Any football coach will tell you that the two keys to winning are to succeed in running the ball and in stopping the run. Indeed, a team that wins despite failing on these two counts registers at least slight disappointment, as if the real game got away because the squad couldn't establish physical dominance.
We've known all along that the Bengals ought to be able to run because they have Corey Dillon. We've known Dillon is a top-flight NFL back since his rookie year when, one day, he bruised through the Tennessee Oilers for 246 yards, the NFL single-game rookie rushing record.
In each of his three complete seasons, Dillon has carried for more than 1,100 yards. So, despite the occasional episode, we know he's good.
And when Dillon carried for 278 yards Oct. 22 at Paul Brown Stadium, beating the Denver Broncos with the all-time single game NFL rushing record, no one pretended to be surprised it would be Dillon to break the record. He is an outstanding running back. If he's not good enough to make the Bengals a playoff team all by himself -- and he isn't -- his value is still widely recognized.
But here's the big surprise to fall out of Dillon's record-setting game: The next morning's paper revealed that the Bengals are 11-3 when Dillon carries 22 or more times. Fascinating though it might be that there's some condition of the universe under which the Bengals are 11-3 since 1996, the real shocker is that the Bengals have given Dillon 22 or more carries only 14 times since he began his career.
It's remarkable. Everyone knows the importance of the running game; the Bengals have one of the best running backs in the league, and they've only given him 22 carries 14 times in more than three years? The idea of a feature running back around whom a team might build an offense is that he takes 20 to 25 carries per game. At least, that's how it used to be.
Since the beginning of Dillon's career, the Bengals have won 15 games. In 11 of those games, Dillon took 22 or more carries. Not only is that correlation hard to miss, but it's entirely consistent with the fundamentals of football. Have the Bengals underused Corey Dillon?
Of course they have, but there's so little opportunity to take heart in this team that it would be silly to whine here about the inglorious past. The lesson to be learned is that the Bengals should be giving the ball to Dillon.
Oddly enough, with so little experience at quarterback and wide receiver, the Bengals were giving Dillon the ball only 15 times per game before last Sunday. Though it's fair enough to recognize that opponents were stacking against the run due to the youth of the Bengals' passing game, one might think they would have been more insistent about giving him the ball.
As it turns out, the Bengals have been working on blocking schemes to neutralize the eighth defender in the box. It wasn't likely the Bengals would have done it right against Denver, which entered the game with the second-toughest run defense in the NFL. But the Broncos overpursued, Dillon cut back and the rest is history.
Six times against Denver, Dillon carried for more than 30 yards, including backbreaking touchdown carries of 41 and 65 yards late in the fourth quarter. The Broncos prepped all week for Dillon and still couldn't stop him. He's that good.
Which isn't to say, of course, that there won't be days like that pathetic Sunday in Baltimore a month ago when Ravens defenders got to Dillon with the tackle before Akili Smith got to him with the hand-off. But if the Bengals can continue to ratchet up the blocking, Dillon will keep them in games and, maybe, even win a few more.
The Bengals paid Dillon a base salary of $3 million so he wouldn't make good on his promise to sit out the first 10 weeks. It was suggested in this column that the expenditure would make the difference between three wins and five. That turned out to dramatically understate Dillon's value. The Bengals have won one game this year, and they won it because of Dillon. Without him, they wouldn't stand a chance of winning another.
Which, of course, brings us to the flip side, because there is no good news in Cincinnati without the bad-news Bengals on the flip side. Dillon will be a free agent at the end of the season, which means he won't be around much longer.
He could be around if the Bengals pay him about $10 million per year, which won't happen. Or he could be around if the Bengals designate him as their franchise player, restricting his movement and forcing him to take a lesser deal. But that would just be Carl Pickens all over again.
As was the case with Pickens, it's true of Dillon: The Bengals can be bad with him, or they can be bad without him. After all, the fact that the Bengals needed such unearthly heroics to win a game speaks volumes about where this team still stands.
The Bengals rushed for 407 yards, the most in the NFL in half a century. And they still won the game by only 31-21 at home. The outcome was in doubt with two minutes remaining.
On a day of oddities from the Bengals' first win -- including the very idea it was just that -- the box score was full of surprises. One would expect, for example, that a team rushing for 407 yards in the NFL would own the clock, because the running game gobbles up time. Instead, the Bengals held the ball for only 22:27, barely more than a third of the game.
Doubtless, Dillon's quick-strike running scores cut into the Bengals' ball control. But the more likely explanation is that Denver torched the Bengals' defense for 500 total yards.
And that passing game. Two pass completions for the Bengals against Denver is a horrible output even for the worst passing team in the NFL. Peter Warrick doesn't see the ball unless the Bengals just hand it to him. With opposing defenses finding no incentive to drop into pass coverage, it would appear the Bengals still are a long way from their next win.
In a related development, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue dropped into Cincinnati last week and found himself in the uncomfortable position of publicly addressing Mike Brown's performance as the Bengals' general manager. Brown is an old-school member of the fraternal order of NFL owners. The very idea that Tagliabue would rip Brown in public is a ridiculous dream.
In addition to understandable old-boy loyalties, the other owners have to be in awe of Brown and reassured about the value of an NFL franchise after he maneuvered for a new stadium with such a dreadful team. Beyond that, the Bengals are a win on their schedules. Why would they want him to change?
So here, in small part, is what Paul Tagliabue said about the Bengals under Mike Brown: "They've got a philosophy here that's time-tested, they've just got to stick to it."
We all know the test of time has shown that the Bengals' philosophy doesn't actually work, but Tagliabue talked around that. Bill Clinton couldn't have fudged it better.
The Bengals are headed Sunday to Cleveland, where they will face the Browns, another bad team. According to the early line, the Bengals were slight favorites, which just illustrates that gambling really is a mental illness.
contact bill peterson: letters@citybeat.com
