One of the low-key yet promising aspects of this offseason for the Cincinnati Bengals is the fact the new defensive coaching staff can look to exactly what didn’t work last season.
After a 51-14 loss to the New Orleans Saints in Week 10, the Bengals fired defensive coordinator Teryl Austin. From Week 11 onward, the overall defensive performance trended upward, especially for corners William Jackson and Dre Kirkpatrick, which Pro Football Focus helped to illustrate above.
Austin’s new ideas simply didn’t work. Things like summer plans to play Carl Lawson at linebacker were iffy at best, and Kirkpatrick and Jackson were suddenly asked to play against their strengths in coverage.
This was particularly apparent with Jackson, who looked like a budding top-15 corner in 2017 before getting repeatedly torched in 2018 while playing as Austin wanted.
Once Marvin Lewis took over and started reverting things, Jackson and Co. recovered. This is one of those small things that offer some encouragement for the Bengals as this summer approaches. If the new Bengals coaching staff is playing the talents to their strengths instead of leaning toward Austin’s approach, the gravity of the situation may not be as dramatic as the numbers might suggest.
