Bengals Week 1 (Vs. BlaineTheMono's Titans)

Van Pelt - "Sports Center brings you live to the Bengals post game press conference, rookie QB Nile Turner is at the podium answering questions as we speak"

Reporter 1 - "Niles, could you give us a quick game summary for the people who may have joined us late?"

Turner - "I don't think that's really my job, but I guess I can do that. The Titans took a 14-10 lead into halftime, but we were able to outscore them 21-0 in the second half to come away with the 31-14 victory."

Reporter 2 - "Thanks for that, now lets move on to the real questions. It seemed that you guys struggled a little bit in the first half, what adjustments did the coach make at halftime that lead to the turn around?"

Turner - "Honestly, we didn't change a whole lot, because we knew we had a sold game plan coming into the game, we just needed to stick with it. Yes we gave up 2 TD's in the first half, but one came on a kickoff return by Desean Jackson, and the other one was the result of a fumble that the Titans recovered on our 3 yardline, so it's not like the defense was to blame. Offensively, they were doing a good job of containing our running game, but we knew it was only a matter of time before the kid Langford got loose, and he did with almost 150 combined yards, and 2 TDs."

Reporter 3 - "Niles, can you tell us a little more about your defense, besides the short field TD they played lights out for the game."

Turner - "You're right, the guys on defense played great all day, giving up only 137 yards of total offense ain't bad at all. Combine that with the fact that the Titans were 0-9 on 3rd and 4th downs, and it made it really easy for us as an offense to go out on the field and do our jobs. The 4th down stops were both huge momentum swings, and it just goes to show that those guys know how to step up and make plays when they need to. We had seen on film that they liked to go to inside runs on short yardage situations, so by bringing some heat up the middle, we were able to get stops in those crucial situations"

Reporter 4 - "You scored 31 points for the game, but it seemed like your offense was struggling at times. What do you attribute that to?"

Turner - "Well I think it was a combination of things, first and foremost being that their coach knows how to play defense. They usually had a LB roaming the middle of the field , and he was able to cover a lot of ground both against the run and in pass coverage. Mixing their coverages well with a variety of zones made it hard for us to lock in on what they were doing, so it took us a while to really get going. They were bringing edge pressure on most running downs so most of our runs either got shut down or went for big gains. Plus we had a couple rookie mistakes, Langford fumbled and I had a few very poor throws, but that gives us something to work on in practice for next week."

Reporter 5 - "With 5 rookie starters on offense and 2 on defense you guys are one of the youngest teams in the league. How do you think the rookies, including yourself, managed to play well enough to give your team the win today?"

Turner - "You know what, the coaching staff has such a tremendous amount of confidence in us that we just had to start believing in ourselves after a while. It's going to take some time for me and the new receivers to fully get on the same page, but both of those guys had TDs today, so obviously the hard work we're doing at practice is paying off. Langford didn't get as many carries as we would have liked, but he did a good job with the ones he got, and he was a great safety valve for me catching passes out of the backfield. The rookies on defense might have been even better though, CB Leopard didn't give up a catch, and MLB Taue'etia showed his versatility, with a sack and lockdown coverage on veteran TE Tony Gonzalez."

Van Pelt - "That's all the time we have for that folks, it should be an interesting season in Cincy, I hear coach surf has set his sites pretty high this year. Will the team live up to expectations, or fall apart under the pressure, only time will tell."