Both teams run a similarly traditional West Coast offense with a zone-based running game and coverage-based pass schemes designed to isolate defenders. The Texans offense especially is designed to punish defenders for neglecting their assignments and becoming overly aggressive.

Last week against the Colts, the Arian Foster ripped off a cutback on a stretch zone run to take advantage of the same kind of over-aggressiveness that the Bengals have a tendency to display when the defense becomes frustrated.

Although the backside defensive end is trying to maintain outside leverage against the Texans’ highly underrated left tackle, Duane Brown, the team aggressively pursues to the attack point of the zone run. By chasing down Foster and neglecting to stay within their gap assignments, the Colts opened up a large amount of open room for Foster to find a cutback lane. With his explosiveness, Foster will always punish a defense in this situation.

On this play from last year’s matchup, Geno Atkins demonstrates the best formula to disrupt Foster and the zone running game. Atkins has stood up center Scott Wells completely at this point and is dominating the battle of leverage. This disrupts Foster and does not allow him to let the blocking develop a lane for him to run. Atkins forces the decision prematurely and is able to drop Foster for a loss.

First off, I would like to say that I am not giving up on my team. And I love the Bengals dearly and there’s nothing I want more than to get into the Playoffs and make some noise.

Well, the reality of it is, we have one of the youngest teams in the NFL, and we will probably have back-to-back winning seasons. But this loss just really sucks as we all know because we could have had a one game lead over our least favorite team, Pittsburgh.

It just seems like it’s not meant to be, when we win, they somehow beat a top AFC team with Charlie Batch; and when they get destroyed by the team we just defeated, we lose to a beat up Dallas team and make crucial mistakes in the process.

As a firm believer in the football gods; it just seems, barring a huge win streak miracle, we will not make the Wild-card. It hurts, it really does, like I said, I’m not giving up, and and I dearly want to make the playoffs.

But we’ve all seen this bad movie before, when we just don’t make the cut. Like last year, there is hope; we have some high draft picks, and we can make some roster moves to re-sign some key players to put us in great position. But we all know that the NFL is right here, right now, we have to win with this team. We’re still in this, but that 4 game losing streak is really haunting us. Let’s hope they prove me wrong, Who-Dey!

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Oct 28, 2012; Philadelphia, PA, USA; Atlanta Falcons safety William Moore (25) celebrates making a tackle with teammates during the third quarter against the Philadelphia Eagles at Lincoln Financial Field. The Falcons defeated the Eagles 30-17. Mandatory Credit: Howard Smith-US PRESSWIRE

Well, we made it past the halfway point in the 2012 NFL season, and what a season it has been so far!! Replacement refs ruining games for the first three weeks (unless, of course, you are the Seahawks), disappointments, and great surprises have made this a truly incredible season thus far. There have been those teams that have come out of nowhere (Minnesota, Indianapolis, and, for a while there, Arizona) and those teams that have, well, been major disappointments (Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Dallas, New Orleans). We have seen the return of Peyton Manning, and he looks as if he has picked up where he left off. Rookies Andrew Luck, Robert Griffin III, and Ryan Tannehill are starting to look like veterans out there……………………….and of course, the BUMBLE BEE UNIFORMS IN PITTSBURGH!!!!!!!

So who is the best team in the NFL right now? Is it the 7-0 Falcons? The dominant Texans? 49ers? Defending world champion Giants? It’s hard to tell at this point, but I have to say that Atlanta is the best. For one, they are undefeated. Matt Ryan is having the best year of his career. That receiving corps is stacked with stars like WRs Julio Jones and Roddy White, with veteran and future Hall of Famer Tony Gonzalez. Michael Turner is a solid running back.

So who are my Super Bowl picks? First off, lets see how I view the playoffs this year: