Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis was highly complimentary of the Falcons on offense and defense as he spoke to the Atlanta media during Wednesday's conference call
On coming off a bye week:
"I think the bye week, regardless of when it comes, you try to use it to your advantage and it will set up well for your team."
On what he notices from the Falcons:
"I think, starting with the defense as you mentioned first, they are an athletic group. I think they do a great job with the up-front guys. It's a good wave of guys there. They do a good job with their four-man rushes. They are very well-designed in their pressures. They've been opportunistic on defense and created some turnovers. So they played well there, prior to last week. The thing that had tried to improve on from a year ago was giving up the explosive plays. I think that was one of the biggest improvements they had made from last season, particularly early last season. I think offensively, I think Matt Ryan gets the ball out of his hands. Michael Turner is an excellent running back. He runs behind his pads. He's strong and powerful. They've got big, physical wide receivers too, who play the game very, very hard. Tony Gonzalez does a great job of route running and catching the football and making plays, whether it be vertical plays or third down plays."
On Cedric Benson:
"I don't know if runners start out slow. I think the guys up front and around him may start slow. We've got to do a good job, week-in and week-out of getting all the right guys up front. Our backs have to stay disciplined in their tracks and do a good job in the running game."
On the Bengals' D-line:
"I think if Jonathan (Fanene) is able to come back and play for us, he will help us. He plays very hard, he can have some flexibility at positions in spots he plays. We've got to do a much better job up front and get better production up there in our four-man rushes, and when we get an opportunity, get the quarterback down on the ground."
On Mike Johnson:
"Well we feel the Michael is a good, young player still, a good prospect and continues to get better. He's played a couple different spots for us. We trained him most of camp at linebacker and over the last couple of weeks he's played more of the defensive line. That gives us some versatility."
On Roddy White:
"Roddy is a big guy that really does a good job of running routes and they are very timely in their passing game. To me, he does a good job. He's catching some intermediate routes, he's catching some vertical plays and he does a really good job. He plays the game physical and helps in the running game so he's an all-around very good receiver."
On Bengals' linebackers:
"I think the last couple of weeks they've played pretty well. Keith (Rivers) has been fighting through a little bit of the lower leg stuff, but he keeps advancing at this level of play and we've got some depth behind those guys so it's a good group."
On Adam Jones:
"He plays outside, so that's what he does and he plays well for us. If he keeps getting better each week, and stays disciplined the whole time and great technique and do the things we have to do within the structure of the defense each and every snap, and kind of take care of yourself and good things will happen for you."
On Jonathan Joseph:
"We'll see how Jonathan does this week and we should be ready to go."
