Cincinnati Bengals
Lewis: 'I get all the blame now'
By C. Trent Rosecrans, CNATI.com Posted September 7, 2009 4:10 PM ET
Before Monday's practice, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis sat down with several of the local beat reporters for an open discussion of the season ahead and the season past. This is what he had to say going into his seventh season as the Bengals' head coach.Q: How did the way you feel about your team compared with any other team since you've been here?:
Marvin Lewis: It's hard for me to make a comparisons. I don't really remember what happened before. But I'm excited about this team. I'm excited about the work, and their commitment to winning, which is this team has some really strong leaders. We have really subtracted any of the not-so-positive influence that we've had here. I think it's been a good step. This team has each and every guy pulling in the right direction. I think that's a good thing. There are guys who earned their way to stay here, and guys who haven't produced are no longer here. That's a healthy thing for everybody to see. It doesn't matter where you were drafted, when you were drafted. We're kind of down to that now. You have to get
out there and, other than one player we kept on the 53 roster, everybody participated the majority of the time in training camp. That's a good thing.
Q: Is this maybe the first time that this is a Marvin Lewis team. This is the way you want the defense, talent, maturity, the whole thing.
ML: Yeah, I would say I get all the blame now.
Q: Even in '05 there were some, 'knuckleheads' as you liked to say...
ML: The knuckleheads were young, and Levi wasn't a player that I was responsible for being here. Willie wasn't obviously. But now, basically all the team is, other than Brad St. Louis and Chad. That's what we're down to right?
Q: Yes. But even then some of the younger guys were knuckleheads...
ML: I don't conclude that young player is a knucklehead. That's my responsibility to get the young players in step. We have some young players right now that we're getting in step. That's just part of having young players.
Q: Is this team in the mold of what you want?
ML: This team has better leadership than the team in 2005 did. The young players have better
role models around them - every meeting room, every position room - to help the coaches coach. They'll be able to self-discipline and self-corrected themselves and critique themselves better. They know what to except from me. That's a good thing. Guys like Dhani and
Crocker, who we brought in from the outside, have been very positive guys. You have Whitworth and Bobbie up front on offense, you've got Carson and J.T. on offense. J.T. comes in with a lot of confidence. He's been a starting quarterback in the NFL, so he comes in here with a lot of confidence. Cedric Benson has lot of confidence. We have a new guy in Jeremi Johnson, who's been recreated and reconstituted. He comes here with an appreciation for playing in the NFL. Other than tight end, where the influence of Reggie will still be around, every other position group on our football team has great leadership. On the defensive line, you have Domata, you've got Robert. So now Michael Johnson has some good mentors. Maualuga has good mentors. In the secondary, those young corners have good mentors.
Q: It would seem you have more depth...
ML: We've got some good depth. We have (knock on wood) to keep going.
Q: Last year you said several times that you liked your team, is this team the end of that process you talked about?
ML:Yeah, because we kept sifting and some other guys fell by the wayside. That's been a positive for the guys. In my opinion you have to be able to prepare and practice in the NFL to be good and when you can't do that for reasons of injury, for maybe you're injured or I feel sore you're going to struggle based on the position you play because there's not going to be the continuity in things that you need. We're kind've going through that.
Q: Did last year's slow start bring that about?
ML:It started a little bit. It's just not fair to the rest of the football team that we can go out there and execute on Sunday if we can't participate in practice. But then we still had one player who had a hard time practicing on Wednesday's and that's tough to do. To me it's tough to win inthat way. I feel great about where we are with the guys. The season is coming up on us, we're six days away.
Q: You didn't make any moves on the waiver wire, was that because you liked what you had here?
ML: I think everyone has these perception of players. We've evaluated them and we evaluate our players and the ones who were let go. I think it says, at one point you have to coach the guys that you have. At times you may find the guys who fit you better. In this case we weren't sold that there was quite the person who could fit us at this point and that we would better serve to coach the guys that we have and to continue to go forward instead of take a step back with an unknown. Particulary with the mental aspect of the game. We have to be conscious where we're at in the season.
Q: What's your biggest question about this team?
ML: I don't know. I don't have a question. If I had a question we would've eliminated it at this point. I don't have questions. My number one question is get to the season and let's go. I want to see us go place. I want to pin our ears back and play and play fast so I'm excited about that. We have to wait those six days to do that. We have to prepare and do that. I don't have an excitement or anticipation about what's going to happen, I know it's going to be important for us to get off to a great start, it's going to be important for us to be able to control games running the football and let go our perimeter people go to work. Defensively it's the same thing. Not control their game running the football and let our perimeter people go to work. That's the essence of football.
Q: As a coach with a defensive background, is this defense more of what you've been looking for?
ML: What changes the viewpoint of any NFL football team and you can go through the time and research, if you can run the football and you don't give up big plays on defense you're going to go into most Sunday's feeling good. You're going to reduce the anxieties if you know you can go in and run the football productively, block it, run it and not turn it over.
What reduces your anxiety, is those things. You have to be able to do those things and every team that does those things - and doesn't give up big plays on defense - you're going to win. You're going to win three out of every four games you play, five out of every six you play. That's what the winning formula is.
Q: So, do you feel confident that you can run the ball effectively and stop the big plays?
ML: I do. That I do. I think we've reconstituted the football team that way. I think they, obviously with our change in runners, style and what we've done that way. I think our offense is really spent a lot of time this off-season in looking at how we improve how we run the football, and I think that's been good. I think our offensive coaches have done a great job in that. I think as we get closer into the season, we'll really work hard in doing the things we need to do to do that as we go.
Q: Do you feel good about the offensive line?
ML: I feel really good about the offensive line. The first offensive line group hasn't given up a pressure or a sack. I think they've done a nice job of playing together and being where they need to be and so forth. I know we're not going to go through the season that way, that there's going to be some physical, where we're going to be beat at times. Thus far, we haven't been beat physically. That group hasn't given up a pressure or a sack. That's the thing, too much gets written about the quarterback getting sacked or hit. He's going to get hit when they bring more than we can block, he's going to get hit. But where we've done a great job is Chad's been where he needs to be, the throws have been delivered and we've made big plays. Every time you do that, you lessen the opportunity for them to try to overload you one way or another. We had another touchdown the other night to Bubba (Caldwell) in that situation. We keep doing those things and doing them the right way, you get people off your back and those are the things we need to keep doing and that's the thing we didn't do well last year. If you want to keep people from pressuring you, you've got to be able to hit the big plays on them.
Q: Was that a blitz on Caldwell's touchdown?
ML: Chris (Henry) had the one the other day in the game, Chris had the one against New England. We've hit some big plays again against pressure in preseason, that's what you have to do. Chad had the big play against New Orleans. I think those are the things you have to do. Those are the things we weren't necessarily converting on last year at the beginning of the season and we never got on track. Right now we come into this season doing a better job of that.
Q: Do you feel better about Palmer missing three weeks of the preseason because of the work in the spring?
ML: Well, he missed some time, but Carson's done a good job. He worked last week. He worked on Tuesday. He worked with the receivers on Monday. He worked yesterday. He stayed out yesterday and worked with the receivers. He'll work fully today. As we prepare, he's back in the slot he needs to be, and he has all the other time (with receiver) he didn't have before. Obviously we're deeper at receiver than we were a year ago, we have a better group than we had a year ago, we're better at running back and we're better at offensive line than we were a year ago, so those are the things we have to feel good about. We loose the experience of Reggie at tight end, but we're put together a little differently now. We'll have to do it by two or three guys. We're better at fullback. Offensively, we're a better football team and we're better at quarterback than we were last year. But so is everybody else.
Categories: Cincinnati Bengals, Featured Stories, News
Tags: Carson Palmer, Levi Jones, Marvin Lewis
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