germaine Pratt, Vonn Bell, Cam Taylor-Britt and Akeem Davis-Gaither left a canyon for Brown to settle in at the sticks.
How does this happen?
Anarumo said they were worried about screens and a QB draw that is a tendency for the Eagles in those situations and could have had more depth from Davis-Gaither stalking Barkley.
“Having to do it all over, hindsight being 20-20,” Anarumo said, “I’d probably change that one.”
Sure, a play call can always be better, but on the simplest level, this was four core veterans with multiple years of understanding the system letting Brown run directly to the marker on third-and-16, turn around and change the game with zero resistance. The lack of awareness, playmaking and execution should never happen.
In the last two years, teams facing third down and between 14 and 18 yards only converted at a 12 percent rate. Allowing this play changed the entire dynamic of the game.
• Second-and-8
• Time: 2:31, third quarter
• Score: Eagles 17, Bengals 17
• Result: 45-yard touchdown
SMITTY…HOW?! OMG!@DeVontaSmith_6 | #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/1gCGVqcIav
— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) October 27, 2024
This 45-yard touchdown pass from Hurts to DeVonta Smith highlights two elements dooming the Bengals defense this year: pass rush and safety play.
On a day when Jessie Bates III forced and recovered a fumble and pulled down a leaping interception for the Falcons, the Bengals were reminded once more how they have never properly replaced his production.
This time, it was Jordan Battle replacing Vonn Bell for three plays while Bell endured his own issues throughout the day. Battle bit on a play action, putting him out of position on a play where the deep half of the field is his responsibility.
He ran behind Smith and might still be looking for the ball as he never properly tracked it or attempted to make a play. Battle, a third-round pick who showed promise as a rookie last year, has failed to assert himself as a factor on the back end, forcing extra snaps for Bell. This one year after first-round pick Dax Hill couldn’t hack taking over the position along with bargain veteran Nick Scott.
“He still was able to get back in position and just needs to be able to turn his head around and make a play on the ball,” Anarumo said.
Battle’s inability to make a play was half of the failure. That’s not where Anarumo started discussing the score.
“I certainly would like to get more pressure,” Anarumo said. “Start with that. It’s always rush and coverage working together … He never got out of rhythm. He never felt uncomfortable, just in terms of the pocket was pretty clean for him all day.”
Especially on this play when Sam Hubbard couldn’t get past tight end Jack Stoll as Hurts had 4.5 seconds to uncork the deep ball.
The lack of pressure marked the return of a recurring theme of the season. Pro Football Focus charted only three plays with a pressure for the Bengals against the Eagles. That’s the second-lowest mark in an NFL game this year. The Colts only had one in Week 5 against the Jaguars.
Well, he only dropped back 21 times, you might say. The 13.6 percent pressure rate still landed as the third-lowest total by a defense in any game this year. What makes it worse? The Bengals also own the fifth-lowest percentage in a game this year with 14.0 percent against Carolina in Week 5.
The NFL average is 34 percent.
At least against Carolina, Anarumo could point to a depleted defensive line with injuries everywhere and both starting defensive tackles out. Sunday marked the full complement of rushers and they didn’t produce a sack, only touching Hurts once.
Hubbard, Myles Murphy, Sheldon Rankins and Kris Jenkins all had at least eight pass rush reps without contributing a single pressure.
Oddly enough, the three times the Bengals applied pressure Hurts was 3-of-3 for 41 yards.
Murphy, a first-round pick last year with hopes of growing into an effective complement to Trey Hendrickson this year, ranks 118th out of 120 qualifying edge rushers by Pro Football Focus in pass rush grade. Hubbard ranks 117th. Rankins lands in the bottom half among qualifying interior defenders.
“We’ve got to try to affect the quarterback better,” Anarumo said.
Anarumo has attempted a blitz-heavy scheme and at times dropped extra defensive backs. He’s played zone, man and everything in between and the best offenses like Baltimore, Washington and Philadelphia have not been pressured nearly enough to force stops.
“There’s a lot of things we’ve tried,” coach Zac Taylor said. “There’s some things we’ve done in previous games. You know, there’s always, it’s a challenge.”
• First-and-10
• Time: 13:02, third quarter
• Score: Eagles 10, Bengals 10
• Result: 28-yard completion to Grant Calcaterra
Combine lack of pressure with multiple failures in the secondary and you end up with plays like the 28-yard crosser to Calcaterra.
There were two receivers offering a “mailbox” to get Hurts’ attention for how unbelievably wide-open they were down the field.
First, at the bottom of the screen, Brown beat Taylor-Britt, who partially fell trying to recover on the release. Hurts easily could have ripped a shot for a potential touchdown to Brown down the sideline.
Instead, it was Calcaterra who caught his eye running without anyone in his vicinity across the middle of the field.
On a day full of inconsistent reps from Taylor-Britt, he’s lucky fewer people are talking about this one. Despite the thought he was on the verge of becoming the next star for this team and building on a solid second season, he’s been victimized weekly and was on repeat by the Eagles.
“Some good and some bad,” Anarumo said of the 2022 second-round pick. “I just think he’s a little bit of a microcosm of all of us where just being consistent is something we have to do better at.”
It’s not just the yards or even the points being hemorrhaged by the Bengals, it’s how easily they come. Wide-open receivers (sometimes multiple) and completion percentages of 80 or better.
These were the same issues that occurred repeatedly last year, and after an offseason stressing improved communication and new personnel, plays look as bad as ever.
Taylor and Anarumo are left to ride the rollercoaster again with the Raiders and Ravens up next.
“I think we’ve got the right guys in there that understand we’ve gotta play better,” Taylor said. “We’ve gotta find a way to get off the field and get stops. I think we’re committed to that. There are other guys that will continue to find roles that we’ll find different ways to utilize them to see if they can create sparks as well. But I think we’ve seen that the last two weeks against Cleveland and New York. They gave us winning performances and allowed us to win the game. This week wasn’t good enough by any group on our team.”
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(Photo of DeVonta Smith catching a touchdown over Jordan Battle: Cara Owsley / Imagn Images)
