The highly regarded third week of the preseason turned out to be a loss for the Cincinnati Bengals with the New York Giants in town.
They left their preseason home opener a loser, 25-23, though presumably made plenty of strides in the player evaluation department before final cuts.
With the most important week of the preseason now concluded, the Bengals can get to seriously considering how to trim down the roster.
The Good
— Michael Jordan, Damion Willis and Auden Tate all got starts. If nothing else, it shows the coaching staff isn’t afraid of competition.
— Defense was disruptive in the opening quarter, with usual suspects like Geno Atkins and Carl Lawson, but also Ryan Glasgow.
— Perfect throw by Andy Dalton on his first touchdown pass. C.J. Uzomah gets the score and looks to be building on his superb play from a year ago.
— Damion Willis went up and grabbed a big contested pass early in the second quarter. He’s a roster lock and keeps showing why. He reeled in a touchdown late.
— The Bengals have a good problem at quarterback behind Andy Dalton. Besides some arm strength concerns, Ryan Finley is way ahead of schedule. Jake Dolegala looked good in his debut too, so he might be able to force the team into rostering three quarterbacks.
The Bad
— Bengals first-team defense coughed up a 15-play drive to start the game. Angles to the ball and containment on runs were a concern, but it is also vanilla preseason looks out there schematically.
— Auden Tate left with a knee injury and was quickly declared out, though that quick declaration could have simply stemmed from the first team already being done for the day.
— Bengals corners had an up-and-down first half. Even William Jackson got exploited deep to set up a go-ahead touchdown.
— Shawn Williams was up and down again, biting on fakes but cleaning up other plays.
— Horrendous play on the Giants punt return that went back for a score.
The Ugly
— Bad drop by Tyler Boyd on the second drive to end it. Not the end of the world in the preseason, but it takes away reps from starters playing on limited time.
— Tony McRae stood out as a guy who really hurt his roster chances in the first half. New York kept picking on him for a reason.
— The second-quarter line featuring Price at center and O’Shea Dugas at left tackle had some big problems.
— 29 yards on 16 carries for a 1.8 average. That’s what the Bengals were able to produce rushing the football. No Joe Mixon, sure, but a horrendous showing for an ever-shifting line nonetheless.
Bottom Line: Again, the score wasn’t going to matter. The Bengals cleaned up some penalty issues and got some big performances from guys like Damion Willis and Rodney Anderson, but the initial reaction suggests the offensive line riddle didn’t get any closer to a solution.
