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Cincinnati Bengals

Ryan, Jets ready to reload

By Scott Priestle, CNATI.com Posted January 7, 2010 11:16 AM ET

Jets coach Rex Ryan promised to unleash his full arsenal last week, regardless of how the Bengals approached the fight. True to his word, he called some unique defenses and occasionally used receiver Brad Smith in a single-wing offense.

"We fired our gun, no question," Ryan said.

The Bengals expect him to reload this week.

As defensive coordinator of the Baltimore Ravens, Ryan impressed the Bengals with his ability to consistently surprise and confuse their offense. Even with a short week -- the Bengals and Jets played the final game of last weekend and will play the early game this weekend -- Ryan is likely to come up with a few new wrinkles.

"He surprises us sometimes when we get the game plan," Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis said. "You would think he would run out of things to do on defense and he keeps things coming. This defense is very fun."

It held the Bengals to a stunning 72 yards last Sunday in a 37-0 whitewashing. Center Kyle Cook said it was "a typical Rex Ryan defense," but Bengals players were quick to point out that receivers dropped a few catchable passes, their personnel was different and some of them were distracted by questions of who would play and how much they would play.

In short, they blamed themselves as much as they credited the Jets.

"We weren't surprised by anything. We got basically what we expected," tackle Andrew Whitworth said. "We just weren't as focused as we probably should have been."

The same was true on defense. The Jets offensive line controlled the front seven of the Bengals defense, and Smith broke the two longest runs of the season against them: a 57-yard carry and a 32-yard touchdown run out of the "wildcat" formation. In each case, Bengals defenders were in poor position to stop Smith.

Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer said he was prepared to see Smith line up in the formation, but he was surprised at how effective it was, because no team had successfully run the ball on the Bengals out of the wildcat this season.

"I wasn't worried about it," Zimmer said, adding with a smile, "I am a little bit now."

The tactical advantage of the wildcat formation is that the defense must account for the quarterback on running plays. Normally, the quarterback's only job is to hand the ball off, leaving nine potential blockers and one runner against 11 defenders.

The wildcat formation evens the equation and forces defenders to be more disciplined. Zimmer said there were times when multiple Bengals got caught in the same gap, leaving at least one other gap open; Smith took advantage.

"We haven't had many of those plays because we are pretty sound. We're pretty good at getting in the right places," Zimmer said. "We just kind of opened up a can of worms for ourselves."

Categories: Cincinnati Bengals, Featured Stories, Features

Tags: Bengals, Jets, Mike Zimmer, Rex Ryan