Cincinnati Bengals: Players to watch vs. Titans in Week 10
By Kenn Korb
2. Adam Jones
While having an effective Billings would be great for the Cincinnati defense, it’s much more important that they actually manage to get some timely contributions from their defensive backs for once this season.
Though Cincinnati ranks decently well in many facets of defensive play this season (12th in sacks, 14th in Defensive DVOA, seventh in Rush Defense DVOA), they have been damagingly poor on late downs. They allow the opposition to convert on over 40 percent of their third down attempts (21st in the league), and 45.8 percent of all their late down attempts (27th in the league).
This is not an issue with the defensive linemen; it’s essentially all from the lacking impact made by Cincinnati’s guys in coverage. According to PFF, they lead the league in late down pressure rate; despite this, their corners and safeties have managed to tie the league’s fewest pass breakups on third and fourth down. Jones is right at the heart of this issue, and is exactly who the team needs to play better if they want to keep their season alive.
After a somewhat underrated career full of strong performances, Jones has fallen off the proverbial cliff in a big way. His PFF grade of 45.9 is far below his worst full season to date (70.2 in 2014). Injuries and suspensions have limited his ability to even be on the field, leaving him with two missed games and two others where he didn’t surpass 15 snaps; because of this, he currently ranks fourth in snaps among Cincinnati cornerbacks.
If there is a week for him to step up, it is now.
Fellow veteran corner Dre Kirkpatrick has been struggling to show up anywhere but the wrong end of highlight film (he’s the one Le’veon Bell stiff-armed into oblivion when Cincinnati faced Pittsburgh); not only that, but he’s been on the injury report this week. William Jackson and Darqueze Dennard have done alright this year, but that is in mostly smaller roles and while not facing #1 receivers (which Kirkpatrick has been doing).
More than anything, Jones is supposed to be one of the team’s biggest playmakers and emotional leaders; he’s fallen well short in both regards this year. A guy with 15 interceptions in his career and a knack for huge returns (five punt return touchdowns, two turnovers returned for touchdowns) has barely touched the ball this season (three passes defensed). Rather than helping fire up his guys, he’s left complaining in the media about a lack of passion by them.
The team didn’t stick with him through all the baggage that comes with the man formerly called “Pacman” to have him just be another useless piece of a moribund franchise in a lost season.
If he has anything left in his tank, he’s gotta dig deep and pull out all the stops against a talented Tennessee passing game. They have the star-in-the-making quarterback and a deep cache of quality receiving talent both old and young. The group hasn’t been consistent yet in 2017 though (No. 21 in Pass Offense DVOA), so there’s an opening for Jones and his secondary mates to strike. We’ll see if his call for more passion is answered — not just by his teammates, but him.