Can Bengals defense be salvaged? Canvassing those in the know for thoughts, solutions

The Bengals defense stinks right now. Teammates and coaches sitting in meetings and working the practice fields at Paycor Stadium haven’t pointed fingers.

They don’t need to.

At 1-4 despite one of the best offenses in the NFL and Joe Burrow posting MVP-level numbers, the overworked scoreboard speaks for itself.

“We been playing like s—, honestly,” cornerback Mike Hilton said.

Honesty and tough conversations have become the theme of the week in Cincinnati, from potential demotions to scheme changes to players-only defensive meetings.

Everyone is searching for answers knowing they are on the verge of wasting Burrow’s best offense.

#Bengals weekly stats update: Offense good, defense bad, future schedule weak.

Offense
Points/drive: 2nd
Success%: 6th
EPA/play: 2nd
DVOA: 3rd
Explosive%: 16th
Red Zone%: t-5th
ANY/A: 2nd

Defense
Points/drive: 30th
Success%: 31st
EPA/play: 30th
DVOA: 23rd
Explosive%: 9th
Red…

— Paul Dehner Jr. (@pauldehnerjr) October 8, 2024

“We’ve got to hold up our end of the bargain,” Hilton said. “The offense is rolling. We’ve got to do our part.”

But how?

Yes, health with the return of Sheldon Rankins and Hilton this week after B.J. Hill, Myles Murphy and McKinnley Jackson last week provides a lift, but the Bengals will trot out largely the same cast of problems on “Sunday Night Football” against the New York Giants as they have through the ugly first five weeks.

My objective this week was to talk to people from different perspectives of the Bengals conversation who know ball. I specifically chased the answer to three questions about the Cincinnati defense: What is the biggest problem, how would you fix it and is this salvageable?

The knowers of ball:

• Brian Baldinger: NFL Network analyst, called Bengals against the Chiefs and Ravens on radio and is a 13-year NFL veteran as an offensive lineman.
• Diante Lee: The Ringer NFL/CFB analyst with specific expertise in defense.
• Dave Lapham: Bengals radio color analyst for nearly four decades.
• Steve Palazzolo: Co-host “Check The Mic” on 33rd Team, analytics background, formerly of “PFF NFL Show.”
• Lou Anarumo: Bengals defensive coordinator.
• Hilton and Logan Wilson: Defensive veterans from the Super Bowl/AFC Championship Game run and current starters.

What is this defense’s biggest problem? 

Lapham: Up front, they are just not getting off blocks. They are getting locked up and staying locked up. They aren’t aggressively getting off blocks well enough and they are getting moved out of there. It doesn’t look to me like they are making a lot of mental errors in terms of lining up in the wrong gap or evacuating a gap on their own. They are getting moved. That’s an issue.

Lee: This defensive line has taken a definitive step back. Losing DJ Reader is a big piece of that. Having B.J. Hill in and out of the lineup has been a piece of that. Sam Hubbard looks like he’s not as productive right now as in years past. That’s left Trey Hendrickson on an island in terms of trying to get to the quarterback. That’s been a big issue for them all year long is seeing Trey Hendrickson play his ass off and getting a pressure but not really affecting the quarterback because the rest of the pocket is clean.

Baldinger: They’ve had a hard time keeping people healthy. Defensive tackle play has not been good. What Lou has to work with has just been tough. Personnel is a big part of it.

Hilton: We are not getting enough pressure on the quarterback. We are not making enough plays when the football is in the air and it is causing us to give up a lot of points and explosives.

Anarumo: Have to do better with rush and coverage working together, for sure.

Lee: Lou Anarumo wants to play more zone coverage and keep the game in front of his defense. What you are seeing is offenses are just able to stay on schedule on a down-to-down basis. That’s been the biggest issue, and these safeties haven’t been able to provide the level of covering up mistakes that you need to see in order to improve things.

Wilson: One of the biggest things is just consistent tackling. The fundamentals of tracking and angles to the ball. Guys being in the right place at the right time and guys playing with high effort to kind of go eliminate when someone misses a tackle and maybe gets 2 extra yards instead of 10 extra yards. Those things add up because it’s third-and-8 versus third-and-3, kind of opens up the playbook a little bit differently.

Hilton: We are going too much for the strip sometimes or going for the big hit instead of just getting guys to the ground.

Palazzolo (on safety Geno Stone, signed in free agency but leading the Bengals in missed tackles and tied for the lowest-graded safety in the NFL, according to PFF): His PFF grades didn’t end up as one of the highest in the league last year despite having the seven interceptions, and missed tackles are probably a big part of that, especially in the run game. It’s been an issue for Geno Stone. I thought that was still a good addition to the safety group but not because he had seven picks last year. Those are fluky year to year. You don’t sign a guy for seven picks thinking that’s what he will add to your defense every single year. It has to be for the whole down-to-down ability he brings to the table. That’s regressed. So when you are not turning the ball over it is harder to stomach the missed tackles and some of those missed plays.

Lapham: Missing tackles. Everywhere. Inside, on the perimeter, everybody has been guilty. Not like with one guy you say get him out and put that guy in. It’s like a virus right now.

Mike Hilton collides with Logan Wilson as he chases receiver Dyami Brown in a loss to the Commanders. (Sam Greene / Imagn Images)

How would you fix this? 

Lee: That is the question of all questions right there.

Anarumo: We had 41 snaps (Sunday), out of the 78 I think, where we blitzed, which is more than probably any game since I’ve been here. And there was a lot of zero blitzes and so we’ve got to continue to find ways to generate pass rush.

Baldinger: Lou has to do what he is doing right now. They are putting Sam Hubbard on the three-man front at linebacker. Blitz him from the linebacker position and try to find a matchup. He’s trying to do what he can, but they are pretty short-handed personnel-wise.

Anarumo: I thought B.J.’s presence was felt (against Baltimore) out there in a number of situations. Sheldon is trending in the right direction (for Sunday night). So there’s another rusher.

Lee: In terms of trying to map out longer-term answers you are going to have to see more blitzing. You are going to have to see them play a more volatile football game. Just to try to give themselves a chance to win. We don’t see them forcing enough negative plays to give themselves a fighting chance.

NFL PFF passing grade vs. blitz, last five years (through five weeks):

2020: 81.6
2021: 80.3
2022: 67.7
2023: 72.3
2024: 62.5

— Steve Palazzolo (@StevePalazzolo_) October 10, 2024

Palazzolo: That’s a big trend in the league right now is teams that don’t have great pass rushers up front but still able to be effective by scheming it up with five-man pressures confusing offenses a little bit. The Arizona Cardinals have a terrible pass rush. They win the game against the 49ers on a blitz pressure where they schemed open a free defender and forced a turnover on the last play of the game. That’s a simple example of that’s where the league has really gone that way. Scheming up free rushers. We see (defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo) do this every week with Kansas City. They have one outstanding passer in Chris Jones but they are a force to be reckoned with because you don’t know where that extra man is coming from and they always seem to kill your protection scheme and make you make a tight-window throw where you have to be perfect. There’s a lot of teams around the league doing that.

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Baldinger: Mike Hilton didn’t play last week but he’s a great blitzer. They’ve had a lot of success with him coming off the slot. I would definitely be firing that as much as I possibly could.

Hilton: That’s my type of game.

Palazzolo: I think it takes Lou getting into the bag of blitzes. And blitzes aren’t send seven guys and good luck on the back end. There are ways to drop out an edge, protect yourself from a coverage standpoint, add a little bit of stunts and twist to the blitz. He’s going to have to be outdueling the protection to create free rushers and some kind of havoc up front.

Lapham: I’m curious to see, will he continue to pressure Daniel Jones at that high level? I don’t think he’ll go to that type of level but it is two things, really, obviously, it helped with the running game but you are giving up something when stopping something else. You are damned if you do and damned if you don’t, and as a coordinator that is a tough place to be.

Lou Anarumo has gotten some relief for his defense as players like B.J. Hill and Sheldon Rankins have gotten healthier. (Sam Greene / Imagn Images)

Is this defense salvageable? 

Lee: Yes, it can be salvageable because you have to believe Lou Anarumo knows how to call a good defense. I do believe that. As productive as Lamar (Jackson) was, in terms of trying to throw everything at an elite quarterback, Anarumo did that. Same with the Kansas City game. He’s throwing everything he possibly can at some of the NFL’s better quarterbacks. I just don’t think they are talented enough to dictate terms the way that they used to.

Lapham: The mad scientist wants to do his experiments in practice, not in the game. He’s having to do his experiments in a game. Will this click, will that work?

Hilton: We are in Week 5 of the season, it should have been fixed, but we still have an opportunity on Sunday.

Palazzolo: Last year at this time, the Broncos had a historically bad defense. They gave up 70 to the Dolphins. They looked awful. They let Justin Fields and Tua Tagovailoa go 16-for-16 two straight weeks. It was so bad. Then they ended up being pretty good defensively by like Week 7. Things can change.

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Lee: I do think we get to the end of this month and they are probably close to .500 and we are probably not ringing the same kind of alarm bells we are now at the top of October.

Wilson: I’m a little frustrated because our offense is playing well and we are not playing up to our standard on defense. That’s the facts right now. We have to find a way to be better. Find ways to not let one bad play beat you more than once. Don’t let one bad play turn into two bad plays, three bad plays, four bad plays.

Anarumo (on stemming player frustration): I just think it’s something that it’s human nature. But if you’re with them on the sideline and they’re looking at you in the eye, and they’re really confident in what they’re doing at the time, they’re going to give up plays here and there, that’s every team, but I think we’ve got strong-minded and strong-willed guys that want to do it right. So I’m hoping from here we’ll get better.

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(Top photo: Ian Johnson / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)