The Bengals Defense and Coordinator Lou Anarumo Are Ready to Answer the Call
Lou Anarumo has the answers to kick your ass. Just ask the NFL’s best quarterbacks.
Over the past two seasons Anarumo had a 9–4 record against Trevor Lawrence, Lamar Jackson, Derek Carr, Patrick Mahomes, Justin Herbert, Matthew Stafford, Tom Brady and Josh Allen. In those games, his unit allowed 21.9 points per game. In the postseason, Cincinnati went 3–2 against those foes while never allowing more than 24 points, a showcase of remarkable consistency.
Want more? In Mahomes’s career (postseason included), he’s 60–14 against every defensive coordinator not named Anarumo. He’s 1–3 against the Bengals’ guru.
As for Allen, his Bills have averaged 29.5 points per game since the start of 2020. Against Cincinnati, Buffalo’s attack scored 10 points in a humiliating divisional round defeat at home last January.
The reasons for Anarumo’s success? There are many.
“Listening to his players and the adjustments Lou makes,” says defensive tackle D.J. Reader. “He lets his coaches coach his players, hears them out and things that don’t work, he throws them out. Things that work, he makes sure he does them well. He explains his rules super clear so you always know what he wants you to do. It’s just about doing it. In the face of fire, he just stays super calm. He probably makes the best halftime adjustments in the league.”
Reader joined the Bengals in 2020, one year after Anarumo.
Albert Cesare/The Enquirer/USA TODAY Network
Anarumo, 56, has been the Bengals’ defensive coordinator for the past four years. Despite six collegiate stops across 23 seasons, Anarumo says he never lost faith that he would eventually reach the pro ranks. That finally happened in 2012, when he broke in with the Dolphins as a defensive backs coach. That same year, Zac Taylor got his first NFL job, joining Anarumo in Miami as an assistant quarterbacks coach.
Seven years later, Taylor got the big chair in Cincinnati. With an offensive background, hiring a defensive coordinator would be his biggest job to fill. He knew who to call.
“Zac and I have always been good friends,” Anarumo says. “We worked together closely in Miami. I would go ask him questions about offenses and what they were doing, and he’d do the same with defenses. We always had a good relationship and just happy it all worked out.”
After taking two years to dig the franchise out of a disastrous situation in the Queen City, Anarumo has proved his worth.
Anarumo has become one of the league’s top coordinators—regardless of which side of the ball—without the benefit of elite talent. Since his appointment with the Bengals in 2019, only defensive tackle Geno Atkins and edge rusher Trey Hendrickson have been named Pro Bowlers, with Atkins doing it once in ’19 and Hendrickson in each of the last two years. In that same span, zero Cincinnati defenders have been named first- or second-team All-Pros.
“I think it’s all about team defense,” says Anarumo. “Our guys play that way. They play as a collective group. There’s no individuals. When you’re playing superior teams and superior quarterbacks, if you don’t play together and you aren’t coordinated in everything you’re trying to do, those guys will pick you apart. They still will at times, but you give yourself a chance if you play together as one.”
Surprisingly, Cincinnati’s defensive rankings aren’t anything special under Anarumo. The defense has ranked 31st, 27th, 19th and 15th yards per play allowed. On third down, Cincinnati has never checked in higher than 20th. In the red zone, there are a pair of top-10 finishes, but also rankings of 19th and 24th.
In total defense? The Bengals are yet to finish in the league’s top half under Anarumo, with their best mark being 17th. However, in points allowed, the numbers have gotten better each season, going from 25th in Anarumo’s first year to a career-best sixth in 2022.
Yet throughout Cincinnati’s rapid ascension the past two years, in the biggest games against the best quarterbacks, Anarumo’s unit has consistently answered the bell in a way most defenses have struggled to, given today’s offensive-centric NFL.
“We’re multiple,” says Anarumo. “I think in today’s football you have to be to keep these great offenses and quarterbacks off balance. We do a bunch of different things that may appear like a lot of stuff, but it’s not as much for our players.”
To that point, Anarumo’s greatest strength may stem from the degree he got at Wagner College in the late 1980s. The Staten Island native went to school for teaching, earning a degree in special education.
In 2022, the Bengals opened the season by going seven straight games without giving up a TD after halftime.
Sam Greene/The Enquirer/USA TODAY Network
Reader says Anarumo’s ability to get a complex message across in a clear fashion is something both the coordinator and his assistants are great at—giving them the capacity to coach without simply talking at a player. Reader highlighted the back end of the defense, where there’s considerable youth, as a place where Anarumo really shines (which also makes sense, considering his history as a defensive backs coach).
This year Cincinnati will have a young secondary, including a rookie in corner DJ Turner II and two second-year men in corner Cam Taylor-Britt and safety Dax Hill. Even still, Anarumo isn’t hesitating to play them all.
“We have nine out of 11 starters back,” says Anarumo. “We lost the two safeties. I just feel like the veteran leadership that’s around these new guys is going to be able to help them come along a little bit faster than maybe they would if we didn’t have all that continuity.”
Going into his second year, Hill says he feels more confident, a belief that also comes with a deeper understanding of his coordinator.
“[He is] very aggressive in terms of play-calling,” Hill says. “Definitely loves to get matchy in terms of covering and whatnot. He calls calls for a certain reason, and he definitely knows what he’s doing in calling a defense.”
Entering 2023, the expectations for the Bengals are rightly sky-high. They’re once again AFC North favorites as two-time champs, and one of three favorites to reach the Super Bowl from the AFC, alongside the Chiefs and Bills.
If Cincinnati is finally going to not only reach the final weekend but win its first title, Anarumo and his charges will have plenty to do with it.
“He demands greatness starting in training camp,” says Reader. “When you have your coach over there willing to make adjustments on what you feel comfortable with, what you as a group feel comfortable with and how you can play it, he’s rocking with it every time. We love it. We love his aggression from the sideline, how he calls the plays. I really have no complaints about Lou in this defense. This is fun.”
Fun for the Bengals. But likely an ass-kicking for everyone else.
