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Bengals left tackle
Andrew Whitworth felt doubly invigorated after Sunday's Pro Bowl.
Cincinnati Bengals
Whitworth looks
forward to pain-free '13
CINCINNATI- Bengals left tackle Andrew Whitworth felt doubly
invigorated after Sunday's Pro Bowl.
Not only was it his first foray into the all-star game as well as his
first chance to ever play right tackle, but it's also going to the last
time he'll play with the pain he's had in his knee for the past two
seasons. He said Monday that he plans to have a procedure to deal with
some scar tissue that will take him out of the spring practices but
have him back in plenty of time for the start of training camp.
"It's just a little repair; nothing big," Whitworth said. "Everybody in
the league deals with something like this. I did it about two years ago
and it just wasn't getting any better. Now we've got a chance to get
something done with plenty of time to rest."
It is minor enough that Whitworth was able to hold off and wait to see
if he would get the call from the Pro Bowl. His Bengals-best streak of
67 straight starts that includes playoffs isn't in jeopardy.
"I'm really excited about getting it done and feeling good again and
getting a lot of rest and rehab and having a great year," he said.
PISTOL PRIMER: If there is anyone not surprised with how the 49ers and
quarterback Colin Kaepernick have taken the Super Bowl by power point
with The Pistol formation, it's a Cincinnati college coach who is
getting inducted into the Ohio High School Football Coaches Hall of
Fame in the spring.
While implementing The Pistol at Division III College of Mount Saint
Joseph before the 2011 season, offensive coordinator Vince Suriano
spent hours watching tape of Kaepernick run it at the University of
Nevada during the 2009 and 2010 seasons.
After the Mount broke its all-time rushing record, it was more of the
same in the film room when Suriano moved across the bridge to Thomas
More College this past season. As the senior offensive assistant and
quarterbacks coach, he brought The Pistol to blend with the rest of the
offense and Thomas More averaged more than 30 points and 350 yards per
game in 2012 while Suriano collaborated with offensive coordinator
Trevor Spellman.
The irony here is that while 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh made the bold
move with Kaepernick in the middle of this season, Suriano has ties to
Ravens head coach John Harbaugh, a friend from the days Harbaugh
recruited Suriano's Anderson High School during his eight seasons as a
University of Cincinnati assistant.
"I think it's here to stay," Suriano says of The Pistol. "I don't think
people will go to it exclusively, but I think sooner or later everybody
will have it as a part of their offense. You don't always have to run
zone read out of it. You can run other things. I see Alabama jumping
into The Pistol, but the quarterback is not a runner. So they don't run
zone read. They run power out of it or (the) stretch (run). Boise State
gets into it and uses a traditional zone running play."
When Suriano started his project two years ago, The Pistol was so
scarce that Nevada was the only college team he could find that ran it
as is its offense and he's still not sure how he got the video. But
once he watched it, he was surprised more teams weren't running it with
more regularity, particularly those by coaches from his generation.
When he arrived at Anderson in 1987 to begin a 19-year run, Suriano
used the 'I' formation until the Redskins became the first area team in
2000 to use what Suriano calls the "pure Tommy Bowden-Rich Rodriguez
spread" offense out of The Shotgun.
"The Pistol blends the I formation with the Shotgun. You're putting two
offenses into one," Suriano says. "The quarterback stands three to four
yards behind the center with the tailback sitting anywhere between six
to eight yards behind him. The key is there has to be a three-yard
differential between the quarterback and the tailback and how close the
tailback is, is based on how fast he is coming downhill with the ball.
"The zone read is the staple of The Pistol. The linemen are all
blocking in one direction and they leave the last defender on the
opposite end of the line of scrimmage free and the quarterback is
reading him. If he collapses on the running back, the quarterback pulls
the ball and runs it. If the end stays there and is soft, the
quarterback gets the ball. That's the general premise."
The series of plays is called "The Midline" with the running back's
path going right up the center's back. Suriano says it is the midline
concept that makes the defensive end commit and forces the defense to
make a decision.
Suriano says teams are discovering they can run just about any pass or
run out of The Pistol, particularly play-action. For instance he says
while Nevada didn't use any running power plays, the 49ers run more
power and he sees the Michigan influence.
Suriano says former Michigan quarterback Jim Harbaugh is using "the
traditional power play principles" as taught by his college head coach
Bo Schembechler and offensive line and quarterbacks coach Jerry Hanlon.
Even more irony is that Hanlon and Suriano visited each other often at
Anderson and Ann Arbor to pick each other's brain.
"The fullback kicking out with the backside guard wrapping around,"
Suriano can still recite.
But now it's not the 6-3, 215-pound Harbaugh directing power, it is the
6-5, 233-pound Kaepernick running it supersonically. It almost seems as
if The Pistol had been devised with him in mind.
"What I didn't realize when we started watching him is how fast he
was," Suriano says. "He didn't look it because he was so tall and
lanky, but every time he turned the corner no one would catch him. It
would be a 10-yard gain and then all of a sudden it was 30 yards. Oh my
goodness.
Read this and other articles at the Bleacher Report
New season ticket
sales top 1000
CINCINNATI- More than 1000 Bengals season tickets have been sold to new
subscribers in the first week and a half since a new pricing schedule
went into effect.
In 2013, for the second straight year, Bengals season tickets will cost
less than the previous year in a significant number of sections of Paul
Brown Stadium.
Price reductions are in effect in 20 stadium sections. A number of
sections priced last year at $50 per game have been added to the areas
selling for $40, and many sections priced at $60 last year have been
reduced to $50.
“It’s an encouraging start toward our goal of maximizing homefield
advantage by selling out every game in 2013,” said ticket sales manager
Andrew Brown. “We are getting particularly heavy volume in the new $40
and $50 sections, but response is good across the board, and there are
still good locations remaining on all three levels of the stadium.”
Fans may obtain tickets or get further information by calling the
Bengals Ticket Hotline at 513-621-TDTD (8383), or by visiting our
Tickets home page.
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