PICKING ON THE BENGALS

    Kellen Clemens never saw him. When the young quarterback dropped back in the pocket with six minutes left in the second quarter, he thought he had Jerricho Cotchery open on an out route. With little hesitation, he gunned the ball in the direction of his top receiver and watched it go for six. Unfortunately, for Clemens and Jets fans, those six points belonged to the opposing team, the Dallas Cowboys. Cornerback Terence Newman easily undercut the route and used his world-class speed to return the pass 50 yards down the sideline for his first touchdown of the season. Broken and overmatched, the Jets would lose the contest 34-3.

    Chances are, if you bleed blue and silver, you already know where I’m going with this. America’s Team has opened the 2008 season with zero interceptions for their defense in four games. Only the lowly Detroit Lions, who are just coming off their bye week, have as few. For a team with Super Bowl aspirations, this is unacceptable and needs to be remedied immediately. Considering that the offense has four more giveaways than the defense has takeaways, Dallas is an anomaly sitting at 3-1. Their –4 turnover margin ties the Bengals for the 30th in the league. That’s right, the Bengals. Dallas is also currently tied for 1st in the league with 9 giveaways.

    The funny thing is that we usually equate defensive pressure on the quarterback with interceptions. Well, the ‘Boys are getting pressure on opposing teams—recording 12 sacks in four games (which ranks 6th in the league). If they continue this pace, they’ll have two more sacks than they had last year. Oh, and if you’re interested in our 2007 numbers, they read as follows: 46 sacks, 19 interceptions. Anthony Henry led the team with 6, Ken Hamlin had 5, and Newman rounded out the top three with 4. Needless to say, all of these players are still on the team—plus, the secondary has been dramatically improved with the additions of Adam Jones, Mike Jenkins, and Orlando Scandrick in place of Jacques Reeves and Nathan Jones.

    The point is that Big D needs more (some?) picks if it truly hopes to have a “Super” season, and what better week to start turning it around than this coming Sunday’s match-up with the Bengals. With Carson Palmer unlikely to play for the second straight week, Ryan Fitzpatrick is once again the projected starter. Last week against the struggling Browns he threw 3 picks and, over the course of his career, has thrown more than twice as many interceptions as touchdowns.  Now, the Bengals may try to rely on their ground game, but, with Chris Perry averaging a measly 2.9 yards per carry, it’s only a matter of time before they’ll have to take to the air to try to keep up with the ‘Boys’ high-voltage offense. Once this occurs, Dallas’ secondary needs to be ready. These will not be perfectly placed balls, and it shouldn’t be a surprise if T-New adds six more points to his career total.