Bengals Beat: Godfather Al Golden Delivers Message, Defense Delivers Results in First 2 Weeks

CINCINNATI — Al Golden appreciates the movie classics. And it doesn’t get more classic than “The Godfather”.

The Bengals defensive coordinator dropped a solid movie metaphor from the iconic 1970s trilogy this week when describing the way the defense looks at life without Joe Burrow and whenever a big challenge comes their way.

The defense has been tested already several times in their wins over Cleveland and Jacksonville. Last Sunday, the Bengals defense absolutely could not allow the Jaguars into the end zone following Jake Browning’s third interception of the game, setting up Jacksonville first-and-10 at the Cincinnati 12 with 5:12 left.

The situation was so dire that Zac Taylor looked up and noticed fans leaving in droves and said, “I don’t blame them.” But that’s hardly the approach Golden took in the moment. Dax Hill sprinted like he was shot from a cannon and tackled Trevor Lawrence for a four-yard loss on first down.

“Yeah, I think he had a couple TFLs, right? I just see Dax feeling more and more comfortable every day,” Golden said. “(The media), I know you’re out there, but you don’t see him competing every day the way we do, and then you see him certainly on Sunday, and I’m sure you can sense that he’s settling in. He’s leaving the injury and last year behind him, and I can just see his frame of mind. I can see his confidence, he’s trusting his body right now and he’s playing faster. So, interception, couple tackles for loss, and he showed up in other runs, too, which is important because when you play these teams, last week, this week, they make the nickel tackle the ball carrier a lot.”

Lawrence then fired an incomplete pass on second down before a nine-yard gain on third-and-14. The Bengals forced an incompletion from Lawrence over the middle and took over at their own 8.

Golden imparted words of wisdom to his team prior to the defensive stand that seemed to really take root.

“That’s it, man, like at the end of the day, Hyman Roth, ‘This is the business we’ve chosen.’ That’s it,” Golden said in his best Godfather II voice. “We don’t get to choose when and how and why we go out there and when we go out there and they put that ball down and we needed four stops there to have a chance. You look at those guys’ eyes and they didn’t flinch. They’re buckling up as they’re going by me. They fought their ass off. For us to get a negative on the first play is huge. I needed to do a better job on the third down call. It yielded too much yardage. That was solely on me, but the resiliency of two seven-point plays down there and one four-point play and that’s what the red zone is all about. You just plant the flag when you get down there and if you have a place to stand you keep fighting.”

The Bengals planted the flag at the eight and Jake Browning took it from there for the game-winning drive. Golden is preaching to his defense that September isn’t so much about quarterback play as much as it forcing the opposing offenses into mistakes and not blowing assignments all over the field defensively.

“That’s what September is. When you look at new coordinator last week, new coordinator, new team,” Golden said of Liam Coen’s Jaguars, with a new offensive and defensive coordinators. “Cleveland, if you watched the previous (week), it really wasn’t what Kevin (Stefanski) was doing and now it’s a lot different. This has been the deal early on. I’m just a believer that in September, control your variables as much as possible. Keep the mental errors down; don’t beat yourself. That’s what we’re charged with doing in this time of year. It’s given us opportunities to win. It’s not perfect, trust me, I understand.

“It wasn’t good enough last week, but the resiliency, the toughness, the competitiveness, the battle, whether it’s turnover on downs or turnovers, that’s six in two games. That’s a big deal if you count those two categories, and they’re impactful. I’ve got to to do a better job on the other things, but I don’t want to dismiss that part of it, because they’re really doing a good job with that.”

Golden may be without two key pieces this week as Shemar Stewart tweaked his right ankle vs. the Jaguars and hasn’t practiced this week while Cam Taylor-Britt left with a hamstring injury early on in Wednesday’s practice and missed Thursday’s full pads practice.

“I feel badly for the young man, and we certainly had a plan for him moving forward,” Golden said of Stewart. “I just see it as, we’ll see where the training room and his health takes him this week, but obviously, we feel like he can impact the game in a number of ways, his length, his velocity. I’m sure if you guys look at just his chase play on the one screen, that’s an elite play, and that was all over the tape at Texas A&M, so it’s hard to find guys that can do that, that can rush the passer, turn and go make a play in the screen on the alley, so hopefully he can get healthy and we can continue to make progress with his development.”

Golden on defending Justin Jefferson, and why defending Ja’Marr Chase in camp could help Bengals defensive backs this week:

“They have gleaned a lot of confidence from going against Tee and Ja’Marr all training camp. This is a great challenge for us. End of the day, the structure has to be good in terms of what we are calling, how we are handling it. And man to man we have to win, we got to use our leverage. I see a confident group right now. I got to put them in better position on third down so we can get them off the field. I have failed them in that vein so far.”

Golden on Carson Wentz, who replaces the injured J.J. McCarthy this Sunday:

“I’ve been studying all of his reps — Washington, Indianapolis, Kansas City. He’s moving really well. He’s still throwing the deep ball. He has enough elusive to create in the pocket. He’s there for a reason, right? He’s there because he can run that offense. He’s always been an intelligent guy. I don’t really see them varying much from what they do. They’re really good at what they do, and I feel like they’ve been bringing him along for the last three, four weeks to get him ready for this opportunity.”

Golden will be on guard for the play-action from Wentz this weekend, even with Aaron Jones landing on IR:

“You got to transition in your pass rush. You are defending the run with (Zavier) Scott and (Jordan) Mason, two bigger backs, we got to do a good job against the run. Then when it is pass we have to be able to transition because it’s play-action, it’s boot, it’s half-boots or waggles, then the ball is launched. You can’t just say to the back end don’t let them catch a deep one or take 18 away. The reality is it’s on all of us, the play-caller, the ability to transition and effect the launch point and then the players downfield doing their job. It takes all three, the confluence of those three elements to really produce a good outcome for us.”