And so another Cincinnati Bengals regular season is in the books. Is it just me, or does it seem like September was just yesterday? But time flies when you're having fun, and this year has been one of those all-to-rare good times in Bengaldom.

And some of the credit for that must be given to the most reviled man in Bengaldom, owner Mike Brown. Brown shed all the usual descriptors -- incompetent, cheap, uncaring, inflexible -- in 2011 by making or signing off on a series of key decisions that, with one notable exception, turned out to be one home run after another.

Over the course of the season, I have tracked how those decisions have been working out. The first quarter report card, which gave Brown a B-, can be found here and the second quarter report, in which his grade rose to an A-, is here. Unfortunately, other commitments caught up with me and I didn't have an opportunity to write up a third quarter report, but suffice it to say that the string of losses over that time would have knocked Brown's grade back down.

So, with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, let's look at Mike's year.

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Hey, do you hate Mike Brown? Here's a quick quiz to find out:

1. Mike Brown
a) is the owner of the Cincinnati Bengals
b) is a nice old man
c) sucks

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The week between Christmas and New Year’s Day is a popular week for vacations, and it looks like the fact-checkers at CBS Sports are among those who decided to take some time off. How else to explain this this howler from CBSSports.com columnist Ray Ratto, who claims Hamilton County is on the hook for the cost of all the tickets that the Cincinnati Bengals gave away as part of their buy-one-get-one-free deal for the upcoming game against the Baltimore Ravens.

The taxpayers of Hamilton County will pay for it, since they have to buy the tickets that don't get sold as part of their deal with the Bengals when the stadium plan was devised. This is proof that citizens should never allow themselves to allow such a shameful hostage deal. If an NFL team cannot find money to do its own construction project, the owners deserve to perish, or be forced to sell. I mean, they're all essentially billionaires now anyway.

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With four more games in the books, it's time again to take a look at how Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown's offseason decisions have worked out once the footballs started flying. The first quarter report card, which gave Brown a B-, can be found here.

As I wrote then, in the run-up to the 2011 season, Brown made or signed off on a handful of key decisions whose outcomes would significantly impact the team. With half the season to look at, how do his choices stand up now? Let's take a look -- with the caveat that these are just Q2, not final grades, and things could (and almost certainly) will change -- for better and for worse.

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Yesterday, CJ's CIC Josh took aim at Sports Illustrated's Andrew Perloff for his contention that the Cincinnati Bengals aren't for real because most of their victories have come against bad teams. I completely agree with everything Josh wrote, except for one thing: his headline. In calling the easy schedule argument "flawed," he passes up an opportunity to expose the fundamental misunderstanding involved in Perloff's comments.

What do I mean? Just this: consistently beating bad teams is precisely what good teams do.

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Just sayin'.

AFCN QBs Through Week 7

On last night's podcast, CJs own Joe Goodberry said that watching Cincinnati Bengals rookie wide receiver A.J. Green was like watching a unicorn, because you just can't believe what you're seeing. If many fans feel the same way, I wouldn't be surprised, because unless you've been following the Bengals for a very long time, then the number of magic ponies and rookie Cincinnati receivers like Green you've seen are the same: zero.

Through six games, Green has 29 catches for 453 yards and 4 TDs. The last time the Bengals had a rookie wide receiver even pass that ballpark on the freeway was 1994, when Darnay Scott recorded 323 yards and a pair of touchdowns on 17 grabs in his first six games (all, by the way, losses). From there you have to set the wayback machine to 1985 to watch Eddie Brown snag 19 balls for 316 yards and two TDs. Chris Collinsworth (1981) and the incomparable Isaac Curtis (1973) are the only two other Bengals wideouts to get to 300 or more yards receiving in their first six games, and Green still has more catches and TDs than either of them.

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So, are you ready for some draft talk?

It's funny, in all too many years, draft talk was all we had by now. The 0-and-whatever Bengals would already be shutting it down for the season, the fan base would be busy grilling filet of Brown and Paul Daugherty would be groaning about another death march and offering to rake people's lawns. Death, taxes, Bengals draft talk in October: the three sure things in life.

This year, happily, appeared to be one of those magical years in which playoffs, not draft, possibilities were still the subject of conversation before Halloween. Alas, at some point in the last few days, Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown decided (just to mess with the guys at WDR, I'm sure) to play GM for a day and traded disgruntled QB Carson Palmer to the Oakland Raiders for a king's ransom in draft picks.

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With week four of the NFL season in the books, it's time for the inevitable spate of "first quarter of the season grades" stories. And no one deserves a good grading more than Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown, the guy whose desk bears a plaque reading "the buck stops next year."

In the run-up to the 2011 season, Brown made or signed off on a handful of key decisions whose outcomes would significantly impact the team. With a quarter of the season to look at, how do his choices stand up now? Let's take a look -- with the caveat that these are just Q1, not final grades, and things could (and almost certainly) will change -- for better and for worse.

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We’re No. 2! We’re No. 2! Yes, Cincinnati Bengals fans, our team is No. 2 in the nation when it comes to least-favorite NFL squads, according to a poll released today (.pdf) by Harris.

The survey of 2,462 adults found that the only team in the NFL about which fans give less of a crap is this week’s opponent, the Jacksonville Jaguars. (In other words, don't expect this puppy to set any TV ratings records.)

The Bengals’ decline to the 31st-favorite team in a 32-team league reverses a slight upward trend from 2008, when they bottomed out at 32. In ’09, the Bengals rose to 29, and last year tied for 27th place. So if you’re looking for anything else to blame on Carson Palmer, here ya go.

Jacksonville, meanwhile, retained its position as the league’s least favorite team for a third straight year. The Jaguars have ranked 32nd in the survey for six of the last seven years. (And yes, Mike Brown is jealous.)

For the fifth straight year, the Dallas Cowboys finished as America’s favorite team, perhaps because Tony Romo is such an accomplished and entertaining choke artist – or maybe Jerry Jones just paid Harris off. The Cowboys are followed by the Pittsburgh Sanitation Engineers, with the Green Bay Packers, New England Patriots and Chicago Bears rounding out the top five.

Not long before the start of today's game, I wandered over to da site, where I found that Geoff Hobson, whose blog postings are almost as intermittent as mine, had thrown up a few thoughts. Specifically, he was cautioning fans against reading too much into the 2011 Bengals, who had yet to be tested.

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Eight hundred seventy-five million dollars. Say it out loud. Let it roll around on your tongue for a minute. Try some different inflections: eight hundred seventy five million dollars. Eight hundred seventy-five million dollars. Whatever, it pretty much sounds great no matter how you say it. I'm sure there's some sad comment on me, America and humanity in general in there somewhere, but this is a football blog, not a late-night college bull session (though admittedly the two are easily confused).

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No need to tune in on Sunday. The experts have spoken and the verdict is clear: the Cincinnati Bengals have no chance whatsoever against the Cleveland Browns in Week 1.

(OK, well, there is that one guy who picked ‘em. But you can ignore him because he’s, y’know, a blogger.)

This is, of course, despite the fact that the Browns are dealing with a new offense, a new defense, a new coach and significant personnel turnover of their own. Doesn’t matter, since all the experts agree: the 2011 Cincinnati Bengals are the worst team that has existed, exists or will exist in any sport at any time and in any place across the infinite reaches of this universe and all parallel dimensions.

Why? BecauseMikeBrownCarsonPalmerSHUTUP!!!that’swhy.

Never mind that the Bengals went 4-12 with Carson last season. Never mind his role in the 88.5-point swing against the team caused by interceptions last season. Never mind that ESPN’s precious new QB rating system declared Carson "average" in 2010. That’s all on-field stuff. Doesn’t matter. Because MikeBrownCarsonPalmerSHUTUP!!!

Over to you, Ced.

"And nobody thinks we’re going to be worth a damn this year, huh? So it’s great for us."

Yup. Now get out there and make it great for us here as well. I got plenty of crow on order and I don’t plan on eating it myself.

Right now, the Conventional Wisdom is that the 2011 Cincinnati Bengals are going to be a bad team. Every power ranking has them listed at or near the bottom. Vegas has set the over/under on Bengals wins for the season at a whopping 5.5 games. The fan base can be generously described as "glum" and appears largely resigned to another "rebuilding" (a.k.a. "miserable losing") season. However, there’s a reason to think that the Conventional Wisdom might be wrong.

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Over at CBS, Mike Freeman joins the parade of columnists examining the foibles and failures of the NFL's most forlorn franchise, our own beloved Cincinnati Bengals. Of all the recent efforts, Freeman's stands out to me because instead of writing jokes or penning a polemic, he adopts a just-the-facts approach that minimizes the editorializing and -- most importantly -- does some actual reporting on Bengals players and their thoughts on the state and prospects of the team.

What he found was this:

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Of all the undrafted free agents collected by the Cincinnati Bengals in 2011, the one who's garnered the most attention has been former Kentucky DE DeQuin Evans. Evans "has impressed with his speed rush and exhaustive study habits," wrote Geoff Hobson, site editor at Bengals.com, and Cincinnati Enquirer Bengals beat writer Joe Reedy tapped him as the undrafted rookie with the best chance of making the roster.

All this is even more impressive when you realize that Evans didn't even start playing until 2007. And that his first experience with the game came while he was in juvenile detention in California.

At 15, he was stopped in a stolen car that had been related to gang activity.

His sentence: 16 months in a juvenile detention facility.

He was sent to Camp Kilpatrick in Malibu, where the rehabilitation program included football.

In games where a player from one gang might be opposite or next to a player from a rival gang, things got rough. Fights were common.

The 2006 movie The Gridiron Gang was based on Camp Kilpatrick. After he was released, a cousin pointed him toward football, but Evans spent six months training on his own first before approaching Los Angeles Harbor Junior College. And that work ethic has served him well over the past few weeks.

"He's got a lot of new positions to learn," Coach Marvin Lewis said. "His effort is outstanding. He just has to keep coming and developing, and we'll see what happens. But it won't be because he didn't try at it, whether it be at the linebacker spots or down at the rusher in our substituted defenses or whatever his role is on special teams. He's a good prospect and hopefully he continues to grow and can do some things."

Read the whole thing. Here's hoping he makes it.

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In his presser earlier today, Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis confirmed that rookie QB Andy Dalton will get his first taste of the NFL Friday night, leading the Bengals’ first-string offense against the Detroit Lions’ first-string defense. What can we expect? What might constitute "success?" Well, if history is any guide, the answers are "not a lot" and "maybe a field goal." Initial preseason outings for new Bengals quarterbacks have generally been uninspiring affairs.

For example, back in 2004, Carson Palmer was set to take the helm as the new starting quarterback of the Cincinnati Bengals, despite a surprising 8-8 finish engineered by journeyman Jon Kitna the year before. In the preseason opener against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the Bengals got the ball first and drove from their own 27 across midfield, largely on the strength of RB Rudi Johnson’s legs. Palmer attempted four passes on the drive, completing two. Unfortunately, the second completion was to Tampa Bay CB Ronde Barber.

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Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis joined Jim Miller and Solomon Wilcots on NFL Radio on Sirius tonight, and among other things didn't hesitate to predict that seventh-round pick Jay Finley would do great things this year.

"Our little runner Jay Finley who we got at the end of the draft I think will make an impact for us...he's a guy who will make a big difference for us this year, gives us what we were looking for and is that kind of change-of-pace guy that has great speed and the ability to catch a football."

I'm sure that's welcome news (not) to Bengals current change-of-pace guy RB Bernard Scott, a three-year veteran that many fans feel has never gotten enough chances -- and has often been poorly utilized when he did get on the field. In 29 games, Scott has 620 yards on 135 carries, and 16 receptions for 121 yards. On the team's first camp depth chart, Scott occupied second chair while Finley was in a scrum for "other." Bernard is also the team's No. 1 kick returner.

However, Scott has also had some injury issues and hasn't been practicing lately due to a hamstring injury. Motivation for him to "rub a little dirt on it?" A hint the hammy injury is worse than thought? Marvin messing with our heads? I don't know, but Marvin bringing up a seventh round pick in between talking about vet free agents, Andy Dalton and A.J. Green certainly got my ear.

The Cincinnati Bengals are talking with safety Donte Whitner, according to The Enquirer's Joe Reedy.

The former Buckeye, a first-round pick in 2006, has spent his entire five-year NFL career with the Buffalo Bills, where he's amassed 451 tackles, 1.5 sacks, 5 picks and 3 forced fumbles. Last week, the Buffalo News said that the Bills weren't expected to bring him back.

The Bengals have been needy at safety for a while. Former Cowboy Roy Williams, who arrived in 2009, appeared in just 16 games in two seasons due to injury and is currently a free agent. Nine-year veteran Chris Crocker has been a hard-hitter on the field, but has also struggled with injuries, missing 18 games over the last three seasons. Five-year veteran Chinedum Ndukwe is also a free agent, and so far the Bengals have not shown any inclination they want him back, either. The team did re-sign Gibril Wilson yesterday, but he's coming off an ACL injury.

UPDATE: Fresh tweet from the Cryptkeeper:

There is a good chance safety Donte Whitner gets a deal done with the Bengals. It would be a nice fit.

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In the wake of news that the Cincinnati Bengals have reached a deal with Oakland Raiders linebacker Thomas Howard, Bengals.com's Geoff Hobson passes along word that starting weakside LB Keith Rivers is coming off surgery and may miss time this fall.

There are indications that Rivers underwent wrist surgery and may not be available for what could be the first several weeks of the season.

This won't be Rivers' first bout with the injury list. The Bengals' first-round pick in 2008, he missed more than half his rookie season after taking a jaw-breaking cheap shot from Pittsburgh Steeler WR Hines Ward. He missed three games in 2009 with various dings and fought plantar fasciitis all last year.

If Rivers is out, Howard should slide easily into his spot. Coming into free agency this year, Walter listed him as a potential starting weakside 'backer for a new team in 2011.

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