Cincinnati Bengals Defensive Year in Review

January 22, 2013   ·   Andrea Hangst   ·   Jump to comments

Though the Cincinnati Bengals offense dealt with its fair share of inconsistency in the 2012 season, the same could not be said for their defense. For the second year in a row, the Bengals fielded a top-10 defense, and, not coincidentally, also went to the playoffs for the second straight season.
Last week, I recapped the 2012 Bengals offense; this week, let's look at what the defensive side of the ball accomplished.
 
The Defensive Line
The Bengals had one of the best defensive lines in the NFL in 2012, thanks in a big way to having the league's best defensive tackle, Geno Atkins. Atkins recorded 12.5 sacks on the year, as well as 13 additional quarterback hits, 53 hurries and 47 total defensive stops.
Though Atkins was not thought of as a leading candidate for Defensive Player of the Year—what with the Bengals rotating their defensive linemen as often as they do—what he did accomplish in 2012 while playing just 806 total snaps cannot be ignor...

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