I paid $250 to watch THAT sixteen times? Awesome.

It's taken me this long to write about today's "football game" because frankly, I'm at a complete and utter loss as to what I should say regarding it.

Perhaps I should start with "That was one of the most uninspired, disgusting, estrogen-riddled displays of getting punched in the mouth for sixty minutes I've ever seen in my whole entire life."

Yeah, that about does it. The Cincinnati Bengals, if they continue to go out there and get pushed around all day and lay fifteen more eggs like they did this afternoon, will be absolutely lucky to win two games this year.

Perhaps T.J. Houshmandzadeh said it best after the game when he said "We sucked. The defense played great and we didn't play good (sic)."

Although to a point I can't even agree with him that the D played great. There was one, count him ONE player who I was proud to call a member of my favorite team today and that was Jonathan Joseph. J-Joe had a very good game today. He made some good tackles, made a couple excellent plays on the ball, and had that gimme fumble return TD.

Everyone else "sucked," T.J. Yes, yes they all did.

When the O-line is truly offensive enough that Carson Palmer has the worst day of his professional career with a 35.2 passer rating, the team sucks.

When the same O-line is facing a D-line missing one of their best and most powerful physical players in Kelly Gregg (aren't you glad we let him go?) and they are getting blown into the backfield on nearly every running play, the team sucks.

When the defense is on the field for thirty-six minutes and fifteen seconds, the team sucks.

What do we think when a rookie QB from a Div. I-AA school such as Delaware not only out-passes Carson Palmer, but has a thirty-eight yard scramble for a touchdown when his longest run in his college career was for twenty-five yards without a score? We think the team sucks.

Can you guess what we think when the team is facing a "can't overstate how important this play is" 4th and 2 and the offensive coordinator calls...you guessed it...the shovel pass? Go ahead, guess. You're right, and you appear to have figured out the pattern here. The team sucks.

Quick note: Remember that RB I wanted the Bengals to draft, Matt Forte? Started his career with 122 yards against the Colts tonight.

Oh, I can't leave out the other 4th down failure where even though the Ravens had been stuffing them all day long they telegraphed their intentions to God and country by bringing in a sixth offensive lineman in Scott Kooistra only to...wait for it...get stuff for about a -1.5. Note to the Cincinnati Bengals, remember when you used to be able to look at the opposing D-line, say "Hey, we're going to run inside the left guard, try and stop us?" Then you ran inside the left guard who now goes to work on Lake Erie, and no one could stop it anyway, even though you told them? That was in 2005, when you were good. Now, you suck.

I made a joke in this post about Bratkowski's playcalling being as effective as if he were pulling each play off of a game of Madden. I retract that statement, because from what I'm seeing that would actually be MORE effective. I wish every American had the kind of job security that Bratkowki apparently has, because the last time I remember him calling a play that took me by surprise was in 2006 when (playing Baltimore, incidentally) on a fourth-and-short he called a "go" route to Chad Johnson that ended up being a thirty or forty yard touchdown. Since then, it's been stale and uninspired. In 2005 we had the element of surprise in our favor, and his playcalling was "brilliant." Since then, you guessed it. It sucks.

Bengals fans, it's time to make like Prince and party like it's 1999...because our team played as well in the 90's as it did today.

Sincerely,

A Pragmatic Bengals Fan