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Photo
courtesy of bengals.com
Running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis had his first 100 rushing day as a
Bengal Sunday against the Chiefs.
The Bengals rolled to a 28-6 victory
over the hapless team from Kansas City.
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Bengals
back to .500 in romp over K.C.
bengals.com
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Bengals running back BenJarvus Green-Ellis is known
as a stickler for game-plan details, so during this past week he
stopped head coach Marvin Lewis in the locker room for a quick review
of the offense's three goals for Sunday's game against the Chiefs.
"Coach, I know two of them and I'm trying to remember that third one,"
Green-Ellis said, and it turned out that two out of three ain't bad
because with BJGE's help the Bengals reached 100 yards rushing with no
turnovers in the 28-6 victory at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Bengals didn't reach 45 percent converting third downs when they
only went four of 14. But it doesn't matter when you hit 100 percent on
three fourth-down tries and have your biggest rushing day in 47 games
and nearly three years with 189 yards on 38 carries. Green-Ellis
celebrated his first 100-yard day as a Bengal (101 on 25 carries) and
the team's first dating back to Nov. 27 last year by talking about the
upcoming Wednesday's practice.
"We're starting to impose our will a little bit and that's what you
have to do in the run game," left tackle Andrew Whitworth said after
another command performance against an elite pass rusher. "We're having
people confident, having people where they're supposed to be and I
think it's really helping us."
Lewis prefers the intramural discussion of goals and will because he
doesn't want his players thinking about anybody else. Suddenly the
Bengals are the AFC's only 5-5 team after winning two straight and are
a game back in the wild card chase behind the 6-4 Steelers and Colts
with six games left and the tiebreakers daunting but not mathematically
impossible.
"We can’t worry about things going on around us," Lewis said. "We just
have to take care of us. By taking care of the ball and playing sound
on defense and the kicking game, that takes care of us."
He should have added the running game because, don't kid yourself;
Lewis is a devout AFC North believer in how a solid running game makes
everything around it better. And Lewis's best player can sense it even
though he catches the ball for a living and, at the moment, better than
anyone in the game.
"I feel like everybody is playing well in all three phases," wide
receiver A.J. Green said after another YouTube touchdown catch. "This
is the time you want to get momentum on your side heading into the
playoffs. You saw what the Giants did last year. We feel like we're the
same kind of team. That we can go on a roll and make something happen."
Green made it happen as he made the Chiefs bounce in and out of
coverages. Remember, Kansas City head coach Romeo Crennel is the same
guy that as head coach of the Browns formed a Cover 2 that was the most
frustrating and effective AFC North defense against the Bengals in the
Carson-Chad-T.J. heyday of 2005-06.
But this time the Bengals had Green, tight end Jermaine Gresham, and a
commitment to the run. In the biggest running game of the 26-game era
of Green and Dalton, the Bengals piled up their most rushing attempts
since the next-to-last game of the 2010 season.
"The big key is today we ran the ball," Dalton said. "Some time they
had to get out of that Cover 2 look. And that gave some opportunity to
get the ball downfield for me."
Green thought his 40-yard bomb down the right sideline early in the
second quarter came against quarters coverage. Then he said the Chiefs
switched to Cover 2, and with Gresham mauling Kansas City in the middle
for 69 yards on six catches, Green-Ellis saw the safety moving into the
box on the weak side in the second half and he said the Bengals "were
still able to make plays."
The way Whitworth saw it, "We threw it early and got ourselves a lead
and we were able to pound it out."
For this story and more, go to Cincinnati Bengals
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