NFL coaches want their quarterbacks to play their best football in the playoffs, and Cincinnati’s Andy Dalton has not done that. Dalton has one touchdown and six interceptions in his four playoff games, all Bengals losses.
But Bengals coach Marvin Lewis says Dalton is just fine. Asked if he’s worried about Dalton’s play in the playoffs, Lewis answered via TheMMQB.com, “What worries me is our poor performance on defense in the playoffs.”
Lewis continued that the team is committed to Dalton and thinks that Dalton can win if the defense supports him.
“You look at how we’ve played on defense. We haven’t played good enough. Andy had a bad game against San Diego—a bad second half two years ago. The other games it’s been split evenly. We do know, in order for us to be successful, which we can’t even talk about the playoffs because we haven’t gotten there, but the first thing we do, we have to take care of the ball and play better on defense,” Lewis said. “We feel Andy’s our quarterback, and we signed him long-term, and we feel good about him . . . and we will continue to get better with the pieces around Andy. Andy has done a lot of things so far as a pro that not a lot of people have done. We need to keep playing better around Andy and that will be helpful to Andy.”
It’s hard for the defense to play well when Dalton keeps giving them short fields to work with, so it would be nice if Dalton could play better. But make no mistake: Lewis and Bengals owner Mike Brown are totally committed to Dalton as the franchise quarterback.