Fitzpatrick to get the start today

Just broken a little while ago by Adam Schefter on NFL Network is the news that Ryan Fitzpatrick will make his fourth career start (first with the Bengals) this afternoon.

Jordan Palmer will back him up, and Carson is listed as the emergency/#3 QB.

Here's the story from Bengals.com

My take: I don't think this is the worst idea. Carson's throwing elbow is sore, and he's really taken a beating so far. Fitz has the mobility to evade the inside pass rush that Shaun Rogers will bring.

Anyway, we'll see.

Bench Warrant out for Jason Shirley.

Awesome.

Hey kids, the lesson in this after-school special is this. If you're supposed to go to court...




Go. To. Court.

This is the song that never ends...

Well folks, I'm sufficiently recovered from the broken heart suffered after watching Bob Bratkowski take what chance the Bengals had (and it was a good one) of getting their first win of the season in overtime on Sunday.

Riddle me this: After two-plus games of utter offensive futility offsetting pretty decent defensive play, your quarterback has finally gotten on the same page with his go-to receiver and your third receiver is making some really good things happen out of the slot. Your football team has been, shall we say less than effective running the ball up the middle all year so far, but your offensive line is finally starting to make some strides by opening running lanes on the right side (a 25 yd TD run by Chris Perry earlier in the game) and is giving your quarterback some time to go through his progressions. This is the same quarterback who caught fire in the fourth quarter and went 7-for-7 on the game-tying drive, even after being on the receiving end of his second bloody nose in five games earlier that day. So what do you as an offensive coordinator do?

If your name happens to be Bob Bratkowski, you try to run the ball up the gut, of course. And you know what? I even think I might have been fine doing it once, on first down. It's probably a good thing that I missed the Bengals' offensive series in OT because I was in the process of changing channels from local television (where they cut away to show the Browns 1.0 v Browns 2.0 game) to the Sunday Ticket, at which time Kyle Larson was already set to receive the football.

Had I actually watched Bratkowski call the same stupid run up the gut on second down that got stuffed for 2 yards on first down, I would have promptly thrown my awesome new Bengals remote through my new television set and summarily been banned by my wife from watching Cincinnati football for the rest of the season. Which, in hindsight, might not be the worst thing I could have done to me.

The Bengals' defense held the Giants' ground game to sixty yards less than they'd averaged through the first two games, played with heart for over sixty minutes and damn near won that football game. Anyone out there sorry they didn't bet on the Bengals to cover the spread?

Then Bob Bratkowski outsmarted himself and did precisely what I've come to expect him to do every week. He urinated directly down his leg and lost the game for his football team who had played their tails off trying to win it.

I have another question as well. Where were Marvin Lewis' and Carson Palmer's collective heads when the second run was called? I don't even know if Marvin cares anymore so he may have been thinking about his dinner reservations rather than coaching a football game at that point, but what about Carson? Why didn't he check out of one of those two poorly called run plays into a play-action pass to T.J.? Mr. Houshmandzadeh had 147 (yes, you read it correctly. One. Hundred. Forty. Seven.) yards receiving and simply couldn't be stopped. Why not throw it to him on first or second down when the Giants' defense wouldn't have their ears pinned back looking to take Palmer's head off?

That's fine, boys. I can't tell you how exciting it is to be rooting for a team that's 0-3.

~

Speaking of teams that are 0-3, did you know that the Browns v 2.0 are coming to PBS on Sunday? Yes, you heard me correctly, come 4 p.m. on Sunday one of the two Ohio teams will leave Paul Brown Stadium with an 0-4 record. Let me explain exactly why that frustrates me so much.

There has been talk all week about the ever-increasing temperature of the seat under one Romeo Crennel, as rightly there should be. His team was 10-6 last year, which saved him from being fired and earned him an extension. This year they have promptly proceeded to get crushed three consecutive times and face their third division rival out of their first four games this weekend. His seat should be atomic at this point. If the Browns come out as the losers on Sunday, Romeo Crennel's clock is ticking. Be it Monday morning or the day after their season officially ends, Phil Savage will punch Crennel's ticket out of Cleveland as a result of the pitiful play of a team that was picked by many (no one outside of Cleveland or the sports media, but still) to contend for a title this year.

Cleveland 0-4=new head coach for the Browns at some point in the near future

In stark relief, we see Marvin Lewis. Two years ago after going 11-5 with a one-and-done playoff appearance in which his star player went UFC in the locker room and nothing happened to him, his team collapsed down the stretch in 2006 failing to win any of the three games that would have given them back-to-back playoff appearances. 8-8 was the result. The year after that was infinitely worse in regards to quality of play, although the record only showed a minor difference with a 7-9 record in 2007.

Now the team opens up with an 0-3 record in 2008, which is the worst start they've had since Marvin's been around.

If the Bengals lose on Sunday and are 0-fer the first quarter of the football season, we'll "have to be more consistent and play better, make more football plays, keep shovelling, do our job," etc.

I beg to differ Marvin. This is the most sickeningly consistent football team I have ever seen. The only problem is, their consistency consists of finding new and better ways to lose, week in and week out.

There is absolutely no urgency. Not from Brown, not from Lewis, not from Palmer, not from anyone in this Godforsaken franchise.

Until that changes, nothing else will.

Sincerely,

A Pragmatic Bengals Fan




P.S. You might want to pick up Brady Quinn off of waivers this week for your fantasy team. Just sayin'.

At least I have one good thing to look forward to this week:

The first (abbreviated due to the writers' strike) season of my favorite television show, Chuck, came out on DVD today and I summarily ran down to Best Buy and used one of my gift cards to purchase it. I am really looking forward to re-watching all of the episodes I lost from my DVR when I switched from Time Warner to DirecTV a few months ago, in addition to what is reported to be excellent special feature material including a gag reel well over ten minutes long.

Why did I have Best Buy gift cards sitting in my wallet, you ask? It's a long story involving AT&T, the iPhone 3G, and false promises from the AT&T store that I wouldn't have to pay more than the new contract price in spite of the fact that I'm not up for an equipment upgrade until March. The long and short of it is this: 1.) Bought Best Buy gift cards from Giant Eagle to redeem FuelPerks, 2.) Found out upon arriving to Best Buy that the system will not allow me to upgrade until March, and 3.) Several hours on the phone with AT&T's helpless desk to basically be told that because I believed what their employees told me that I now have no choice but to sit on $750 in gift cards that cannot be returned because they were activated when purchased.

Oh, they'd let me upgrade on October 1st if I did it at the AT&T store. Not that that helps me with these gift cards that I have to find an alternative use for now.

Thanks, AT&T. You guys are swell.

~

Okaaaaaay, now that I've bored you all with the random musings of a disgruntled customer, let's talk football, shall we? Would you like the bad news or the bad news first? The bad news, you say? Great!

1.) Jonathan Joseph is likely out for a couple/few weeks. This is not official, but today CB Geoffrey Pope was promoted from the practice squad to the 53-man roster. So let's see here...Plaxico Burress in our secondary, minus our most solid cover man, plus David Jones on the field more. I'll just go ahead and say NYG 42, CIN 6 for Sunday. Sounds about right.

2.) After a week in which Dan Coats threw some pretty good blocks as the starting FB, he'll be spending some time at TE once again this week with Ben Utecht likely being three weeks away from being able to tolerate the pain in his chest well enough to return. This likely means that the Juggernaut should get some limited looks in the backfield blocking for Perry, unless Bratkowski once again shows his incredible ability to NOT ADJUST HIS GAMEPLAN. I actually think that getting Maui'a on the field could be a good thing, but it remains to be seen and I would imagine we'll see it for the first time a bit on Sunday in New York.

~

All in all, if Joseph is a no-go, I agree with CincyJungle's Kirkendall when he says "uh-oh." Say what you will about the Giants, but they have rings and the Bengals don't. I fully anticipate a more accurate reflection on the scoreboard at the end of Sunday's game than we've seen the previous two weeks, where the score remained close(ish) in spite of the Bengals getting manhandled all day long by the opposing lines on both sides of the ball.

As a matter of fact, I'm certain that the Bengals will go 0-3 with or without Joseph. If he doesn't play, however, it's going to be really, really ugly. To prepare yourself, go and watch a re-run of last year's Thursday night season opener when Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne took Jason David to school all night long.

Remember, the Saints cut David Jones loose and kept Jason David.

It's gonna be another long, long, long Sunday afternoon in Bengal Nation, I'm afraid.

Sincerely,

A Pragmatic Bengals Fan

Still Optimistic

A lot of Bengal fans are jumping off the wagon. That is a shame because this team is about to turn the corner. On paper, the defense allowed an other 100 yard rusher. What I saw was on Sunday was a Bengal's defense that played tough and stuffed the run. That was a good running team that the Bengals played yesterday and when a back of Johnson's caliber has that many carries, he is going to break a big run.

My colleague here mentioned the nice play of Odom and Rivers. I will add Rucker, Ndukwe, and Hall to that list. These guys and the rest of the defense is getting better every week. They are playing faster and tougher then they have had in a long time. That is good. Imagine what this group could do if the offense helped them out. This is a unit that can rank in the top 15 by season's end.

The offense was a mess yesterday. Still there were good things to take away. Whitworth kept one of the best DTs in the league in check. Perry made some nice runs against a team that knew the run was coming. Palmer had a lot more time to throw the ball. Those are things to build on. Also, it is unlikely Palmer, Chad, and TJ are going to be out of sync for the rest of the season. They are going to get it together. They have too much pride not to. Once that happens, and if the D continues to improve like they are, the Bengals will be back in the hunt.

Oh yeah...now I remember.

From C. Trent's blog, this is what a sellout crowd looked like in the fourth quarter of today's "football game" at Paul Brown Stadium.

You know, for a while there I had kind of forgotten what it was like to be part of a fanbase that represents absolute irrelevance.

You know what? That was kind of nice.

Lost in the debacle of Sunday's mediocrity (although "mediocrity" might be giving this team too much credit) were a couple of positives, believe it or not.

1. Keith Rivers looks to be a far cry from the "Poor man's Brian Simmons" that I and others feared he'd be coming out of the draft. The kid is very, very good and will only get better. It's a shame that he will spend his formative years in the NFL on such a wretched team.


2. I know Antwan Odom had an axe to grind today, but he played very well also. Odom is officially the best defensive end we have on this team, and the better he plays throughout the year will be a boon to Robert Geathers' production as well. I can't wait until Sims and Shirley are up to speed and healthy enough to relegate John Thornton to passing downs so he can be rested enough to be effective in the role he should be playing, i.e. penetrating and getting after the passer. Thornton flashed a couple of times today, as I've noticed he can do from time to time when he's not out on the field in run defense for so long he gets worn down.

Mike Zimmer and Jeff FitzGerald can build around these two young players, and this defensive unit could actually be on the way up faster than I gave it credit for going into this season.

It's a real shame that any improvement that the defensive unit has made or will make will now be overshadowed by the utter ineptitude that trots out on the offensive side of the ball every Sunday.

Wait, I want you to go back and read that last sentence again. Read it with the knowledge that for the first time since 2004, I have absolutely no confidence at all in the Bengals' offense. That's none whatsoever. It's a real shame that only two years ago I would have had no doubt about the Bengals' ability to march the ball down the field in a two minute drill, regardless of the team that stood in their way. The previous two weeks I have sat in my living room shaking my head while I watched my favorite sports team redefine the word "impotent."

When Chris Perry isn't giving his teammates fumble recovery practice, he really is a pretty good running back. The problem is that his name is not Barry Sanders, which means he cannot gain positive yardage by creating his own holes behind a craptastic offensive line. No effective run blocking equals no run game, and that equals the passing game going to hell in a hand basket like we've all witnessed for the past six games (including preseason).

~

Once again, the playcalling on offense was absolutely putrid. Bob Bratkowski should win some kind of award for his inability to adjust a game plan that his players are not executing. What, you thought Brat was out of my doghouse this week because he didn't trot out the shovel pass again?

Don't worry, I'm sure he'll use it twice next week to make up for lost ground and to hit his quota.

~

Lastly, before I wrap things up for the night and start heading towards the sack, is it too much to ask for Marvin Lewis to go Jim Mora or Dennis Green at some point? Listening to Marvin and Carson talk about the last two performances, if you hadn't seen the game you would have a completely different perspective on the game than those of us unlucky enough to have watched. The comments and demeanor we see from our head coach and quarterback would indicate a team that was actually in the contest for a while and hadn't recently come off of a two-year decline from division champ to perennial chump.

There's no fire, there's no heart, there's no urgency, there's no anything that a team needs to win football games.

My son's name is Carson and that didn't happen by accident, so you know how much of a Palmer fan I am. That makes it hurt that much more to say that it's starting to look like Palmer is thinking about cashing in his chips here in Cincinnati. A quarterback of his caliber shouldn't be making the kinds of mistakes he's making (to be fair, I think he only really owns one of his three INTs this year...I mean really, how dare he hit his receivers in the numbers!), and it looks more and more like he's checking out each week.

I'm getting pretty close to saying if we don't show up at the Meadowlands next weekend, we may as well trot Fitzpatrick out there against Cleveland. Why not? Part of me wants to think that watching their star quarterback riding the pine because his teammates can't protect him, catch the football or hang onto it when they DO get their hands on the ball would fire the Bengals' offense up, but at this point I seriously doubt it.

Now where did I put that brown paper bag again?

Sincerely,

A Pragmatic Bengals Fan

So...the Bengals play the Titans tomorrow.

Well all, as I sit watching the Irish beating scUM (ALWAYS fun to watch) and waiting for the tOSU/USC kickoff, I wonder what we're going to see tomorrow.

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Dexter Jackson is out and Chinedum Ndukwe is expected to start in his place, although he apparently hasn't been cleared to play by the coaching staff just yet. With Dexter Jackson out, perhaps we won't have to see another picture like the one above, taken from the Cincinnati Enquirer.

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Ndukwe's presence in the game will be a benefit, and the combination of Ndukwe and White should lock down the middle of the field pretty well in run support.

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As we've talked about ad nauseum, however, the focus (both ours and Tennessee's) is on the Bengals' offensive line. They lucked out and didn't have to deal with Kelly Gregg last week, but it looks like there's no getting around Albert Haynesworth tomorrow as he's expected to play.

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Personally, in a way I'm looking forward to watching Haynesworth eat Ghiaciuc's lunch all day long, so that maybe we'll stop hearing this nonsense about Ghiaciuc being physically able to match up with opposing nose tackles.

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"But Craig, it's Albert Haynesworth! No one can block him, and Carson Palmer said so. This Sunday won't be any indication of Ghiaciuc's ability to block the huge nose tackles in our division!"

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If you find yourself saying some nonsensical rambling like what I just typed there, talk to me tomorrow. Then talk to me the following Sunday, and the one that comes after that.

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No matter what Eric Ghiaciuc says to the contrary, he doesn't have the girth or strength to deal with opposing linemen. Tomorrow won't be the evidence of that, but it will be the continuation of the evidence that has presented itself for nearly two years already.

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~

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One the other side of the coin, if (and I do mean IF) the offensive line can keep the rushers off of Palmer, this is a winnable game. Yes, Kerry Collins is experienced and will be uber-motivated tomorrow due to the Vince Young mess creating a possibility of a Collins-led offense for the rest of the season, but I think the Bengals' defense will remain motivated for a few more weeks and continue to improve.

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One point I failed to make after last week's game is this: Do the Bengals have an equipment manager? After watching the fifth or so Bengal slip and slide around the turf in Baltimore, I figured they were waiting for halftime to make the cleat change that would give our boys better footing. Then Keith Rivers slipped past Joe Flacco and lost his footing so badly that he couldn't catch him again until he tackled him across the goal line.

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As usual, the fifteen minutes between the second and third quarter seemed to have been spent by taking a team nap rather than adjusting.

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Shucks, even when I'm trying to be optimistic about tomorrow's game I'm finding it impossible to do so. As Marvin Lewis and Carson Palmer said this week, Sunday was only one game. That is inherently true, but that one game seemed to be an amalgamation of every mistake we've seen this team make over the past three years all rolled into one big ball of suck.

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So who knows...maybe the Bengals pull it together tomorrow afternoon and pull out a win in a wet, rainy home opener. You'll forgive me if I don't hold my breath, won't you?

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Who dey.

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Sincerely,

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A Pragmatic Bengals Fan

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EDIT: Thanks, Blogger, for your ever-increasingly occuring phenomenon of not letting me space out my article without random punctuation.