It’s a well known fact that Marvin Lewis had a pretty high interest in corner-back Terence Newman coming out of Kansas State University. It’s also a known fact that Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer was Newman’s Defensive coach for his first few seasons in the NFL. So it made sense that the Bengals signed the veteran corner in free agency, especially with Leon Hall coming back from his Achilles injury.
At first, I along with mostly all other Bengal fans were a bit worried about it. First of all, the guy is 33 years old, and honestly he wasn’t too good last year.
But he had some answers for us, he said he could still run and play at a high level, and the reason for his past struggles were from lack of discipline and technique. Well he can say that all he wants, I mean who is going to say that they are washed up and slow?
So it was up to him playing well in camp and Pre-season. He was exactly what we needed, a healthy body and solid player. He even picked off Aaron Rodgers, although Rodgers threw it right to him, he could have dropped it, not turned around and saw it, etc.
But in my opinion there are some things i feel like Newman could improve on, (this may just be me complaining about nothing since it’s preseason, but I feel these are important issues).
When watching him during this preseason, he seems extremely soft, he shy’s away from press, causing the easy Tebow completion in the Jets game. And he seemed somewhat soft in his attack of the ball on a few tackles.
And last but not least, did anyone see him run his interception out of bounds when he clearly could have returned it for a pick 6? All he had to do was cut it back, yes he ran a risk of getting hit, but he also could have given us touchdown knowing our goal-line problems.
I may just be nitpicking, but even if it’s preseason, you need to play hard-nosed, that’s the M.O. of Zimmer’s defense.
All in all I think he will be good for us, and he will help us immensely in this pass-happy league. Just another reason to be excited for the upcoming season.
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