Cincinnati, OH – The first pre-season game is in the books and their was some good and some bad in this 27-24 loss versus the Jacksonville Jaguars. We caught up with coach Miller after the game to get his thoughts on what happened, what he thinks of his defense, and how the off season turned out.
I felt we did a lot of things right today our first team offense looked great, it was great to see Dalton pick up right where he left off last season, we are expecting big things from him this year and if today was any indication of things to come i’m excited to see what he has in store for us this year.
Unfortunately Aj Mcarron didn’t have the same success as Dalton going 13 for 25 with 4 ints and only 1 td.
I’m not sure what happened to Aj today, but i know he is a better qb then what he showed out there on the field today. He did some good things after he finally settled down, he threw his first touchdown pass after throwing a couple picks, so it was nice to see him not get to down on himself and keep fighting to show that he belongs in this league and on this team, but hes going to have to cut down on those turnovers they are just to costly.
Despite the 27 points put up my Jacksonville’s offense it was a solid defensive outing by the entire team. Only surrendering 181 total yards of offense. This off season seemed to focus more on the defensive side of the ball more than anything. They sent Bernard over to New England in exchange for FS Tavon Wilson, and CB Malcom Butler, signed 2 free agents in Brandon Boykin and Damon Harrison and seem to have a star in the making in rookie Jon Carter. We asked coach Miller on what he thought about the new additions to the defensive side.
Im absolutely thrilled in the effort we got on the defensive side of the ball especially from the new additions to the team, you know you always worry about how your free agent signings, trades or early draft picks are going to turn out and its nice to see good results one week in. It was nice to see Wilson come in and make an immediate impact with an outstanding interception. I think with the addition of Harrison we have arguably the top d line in all of football as well. I know the second half of last year we really struggled on the defensive side of the ball and we felt we needed to try and shore up the defense to make sure that didn’t happen again even if it meant shipping off a Giovanni, spending money on some free agents, as well as using up some early picks on defense.
Even though they started of the year with a loss it doesn’t seem to be any concern as the team looks like it has addressed certain issues they had last year and are poised to make a deep playoff run after being bounced out in the first round of last years playoffs. Will this revamped defense keep it up? Can Andy Dalton build off of last years success? Will coach Miller be able to prevent a late season collapse again? This reporter thinks so and is excited to see what this team has in store for this year.