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Film Breakdown: Analyzing the Bengals' Excellent 3rd Down Defense Against the Raiders

Cincinnati was nearly perfect on third downs in Las Vegas.

Mike Santagata

The Bengals’ defense got back on track in Week 11 against the Las Vegas Raiders. They held the Raiders to their second-lowest point total of the season. 

They only gave up 13 first downs to Las Vegas in the game. Cincinnati also forced two turnovers on Sunday which set up some short fields for the Bengals to put the game away. 

Lastly, and possibly most importantly, the Raiders were just 1-of-7 on 3rd down. That conversion came with only two minutes left in the 4th quarter as well. While the game was competitive, the Bengals shut out the Raiders on their first six third down attempts. 

It was an impressive performance, so let’s dive into the film to see how they did it.

Third Down No. 1

This play came after a strip-sack of Joe Burrow. The Raiders started the drive with a 1st-and-goal, but after some solid defense by the Bengals, the Raiders were facing 3rd-and-goal. Red zone coverage can be a bit weird, but to me, this looks like single high man coverage with a bracket from Vonn Bell on the boundary No. 1. Jessie Bates playing in the middle of the field makes Derek Carr move off of the crosser routes pretty quickly. He tries to dump it off to the running back on the play but misses his ball placement and it ends up incomplete. Even if that was completed, Logan Wilson is right there to make a play on the ball. Overall some good coverage for the Bengals defense on this play to hold the Raiders to a field goal rather than allowing a touchdown. This early defensive stand seemed to set the tone for the rest of the game.

Third Down No. 2

The Raiders are facing a 3rd-and-medium on this play with the Bengals once again playing Cover 1. The Raiders’ design on this play is actually a pretty good one. They line up Kenyan Drake in a sniffer position close to the line of scrimmage and inside of the tackle. The idea is to sneak him across to the other side of the field for a screen pass. Carr can feel the pressure of Hendrickson bearing down on him, which could have caused this pass to be inaccurate. However, even if this was a good throw that was completed, I think that the Bengals have a pretty good setup to stop them once again on 3rd down. Mike Hilton is coming at Drake from the outside with Germaine Pratt coming at him from the inside. This funnel would make it difficult for Drake to turn this into a big play. It does not matter though because of the inaccurate pass.

Third Down No. 3

Again, the Raiders are in a 3rd-and-medium situation. The Bengals look to be playing single-high man coverage for the third time in a row, but even with the shell looking the same, this one plays out differently. The Bengals pre-snap look to be playing the bunch by using “lock.” Lock means that each receiver in the bunch will be taken by the defender who is directly over top of them. The Raiders concept from the bunch would have worked pretty well against the lock call, but instead, the Bengals play it out like a “box” call with Jessie Bates as one of the defenders involved. Box means that there is a defender for the deep out, deep in, shallow out, and shallow in. Four different defenders to take on all the different areas of the bunch. Bates takes the point man running vertical, Chidobe Awuzie drops off of him and takes the out breaker from Darren Waller, and they end up with both of the shallow players on Hunter Renfrow. There is a small window for a Waller throw during this play, but Carr isn’t able to hit it because of the pressure.

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Larry Ogunjobi is able to pressure Carr into leaving the pocket. The pressure happens quick enough that it stops Carr from being able to hit Waller during the small window that he is open. Not only does Ogunjobi get pressure, but when Carr bails the pocket, Khalid Kareem does a very good job to chase him out of bounds. This didn’t allow Carr to set his feet and try to fit this ball anywhere. Instead, he has to try to make a throw on the run. Carr is unable to throw this ball on the run and instead, the Bengals get another third down stop.

Third Down No. 4

The Bengals line up to play Cover 0. Signaled by the pressure look from the front and the flat contour from the defensive backs. Instead of a man blitz, however, they are playing Cover 2. The rotation to get there is bonkers. Mike Hilton is dropping to one half while Ricardo Allen is dropping all the way to the opposite half from where he is standing. We do not get to see how this would play out against the pass, however, because the Raiders run the ball.

Sometimes run stops are made from great team efforts with everyone properly playing their fit. This run stop was not one of those instances. 

This is just a herculean effort by Sam Hubbard to make this stop on third down. First, he takes on the tight end’s base block with good hand placement. He quickly recognizes what is happening and locks out the tight end with his inside arm. After shedding the block, there is still the matter of a pulling guard to deal with. Instead of taking on that block and leaving the stop to someone else, he dives through him and makes the play himself. This is one of the better run stops of the year for the Bengals considering the individual effort, the situation, and what needed to be done. I will also note that Wilson is looping around and possibly could have made this stop, but if Hubbard gets sealed by the tight end, it’s more likely that Wilson is taking on a pulling guard.

Third Down No. 5

On back-to-back third downs, the Bengals' defense makes fantastic run stops. This time the hero of the play is Bates. Coming from what looks like a deep half alignment, he is able to make this stop on the jet sweep. This is 3rd-and-1. If Bates does not quickly react to the action, this is definitely going to be a 1st down. The Raiders block this up well to give DeSean Jackson an alley to run. It’s just that Bates took that alley instead as a runway to the ball carrier. His ability to quickly trigger on the run action is really special and led to another fantastic third down run stop.

Third Down No. 6

This play is fascinating schematically to me. The Bengals line up with 3-high safeties. This is a confusing look for the quarterback because it could be any coverage. This is a pretty exotic defense for the NFL. Typically in three safety sets, the defense will just use that as a way to move one of their safeties into the box as a pseudo linebacker. This defense does not do that. 

They play Cover 3, but it’s interesting again how they get there. Bell and Bates, who are playing the field and middle of the field safety spots, both drop to robber type of roles. Allen as the boundary safety flips with Bates and takes the deep middle of the field role. This double buzz or robber look can only happen because the Bengals are dropping 8 into coverage. Obviously, there is the trade-off that the pass rush will not be as strong, but allocating all of the resources into coverage like this does end up working out. Partially because of some great defense from Awuzie at corner.

The Raiders are running 989, which is one of the Bengals favorite deep shot concepts. The outside release vertical from the receiver is able to get in Awuzie’s blindspot. Nevertheless, he does not panic when this happens. He sticks with the receiver and keeps his eyes on the ball as well. He forces the receiver further outside until he is essentially out of bounds. The receiver is unable to haul in the reception due to this great coverage.

Third Down No. 7

This was the Raiders' only third down conversion and it came when the game was nearly over. There are two minutes left in the contest and the Bengals are once again simulating pressure by showing a Cover 0 look pre-snap. Similar to before, they are dropping to Cover 2 again. This time the Raiders attack it by going at the soft positioning of the cornerbacks. With them looking like they are playing catch man past the sticks, they start too deep to make a play on anything shallow. Renfrow uses this as an opportunity to sit under the corner and outside of the hook defender. He easily makes the catch for a first down.

There was only one play where the Raiders offense was able to convert on 3rd down and that play came when the game was nearly out of reach. The Bengals even on that play were still heavily using disguises, which was good to see. 

The past few games prior to this one, the Bengals were getting shredded by lining up in whatever they were going to play pre-snap. I think that it’s possible that defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo saw something similar and wanted to start disguising his defense to confuse quarterbacks. At the very least these defenses will force quarterbacks to hold the ball an extra half of a second. During that time the Bengals can get pressure, or it will just mess with the timing on a play. 

Hopefully this carries over into their Week 12 matchup against the Pittsburgh Steelers.

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Mike Santagata
MIKE SANTAGATA

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