–Part of a coordinator’s responsibilities include communicating with a designated player wearing a helmet radio what play is next but head coach Marvin Lewis experienced difficulties in the first quarter trying to relay the calls to linebacker Hardy Nickerson Jr.
Lewis pushed the wrong button and wound up communicating with assistant coaches sitting in the press box before eventually getting it right after the opening drive.
“Poor Hardy had it tough early on, no doubt,” Lewis said. “He’s standing there looking at me, and I’m pushing the wrong button. After the first drive, it kind of settled down a little bit. But there were a couple of times, even with the timeouts, he’s looking at me, and I’m wondering why he’s looking at me.”
Eventually Lewis figured it out and the Bengals seemed to settle in during his first game as a defensive coordinator.
“I’m looking at him, giving him this (rolling hand gesture meaning come on, let’s go),” Nickerson said. “That just comes with his first game as a DC. But we’re all comfortable with coach.”
–Despite his poor record with the Cleveland Browns, Hue Jackson knows what personnel the Browns possess and what their schemes may be.
With two games remaining against Cleveland, it appears to be among the reasons Jackson was added as a special assistant. It doesn’t hurt he’s close friend of Marvin Lewis either.
“I think Hue understands their personnel,” Lewis said. “He understands part of the way, particularly defensively, how they were putting the plan together. His involvement that way is that he can be an asset to us in some ways.”
–Cincinnati’s record might be better if it did not experience difficulties closing out the first half of certain games.
Actually, the problem has cropped up in games the Bengals won as they have allowed points in the final two minutes of the first half in eight games.
On Sunday, the Bengals allowed two field goals with less than two minutes remaining before halftime. Then they wound up losing 24-21.
“We got to do a better job executing,” Lewis said. “It couldn’t have been easier yesterday. We got out of the coverage. We have to understand the situation and do it.”
This is how it went down Sunday. With 5:13 remaining, the Bengals were forced to punt after Tyler Boyd couldn’t make the catch on third-and-6. The Ravens gained possession at the Cincinnati 44 and with 1:46 remaining the Bengals gave up a 28-yard field goal.
Then they were forced to punt again because a sack of Andy Dalton led to third-and-14 and the Bengals couldn’t convert on a deep pass to Cody Core with 33 seconds remaining.
In their 10 games, the Bengals are getting outscored 47-21 in the last two minutes of the opening half.
BY THE NUMBERS: 26:33 and 557 — Those figures represent the average time of possession through 10 games and the amount of snaps so far. The average time of possession is the NFL’s second-lowest while the snap total is the third-lowest. Another number that impacts those things is the 55.5 percent of third downs opponents are converting, easily the worst in the league.
