When the Bengals hired defensive coordinator Teryl Austin back in January the word was he was a stand-up guy that extracted loyalty from his players and on a Grim Reaper Monday that proved to be true.
After one of the six worst rushing games in the 16 years of Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis' defenses during Sunday's 31-21 loss in Carolina, Austin met the media and took the blame and pumped up his players. No, he's not looking to make any personnel changes after running back Christian McCaffrey's 184 yards contributed to the 230 engineered by the Panthers' sly option attack.
"They didn't quit. They competed hard," Austin said of his guys. "It's me. We've had no problem in terms of taking care of the run the first two weeks. We ran across a unique run scheme. Obviously I didn't get it done for our guys. We have the guys we have. They're good enough to do it. We'll make it work this week."
- One move that has to be made is that defensive tackle Ryan Glasgow suffered a season-ending torn ACL. Josh Tupou, a practice squad nose tackle last season in his rookie year undrafted out of Colorado, gets the battle-field promotion. After Tupou made his season debut in his second NFL game Sunday, Austin said, "Josh did well. He got 19 plays in there."
- Don't look for the Bengals to make an immediate move to replace Glasgow. They could save the spot for a week from Monday, when WILL backer Vontaze Burfict returns from an NFL suspension.
- When Glasgow confirmed the injury Monday while on crutches in the locker room, he said his dad, orthopedic surgeon Steven Glasgow who masters in knees, may do the surgery. His mother, Michele, an orthopedic surgeon in charge of shoulders, was at the game while her husband was in Detroit watching older brother Graham about to spring an upset on the Patriots as the Lions center.
"She was pretty broken up about it as was I," Glasgow said. "They're two pretty good people to go to for advice."
When he tore a pectoral muscle earlier in his career, his mother did the surgery.
"Seamless recovery on that one. Shout out to her," he said.
- Austin also gave credit to Carolina's execution of their run game after they pounded it 41 times that featured two more rushing touchdowns from Panthers quarterback Cam Newton.
"In terms of the blocking scheme, the way Cam held the ball and then rode the fakes allowed them to stay on blocks on some double teams a bit longer than maybe normal," Austin said. "Give those guys credit. They know if they let our D-line (face) single block (ing), that would make for a long day. They did a good job making sure they had double teams on the guys they needed for us."
