10 Things about Bengals-Jets

Don't defer anymore

Momentarily we will visit the deftness involved in watching two studs simultaneously chase magic when you only have one TV. For now, the My Weekly Reader review of Bengals-Jets, in which our heroes win the coin toss and actually take advantage. Memo to Zac: Do not return to the Land of the Fearful.  

Without further ado. . . 

TEN THINGS about Bengals 27, Jets 12. 

1. Trey Hendrickson showed how just one pass rusher can destroy the other team’s offense. Three forced turnovers, 2.5 sacks, a Watt/Parsons-like show. . . 

2. Even if it did happen against Joe Flacco, the NFL’s first 107-year-old quarterback. Flacco looked like the pre-lubed Tin Man out there. 

3. Taylor won the toss and decided he’d risk seeing his own shadow. He took the ball instead of deferring. I wrote a column on it after the game. The whole notion of deferring isn’t the dumbest decision herd-think NFL coaches have made over the years. It’s second to knee-jerk punting whenever it’s 4th down. But it’s still highly questionable. 

           You have a very good offense and you’re gonna win the toss and give the       other team the ball? I’ve written this forever: This isn’t football thinking. You don’t play the game on tippy-toes, worried about the other guys. You stomp the suckers flat. Aggressive thinking has no place for giving the opponent the ball first. Win the toss, take the ball, dictate the terms. There is no debating this. 

4. Big praise for the defense, I guess. In the euphoria after the W, most failed to note the D has been good while beating up the three-headed Munster of Trubisky, Rush and Flacco. Could we let the boys play Jackson, Mahomes, Allen and Brady before we start awarding the trophies? 

5. The O-line protected Burrow, but no more than Saint Joe protected himself. He got the ball out quickly and decisively. He is developing the ability to dance inside the pocket to buy time and avoid punishment. At least three times Sunday, Burrow looked like a young Roethlisberger. Ben was always more effective after the pocket broke down. 

6. And Burrow looks more like Macaulay Culkin every day. 

7. The Men picked a bad time to play on Thursday. We don’t know for sure, but it looks as if Reader will not play v. Miami and it’s up in the air if Tee Higgins will be available.  

8. The running game was a rumor. That was OK this time. The plan was to start fast and aggressively, and the passing game did just that. But there will come a time when the offense will have to show it can at least bother a defense with Mixon and Perine. 

9. After 3 Hermans, the Bengals face an honest-to-goodness NFL QB Thursday. But Tua Tagovailoa might not be feeling especially chipper. He has a lower back issue and was seemingly concussed on a late hit in the 2nd quarter. He has two burners on the outside to throw to now, Jaylen Waddle and Tyreek Hill. Early returns suggest that in Year 3, he’s starting to figure this whole NF of L thing out. That said, the Dolphins D allowed Buffalo 400 passing yards and 31 first downs. 

10.  The Lamar Jackson salary drive is looking like the Aaron Judge salary drive. Yesterday v. the Pats, Jackson threw for four TDs and ran 108 yards for another one. The Men play in B-more in 13 days. 

Now, then. . . 

HOW I WATCHED BRADY AND JUDGE WITHOUT BREAKING MY THUMBS. For reasons I won’t explain because they’re boring, I was stuck with just one TV early last evening. Which was damned inconvenient when I tried to watch Judge’s first at-bat and Brady Brady-ing the Packers. 

Only multiple acts of unprecedented dexterity made it possible.  

Damn, ain’t sports great? 

One verified GOAT and one in the wings, in impossibly huge moments at the same time. This doesn’t happen elsewhere. I mean, I couldn’t watch Godfathers I and II in sync, without getting a headache, yeah? 

I couldn’t read East of Eden, the Great Gatsby and Farewell to Arms all at once. But there they were, Brady and Judge, same time, different stages, concurrently attempting greatness. Anyone else made happy yesterday by that convergence? 

WHITLOCK. . . I'm writing about him, so mission accomplished, I spoze. But his criticism last week of Joe Burrow was uninformed. Whitlock suggested Burrow “stick to football’’ and likened him to Colin Kaepernick. 

Haha. 

Those who make such suggestions best be prepared to take their own advice. Not Whitlock. He views sports as one big Sociology class. Much of what he discusses is sports tinged with culture. That’s OK, I do it myself occasionally. But I don’t have problems with others who do the same. 

Whitlock was a very good newspaper columnist. Provocative, candid, fearless. On TV, he’s Bayless 2.0. There’s something about the visual medium that endangers intelligence.  

Guys like Jason and Skip sell their souls for pieces of gold. That’s not unusual, lots of folks do that all the time, in every walk of life. They might even sleep well.  

Take them for what their words are worth. 

STICK TO SPORTS. . . This is TML 2.0’s first foray into politics. As I’ve said a few times over the years, this is a grab-bag blog. You never know what you’re gonna get. You’ve been warned. 

A few years back, I stopped being astounded by Donald Trump. When it came to being vain, narcissistic, selfish and dangerously delusional, Trump constantly topped himself. The limbo bar can’t be low enough that Trump can’t slither beneath it.  

The ongoing revelations about his craven machinations no longer shock. On Jan. 6, 2021, he conspired to attempt to overthrow our democracy.  He continues to lie about the election he lost. He has aligned himself with QAnon, he says he could de-classify top secret documents with his mind. He’s being accused of conning the IRS. And on and on. 

He has shaken our trust in our institutions, he has made violence an acceptable means of dealing with our problems. He lies only when his lips move. He doesn’t give a damn about you or me or anyone but the guy in the mirror. He has played everyone he has ever dealt with, the electorate very much included. Name one Trump associate/pal/crony who is better off today than they were six years ago.  

When we elected him in 2016, I said I thought Trump was a bad human being. I had no idea.  

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . There are only two tiers of Southern rock. (1) The Allman Brothers and (2) Everyone else. These guys were near the top of Tier 2, a notch below Lynyrd Skynyrd.