Ten more days until training camp! (July 29) Excitement is building! Draft picks are signing!

Three of the nine picks have signed so far, but the top three draft picks have yet to sign: Jermaine Gesham, Carlos Dunlap, and Jordan Shipley. All three should see some significant playing time, especially Gresham who’s already penciled in as a starter.  But there’s been some good news lately:  It looks like both Andre Smith and Rey Maualuga will be ready for training camp, healthwise. 

Anyway, I saw one Bengal fan post something to the effect that, “Man, this offseason seems longer than last year’s.”

Well, last year the Bengals were coming off a 4-12 season. This year, 10-6 and a division win. But after the Bengals stumbled at the end of the season, everyone is eager for the Bengals to prove that it wasn’t a fluke (it wasn’t! I swear!).

The Bengals defense finished fourth last year, which shocked the hell out of everyone, even diehard Cincinnati fans, because they’ve witnessed first-hand the ugly Bengals defenses that we’ve had since… well, just about every year. The big question this year is, Can the defense improve with roughly the same starting cast? Here are some key points for the defense this year:

1. 4-3 + 3-4 = one hell of a defense:

If the NFL is anything, it is a trendy league. Once one team has success with something (West Coast offense, Cover 2 D), it seems that everyone has to copy some form of it.

One of those trends is the 3-4 defense. The base defense for the Bengals, however, is still 4-3: four defensive lineman and three linebackers. But our personnel is changing and, even though we’re going to stick with the 4-3 base this year, I think Mike Zimmer is going to use more 3-4 looks. The reason? Two words:

Michael Johnson.

Not the 400 meter sprinter. A 6-7, 260 lb., second-year defensive end. The dude is a freak of nature, and he’s extremely versatile. Zimmer gave high praise for Johnson’s maturation on the field and his defensive prowess. Not only is Johnson still working on rushing the passer, he’s been practicing at outside linebacker. Zimmer is very high on Johnson and his skills and I think Cincinnati has only seen a glimpse of what he’s capable of.

I think as the season progresses, and Johnson becomes more and more comfortable with the outside linebacker position, Cincinnati may use the 3-4 more and more. They’ll probably stick with the 4-3 on first down still, but it would be foolish not to use such a tall guy that has great speed and can use his wing span to get in the quarterback’s face. Who knows, he might even end up being a starter by the end of the year. In either the 4-3 or 3-4 defense. I don’t see Robert Geathers as being as physically gifted as Michael Johnson.

Regardless of whether or not Johnson starts, he should make a huge impact with his versatility and athletic ability.

2. Continuity and age:

It looks like all the starters from game one last year will be the starters for game one this year. And these guys are all still young and mostly in their prime. The oldest

starter is Dhani Jones at 32, and most of the rest are in their 20s. Having all these young guys together for a second-year in a row should only help make the defense more effective. Last year the defense kind of floundered at the end, due to variety of reasons, so hopefully they can correct that and come back stronger.

3. Safety first:

Roy Williams, who was a pro bowler under Zimmer when they were together in Dallas, got injured at the end of the season and that hurt us. Many people were surprised that the Bengals didn’t draft another safety to provide more insurance in case Williams goes down again (he is prone to injury). We got free agent Gibril Wilson, a steady but unspectacular safety who played for Miami. Along with Chindedum Ndukwe, I think those two guys should be solid backups for Williams and the other starting safety, Chris Crocker.

The main knock on both Crocker and Williams, other than being injury prone, is that they are more run-stuffers than coverage specialists. Well, I’d have to spend some time watching “the tape” myself to give a more educated opinion about that, but I don’t recall Williams or Crocker egregiously screwing up in coverage. I mean, no one is perfect and people will get burned every once in a while, but I like our safety situation overall and these guys should help us win more games than lose them in 2010.

4. Backups galore: Pacman Jones, Brand Ghee:

Aside from super backup Michael Johnson, there should be a bunch of other non-starters who should make an impact on defense.

One of those guys is Pacman Jones. I know his signing has been much maligned by pundits (including me), but so far I’ve only read positive reactions about his performance on and off the field, so I’m pretty excited to have a former top-five pick to be our third corner. He, along with third-round pick Brandon Ghee, should help solidify the secondary when opposing defenses go into 3 and 4-receiver sets. Last year one of the things that killed the Bengals defense was the lack of a consistent 3rd cornerback. And this year we’re going to face pass-happy teams like the Colts and the Patriots, so the Jones signing may prove to be invaluable (cross fingers).

5. Scheming Zimmer:

During the OTAs, several players commented about how “two-thirds” of what the defense was during they had never seen before.

This is good.

Now that the defenders have played a year in Zimmer’s system, he’s going to switch it up and confuse the heck out of other teams. Everyone will look at last year’s tape and base their game plan off of that (at least for the first couple of games). Hopefully Zimmer will throw enough monkey wrenches into the system that other teams won’t know what hit them.

6. Linebacker, USC style:

Keith Rivers, whom the Bengals drafted in the first round out of USC in 2008, had a very quiet year last season. He had 72 tackles and one sack. He wasn’t bad; he just wasn’t great. During the offseason, Rivers started a training regimen that included MMA-style training. He said he gained 10 pounds of muscle. The other starting linebacker from USC, Rey Maualuga, also had a steady but unspectacular season with 63 tackles and one sack.

I’m looking for both of these guys to make a big jump this year. I almost count Rivers’ 2009 season as his rookie season since he only played six full games in 2008. If both Maualuga and Rivers improve significantly, along with a steady Dhani Jones in the middle, the Bengals can improve on that top-4 defense.

7. Rushing the passer:

One of the most significant aspects that the Bengals need to improve on is rushing the passer. Last year the Bengals had 34 sacks, eight of those coming from Antwan Odom (five of those coming against Green Bay). Even though the Bengals came out of the gate last year with a good pass rush, it fizzled like everything else and it seemed like the opposing quarterbacks could sip a cup of tea while looking for an open man.
With a healthy Antwan Odom, the emergence of Michael Johnson, AND the drafting of Carlos Dunlap, hopefully the Bengals can cure those defensive woes. Aside from Johnson, Dunlap may be the most intriguing player because many people had him pegged as a first-round talent, but he dropped to the second round due to a variety of issues.
If Mike Zimmer is anything, he’s a motivator. Hopefully he can use Dunlap and Johnson skillfully on passing downs and wreak havoc on the opposing QB. This will be a huge key throughout the season with all the good offensive lines and quarterbacks that we will be facing.

8. Ted, er, Mike Nugent vs. Dave Rayner:

Last week I probably should’ve written about the kicking battle, since it clearly should’ve gone under the offense questions.

Oh well.

A kicking battle isn’t exactly the most exciting battle to watch. Both kickers have some questions about them. Rayner has a career 71.1 percent average, and he’s only played two seasons, AND he wasn’t on a team for the last two years. Mike Nugent was picked in the second round (?!) by the Jets in 2005, and he has a career 79 percent conversion rate, including a season when he hit 89 percent of his field goals. I think this contest should easily go to Nugent. If it’s a close call between the two, you gotta give the guy with more talent the benefit of the doubt.

Regardless who makes it as a kicker, I just hope he can make a field goal when it counts (ahem, Shayne Graham). 

That’s it for now, folks.  I might do some updates throughout the week, but I will definitely come back next week and do a schedule preview.  Hopefully all the signings will start to fall into place.

You can email David Jacob with any questions, comments, criticisms, or spicy chili recipes at djacob@gearupforsports.com, and/or follow him at http://twitter.com/HoldenCarraway .