While the offense was the biggest flaw with the Cincinnati Bengals during the 2023 season, the defense had a dramatic decline as well. In 2022, Cincinnati rode an explosive offense and an opportunistic defense to make a run to the AFC Championship Game and a tight lose to the NFL Champion Kansas City Chiefs. In 2023, the defense took a major step back in some significant categories. While the offense is expected to return to dominant form in 2024, the defense needs to figure out some huge problem areas in order for the team to return to form next season.
Bengals Defense Made Critical Errors in 2024
Let’s start with a preface: Cincinnati is not a defensive team. The philosophy behind every decision made in Cincinnati is that the offense is going to be elite and the defense is going to be able to hold teams to field goals to win games. That being said, there is no excuse for the team finishing second to last this season in yardage allowed. There is far too much talent on the Cincinnati defense to allow for it and the defense needs to figure it out.Now, before I explain the treatment to the problem, let’s first show why a problem is there. Below is the stat line for the Cincinnati Bengals in 2022 vs 2023.
While the team managed to keep points per game low by remaining one of the best red zone defenses in the NFL, the yardage totals have clearly changed substantially as the rushing yards shifted from being one of the top 10 defenses in stopping the run to being one of the worst. The rationale for this change is fairly straight forward.
The Cincinnati defense has clearly relied on their turnovers and red zone percentage to keep their offense on the field and get off the field as much as possible. With the loss of superstar safety Jessie Bates III last offseason to the Atlanta Falcons, it was inevitable that the team would regress slightly in the turnover count but the team actually stayed almost exactly the same. How did the team manage to keep the turnover count the same after losing their best defensive back?
Defensive Coordinator Delivers New Message to the Team
Based on watching the team this season, I believe that Cincinnati defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo put a renewed emphasis on his team to generate turnovers. Anarumo most likely told his team to punch at the ball on essentially every opportunity rather than go for sure tackles or at least that appears to be the message that the defense took. You only have so much time to focus on drills in the preseason and Anarumo most likely sacrificed time focused on sure tackling to emphasize to his players to strip the ball. Unfortunately for Cincinnati, that change in mentality showed in Cincinnati,
While the turnover total may have remained the same, the teams poor tackling was on display all season as runners powered through arm tackles and ran over Cincinnati’s usually sure tackling defenders all season. That is why as the turnover count may have stayed the same (actually increased by 2), the run defense and pass defense yardage numbers went way down. In order to return to form, Cincinnati will need to develop more and Anarumo will need to return his focus on pure tackling.
While this seems like a painful mistake for Anarumo to make, it is a fairly easy error when a coach is trying to win the turnover battle for his offense. While I have come around to think that Anarumo is a terrific coach, this is a situation that I believe his inexperience may have gotten the better of him. Prior to his hiring as the defensive coordinator in Cincinnati, Anarumo was a defensive backs coach for the New York Giants and hadn’t had to deal with big picture issues like defensive focus before.
Given that it was a simple mistake to make in the preseason, I believe that Anarumo will learn from his mistake and the defense will make an incredible turnaround next season as the incredibly young secondary makes a jump. After discounting starting corner Chidobe Awuzie who missed most of last season and will probably not be back next season, Cincinnati started two rookies (cornerback D.J. Turner and safety Jordan Battle) and two second year players (safety Dax Hill and cornerback Cam Taylor-Britt) last season. While the group did struggle at points, they showed flashed of promise late in the season.
Given the youth of the Cincinnati defense and the fact that their biggest error was due to a simple coaching error, it is likely that the Cincinnati defense will be back with a vengeance next season. There is also a potential that the young but talented secondary could make an explosive breakthrough in the next season or two and this could be one of the best units in the NFL.
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