3 big surprises from Cincinnati Bengals overtime victory over Vikings
By Alex Austin
The defense looked dominant in getting penetration on the line of scrimmage and was able to make life very difficult for the Minnesota Vikings.
Sure, the Minnesota Vikings are never going to be compared to the offense of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, but that does not mean the team doesn’t have talent on that side of the ball. Dalvin Cook, Adam Thielen, and Justin Jefferson present a formidable three-headed monster that threatens every part of a defense. There are things the Bengals will want to improve on, but overall, the defense responded very well.
The most impressive thing to me was how much pressure the front four were able to produce, especially up the middle. B.J. Hill and Larry Ogunjobi were consistently in the backfield blowing up run plays and bringing Kirk Cousins down. This was a great improvement from last and a potential sign of good things to come.
If Cincinnati is consistent about getting that kind of pressure straight up the middle, it is going to open doors for the edge players and make life very difficult for opposing teams to get any kind of rhythm going.
The unit was so new that expectations were small until we got to see them on the field, and after the first game, expectations are going to go way up.