Everywhere I look I see articles touting the Bengals' stellar offseason. Fantastic draft, smart trades, bolstered the defensive depth through free agency. And then I get to BenJarvus Green-Ellis. Yes, I believe he is an upgrade over Cedric Benson. I also don't think it would be hard to find an upgrade to Cedric Benson. Frankly, if Cedric Benson was 2 years younger he would be an upgrade to the 2012 model of Cedric Benson. Green-Ellis is steady, a great redzone scoring threat, and doesn't fumble. All things Benson was not. But there is always one thing that these articles mention that throws me for a loop: "Green-Ellis is a better receiver out fo the backfield than Benson."

For the life of me, I can't tell where ANYONE is getting this. It almost seems like it's just been said so many times that everyone has just accepted it as fact. Here are the actual facts. Since 2008:

Cedric Benson - 80 rec, 556 yds, 6.9 ypc, 1 TD

BenJarvus Green-Ellis - 26 rec, 292 yds, 11.2 ypc, 0 TD

Take into account however you'd like that Green-Ellis was having the ball passed to him by Tom Brady. However that might skew your interpretation, it should also be noted that 3 of those years Benson was playing for Bob Bratkowski and in 2010, the last year of that very un-WCO regime, he had 28 receptions or, if you prefer, more receptions than Green-Ellis has had in his entire career with the Patriots. Yes, his YPC is double Benson's, but his sample size is so small that it hardly seems to mean anything. I don't think even in a perfect world anyone expects him to put up 11 YPC in this offense. Ray Rice has a career YPC of 8.9.

So where is this image of Green-Ellis the prototypical WCO pass catching RB coming from? I've watched the guy play. There isn't anything intangible in his game that would lead me to believe he'd be a good target if he was utilized more. He certainly doesn't have any experience in a WCO.

We upgraded our line with WHarton and Zeitler and I do believe that Green-Ellis is a slight upgrade over Benson, but I still have to wonder if we should have been more aggressive about finding a real answer at RB. I don't think it will hamstring us this season, but I do think we'll be in the market for a 1st or 2nd round RB next year and I hope Green-Ellis' contract doesn't make us complacent to just stick with him like we did with Benson.

From Dawg Sports:

In addition to a link to a fantastic story about the then-top-rated TE recruit breaking the BCS Championship trophy outside Urban Meyer's office with his butt (and presumably costing him a scholarship offer to Florida), here are some highlights:

When we see that, over the course of his Bulldog career, Charles averaged 14.6 yards per catch yet only 34.3 yards per game, we are more likely to curse Mike Bobo for underutilizing his five-star skill player than we are to hold Charles responsible for any shortcomings. After all, his junior campaign (45 catches for five touchdowns) nearly equaled the totals from his first two years combined (49 catches for five touchdowns).

I make no excuses for the run-in with the law, though it sometimes seems as though being arrested while operating a motor vehicle is for a Georgia football player what living at River Mill is for a Georgia undergraduate who is not a scholarship athlete: something you simply have to do if you’re enrolled at the University long enough.

Regarding the time it takes Charles to run 40 yards in a straight line, though, I would simply note that any offensive coordinator who considers assigning him the task of running 40 yards in a straight line probably is missing the point. Admittedly, as a Bulldog fan, I tend to be more forgiving of tight ends than of wide receivers, but the beauty of 6’3", 251-pound Orson Charles is that what was said of William Hurt as an actor---that he was a character actor trapped in a leading man’s body---is true of our man Orson, as well: Charles is a wide receiver trapped in a tight end’s body, and, if Georgia’s offensive coordinator were as adept at putting hybrid-type players in positions to succeed as Georgia’s defensive coordinator is, Charles would be seen for the special talent that he is.

And most importantly:

It won’t surprise me in the slightest if, some day, we see the former Bulldog tight end standing on the dais as a member of a Super Bowl-winning squad.

A very good friend of mine is a die hard Georgia fan and doesn't really care much about the NFL. He was the first one to call me - ECSTATIC - last year when we drafted AJ Green. He was more excited than I was, and anyone around here last year knows I was pretty damn excited. I got a similar phone call this year: "You just got the biggest steal in the draft!" The more I think about Jay Gruden working the middle of the field with Jordan Shipley, Jermaine Gresham, and now Charles while AJ blows the top off and Muhamed Sanu finding holes in the intermediate routes...It could be downright Patriots-esque. It's obviously very early, but Charles might be sneaking in as my favorite prospect in this year's amazing haul. It wouldn't surprise me if we looked back in 2 or 3 years and realized we found a gem.

OK...good night's sleep, I'm a bit calmer. Looking at the big picture now and I feel better.

DreK comes in and immediately starts at nickel making our secondary one of the deepest in the conference. We should have our pick of guys to move to FS on passing downs. While we still don't have anyone on the roster we can put on an island - and I don't think DreK will ever turn into that guy, either - we have a wealth of DB's now who can mix and match to be able to contain just about any passing attack. I worry that we're still going to pretty much end up with two #2 starters in Hall and DreK, but once Stephon Gilmore came off the board I'm not sure we had much of a choice. Clearly Jenkins' red flags were enough to keep 31 other teams from drafting him in the 1st round, too, so this was a solid move that makes us better right away and gives us a stable if unremarkable safety net going forward.

The mountain really had to come to me, metaphorically, with Big Z. The thing about Kevin Zeitler is that I have no doubt he can and likely will be a very good OG. But he will always be seen as "the guy we passed on David DeCastro for" and, to make things worse, he's going to be that guy very blatantly twice a year for a long time with the Steelers getting the steal of the first round. If we had taken DeCastro with the 21st pick the round would have been a homerun. As it stands it's a nice ground-rule double. Zeitler comes in day 1 and starts next to Andre making the right side of our line an absolute wrecking crew. It won't win many style points, but you point at the guy across the line of scrimmage and say "Knock that guy down" and it's going to happen. It makes me much more comfortable with the prospect of going after Lamarr Miller in the 2nd and MUCH more comfortable with going after Isaiah Pead in the 3rd, though we will have to move up in either of those rounds to get one of those guys. Big Z doesn't offer Andy Dalton the elite pass protection DeCastro would have, but the gain in the running game should help offset that by keeping defenses honest. I'm not a huge fan of Paul Alexander (as some may have noticed in my particularly venomous post last night), but if it is HONESTLY true that they had Zeitler and DeCastro ranked equally on their board, it was a shrewd move to trade back. My only complaint would be you probably could have traded back even FARTHER, even out of the round, and still gotten him while adding multiple picks including a 2nd rounder. But our offensive line got a LOT better with the addition of Zeitler and Wharton, and that's the bottom line. DeCastro is a Steeler and that sucks, but it doesn't discount the marked improvement on one of our weaker units. Better line = better offense = better football team. The End.

B- on the first round. Depending on what moves we make with the extra picks to hopefully get at least one gamechanger (Stephon Hill, Miller, Pead, Sanu, etc) that could become a B or a B+.

Per the official Facebook feed. I'm sure no one's going to be crying over this, but the timing seems very odd to me. Does this suddenly make Mark Barron a "must get" in the first round for us? I just don't see the advantage in releasing Crocker before the draft and adding a huge hole that will need to be filled in the early rounds. Before today we were pretty well set to pick BPA in the first couple rounds. Now we might have an issue. I'm assuming there was some kind of roster bonus involved, but how much could that have possibly been?

From Peter King this morning:

I think if I'm a Bengals fan, and I'm trying to analyze what they're doing in free agency, the conclusion I would come to is this: They are plumbing the depths of the lower-middle-class and seeing what, if anything, sticks. Derrick Harvey and Jamaal Anderson are two of the most disappointing highly drafted pass-rushers in recent years. Check out their stat line on profootballfocus.com. In the last two seasons, Anderson and Harvey have combined for eight sacks and 34 pressures in 1,307 combined defensive plays.

Imagine getting drafted in the first round, and barely producing, and there are the Bengals, with a nice soft landing spot. The only saving grace is the money, which is minor.

I'm not crazy about Cincy giving $3 million a year for BenJarvus Green-Ellis, who is not a make-them-miss runner and whose biggest attributes are that he catches the ball well and doesn't fumble. But he's a good, unselfish guy to have on the roster.

Read more: http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2012/writers/peter_king/03/26/meetings/index.html#ixzz1qERDf3Qs

Hard to argue with much of that. I think the Bengals were primed to make significant upgrades in this free agency period, but instead they decided to basically stand pat. The one thing this kind of thinking (and most major national media analysis) isn't taking into account, though, is the wealth of early round draft picks we have over the next two years. We've approached this free agency with the mindset of a team that knows it is going to have an infusion of top draft talent and also face more than a few major contract extensions over the next 3-4 years. Atkins, Dunlap, Dalton, AJ, Gresham. We couldn't have seriously been in the hunt for Mario Williams - not unless we were willing to let most of those guys walk in a few years (Andy and AJ aside).

Still, as much as some of us Bengals fans are up in arms about the lack of respect the media has given the team over the past two weeks, you also can't say they really went out and strained themselves to improve the team. They made some solid moves, but at the end of the whole process going into the pre-draft period, we're basically the same team on paper we were in January, with a little less cap space and a little less age (and proven production). But the larger point is, it will be impossible to gauge this free agency until after the draft. If we don't land DeCastro or Glenn then the failure to go after Nicks or Grubbs or Mathis will look pretty pathetic. If we don't get an elite DB then the signings of Allen, Jones, and even Nelson will look a bit impotent. If we don't get a real homerun RB threat, even if it's a bit of a project player who only needs 10-15 touches a game, then the Green-Ellis signing will look like a bandaid on a bullet wound.

So let's hold off on the judgments - both on the team and on the media - for another couple weeks. We'll know a lot more soon.

With Mario Manningham gone, free agency is essentially picked clean. The only option left would be a run at Mike Wallace - which would be a brilliant move and totally worth the price, but not something I envision Mike Brown making because it's out of his depth. So what exactly is the plan?

Unfortunately, I'm pretty sure the answer is bring back Jerome Simpson. It's almost TOO perfect of a Mike Brown move. Yeah, he'll probably be suspended for at least 4 games, but he should also come with basically a league minimum contract thanks to the legal problems and the fact that no one else wants to touch him. Nevermind all of the many reasons WHY no one else doesn't want to touch him, not the least of which he isn't a very good NFL receiver. The ridiculous implication that Marvin made a few weeks ago that Armon Binns is a suitable replacement is borderline insulting to a fanbase that watched two 3rd year receivers fail to be consistent enough to complement AJ Green all last season. And the only other option is to use one of our first round picks on someone like Michael Floyd or Alshon Jeffrey. While that would be in keeping with our "build through the draft" approach, it's a pretty risky proposition to think you're going to strike gold with two NFL-ready receivers in two consecutive drafts. When you factor in our much bigger needs in the first round (CB, OG, RB, DT, safety) then you're more likely looking at drafting a guy in the late 2nd or even 3rd rounds. There's no way you can go into the season thinking a 2nd or 3rd round pick is going to be an upgrade over Jerome Simpson or even Andre Caldwell.

Basically, barring a longshot run at Mike Wallace, I don't see how our passing game will be at all improved next year. And the idea of hitching our wagon to Jerome Simpson for another 2-3 seasons is just pathetic. So I'm glad we've made the handful of moves we have in the past few days, but none of them have made this team substantially better and they have ignored one of the spots that would have been easiest fixed in free agency this year.

Part one fo my 3-part prediction. Huge Senior Bowl, monster combine, 2nd round draft pick. At this point, I don't think he'll even be there at the 21st pick of the 2nd round. I know Pead has been the source of some disagreements on this board (and the word "homer" being thrown around more than it has since the Great Gilyard Wars of 2009) but can anyone really say they dont' think this guy is going to be a good to very good NFL running back? one thing that has seldom come up in the argument has been his return skills, and those were on display yesterday.

I still say that whoever Gruden wants he should get - that includes Reichardson if it means trading up in the first. Gruden earned a lot of points with the organization when he sold them on Dalton, and he earned 10 times that many when he turned down the HC offers to sign an extension here. His biggest job this offseason is going to be deciding who he wants running the ball next year and we should make sure he gets that guy no matter what. But at this point, I wouldn't be at all surprised if that turns out to be Pead. And there's no way he's lasting until the 3rd-4th round like some people have said lately.

I made a reference to this in Joeski's fanpost, but I wanted to give it its own.

Mikey - If the 72 hour deadline to sell out the game is coming up and there are still unsold tickets, how about you buy the remaining tickets and donate them to a charity to distribute. I'll even help you out:

http://www.vettix.org/

They partner with sports teams, arenas, promoters, etc to donate tickets to events (such as NFL FOOTBALL GAMES) to veterans. With the recent massive pullout from Iraq, a HUGE number of vets are returning home this holiday season. I flew into Cincinnati last Friday and the place was swarming with young men and women in fatigues coming home. I can't imagine a nicer thing to do, let alone a better PR move on the part of a PR-starved organization, than to spend a PALTRY amount of money to give a great gift to a lot of very deserving vets and their families. Plus, it fills your stadium and saves you the embarrassment of not being able to sell a major game (see national headlines: Bengals beg fans to come out for playoff clinching game).

Seems like a no-brainer to me. Even Chad used to do things like this out of his own pocket constantly. Are you tired of being demonized in this city? A generous move like this, coupled with a suddenly exciting young playoff contending football team might just win you back a fanbase.

To say that Andy Dalton has hit the rookie wall is a nice way of saying that his play has drastically declined over the past several weeks. And by several, I mean 5-6. This is not a blip in the season, this is a rookie NFL quarterback wearing down, losing his accuracy, and looking unsettled in the pocket. Since the end of the 5-game winning streak that brought the team to 6-2, here are Dalton's QB ratings:

61.8
60.7
105.6
77.6
89.7
62.8

The Cleveland game aside (another performance statistically saved by some miraculous AJ Green play) those are not good numbers, even for a rookie. In his defense, he hasn't thrown TOO many interceptions, but over that stretch he is now dead even with 6 TD's to 6 INT's. And, most importantly, a 2-4 record. Again, not good numbers, even for a rookie.

So what am I saying? Well I'm not really saying anything. I am certainly not saying Andy Dalton is not the future QB of this team. But, whereas 4 or 5 weeks ago we were having arguments in the national media about how he was ROY over Cam Newton, now he is starting to look decidedly more Colt McCoy-ish. There was a very legitimate possibility going into this season that, with a disastrous year that most were expecting, the Bengals could still be in the market for their franchise QB at the top of the 2012 draft. That clearly is not the case anymore. But, do you feel as confident that Andy Dalton is the answer for the next 10 years as you were a month and a half ago? I wish I could say I was, but I'm not. It is all the more imperative now that he shows some pretty significant improvement next year. If, by chance, we have seen his ceiling and he is in line for a sophomore slump, we might be having Brady Quinn conversations in 12 months.

I'm watching this snooze-fest of a game and all I keep thinking is: What do people always say about NFL football? Games are won in the trenches. Defense and rushing win championships. Line line line line line.

So what am I looking at in these two AFC North rival teams?

First, the Browns. If you listened to just about any "hardcore" NFL fan, they would tell you that a solid football team starts with an offensive line. Build an O-line above all else. You just have to look at this board to see the same sentiment leading up to next year's FA and draft. So what have the Browns done? How about put together the best LT, LG, and arguably one of the best centers in the conference. They have spent 2 high first round draft picks and a mountain of money assembling what should be the premiere O-line in the league. And what do they have to show for it? Well it just so happens that neglecting skill postions - QB, RB, WR - tends to make an impact even with a great O-line. Surprise, surprise.

And on the other side? Well the Steelers have had one of the worst O-lines in the league for years. Before Pouncey came along they barely had an above-average player at any spot on their line. What did they do with that over the last 5 years? Only 3 Super Bowl appearances and 2 Lombardi trophies. Why is that? Elite QB, RB, and receiver play. Granted, it took drafting the most elusive QB in the history of the game to make that plan work, but here we are.

This is a new era in the NFL. No one is going to argue that offensive lines are not vitally important to the game, but it is clear now that TOP TIER skill position players make the difference. That goes on both sides of the ball. CB's are more valuable than DT's. Receivers are more valuable than guards. The whole paradigm has shifted in the last 10 years. It makes me lean more towards reaching for high end RB and WR prospects over the old wisdom of building your lines. It's hard to complain about adding solid line depth, but it's starting to become clear that the game is being won by skill positions.

Well, it's starting to be pretty clear where our weaknesses are. There have been plenty of conversations lately about who we might be losing in free agency. I see us retaining everyone on our defensive line except Robert Geathers, re-signing Reggie Nelson, Adam Jones, and Manny Lawson. On offense, I can't imagine Simpson coming back and Benson should also be done. So where does that leave us?

1st round -

Morris Claiborne, CB
People are going to argue with me here, but I think we need to package our two first round picks (and potentially one later round pick) and move up into the top 10 to get Claiborne. We need to walk away from this draft with a top CB. That narrows it down to Claiborne, Dre Kirkpatrick, or Janoris Jenkins. Claiborne and Kirkpatrick will likely both be gone in the top 15, ahead of our top pick. Jenkins is too much of a character risk (and let's be honest, we're still not 100% sold on Jones). So we would likely have to move up to get either Claiborne or Kirkpatrick. Might as well go for the best and shoot for a guy who could be a true shutdown corner. He has all the coverage skills of JJo with a lot more physicality. It would allow Leon to move back to his natural role as a #2 corner (which is a major improvement all on its own) and, with Mays hopefully getting a chance to replace Crocker, you have a VASTLY improved secondary. To me, including moving Leon, this could be like adding 3 first round picks to the secondary.

2nd round -

Cordy Glenn, OG
It might be wishful thinking to hope he's still around this far down, but if he is he would be a perfect successor to Bobbie Williams at RG. Assuming Clint Boling is able to step up and compete for the starting spot at LG next year, Glenn would be an amazing force in the run game next to Andre Smith and the upgrade at both interior spots would make for a dramatically improved offense all around. I like this route over keeping our other 1st round pick to use on DeCastro because DeCastro is a more natural pass blocking LG, and I'm hoping we already have that in Boling.

3rd round -

Kendall Wright, WR
Read projections for Wright and see what word appears the most often: "Burner." He doesn't have Chris Henry's height or jumping ability, but he's basically a sure-handed version of Jerome Simpson with more speed. He's only listed as a 4.43 forty, but he plays a LOT faster than that, routinely gets behind secondaries, and already shows great body control on the sidelines. Get Jordan Shipley back in the slot and that is a scary good YOUNG receiving corp. I think we also keep Andre Caldwell on a league minimum 2-year contract as depth and to help ease Wright into the starting lineup. Send AJ and Wright on deep crossing patterns and watch safeties spin out of their cleats.

3rd round (compensatory) -

Derek Wolfe, DT
Oh boy...If Wolfe is somehow still around at the end of the 3rd round then he could end up being the steal of the draft. I think you could draft this guy in the 2nd and it would still be a value pick. He's that good. If he played for a bigger school he'd easily be a first round pick. He's just unstoppable. He's like a nastier Justin Smith who routinely sheds double-teams. He leads the Big East in tackles for a loss and leads the BCS in sacks from a defensive tackle. I can't say enough about him. If we find a way to land him this late, I'll be ecstatic. Dunlap/Atkins/Wolfe/MJ could absolutely shred offensive lines for years.

4th round -

Isaiah Pead, RB
Two Bearcats in a row? There might be a hint of homerism here, but only in the sense that I'm comfortable waiting until the 4th round for Pead instead of going after a Monte Ball or a LaMichael James in the 3rd and I think Pead has slipped on draft boards after slowing down a bit towards the end of the season. Pead is not going to be a feature back most likely. But I do think he could be a great complement to Bernard Scott, splitting the runs almost 40/40 with the rest going to Brian Leonard. He has tremendous hands out of the backfield and can split out into the slot. Shows great patience on waiting for screens and delays to develop, and has a burst when he sees a hole. He's a great fit for Gruden's offense that will hopefully be relying on Scott to be more of the homerun threat next year while allowing Pead to become more of a prototypical WCO back. Worst case scenario, he's a 4th round pick and with our extra picks in 2013 you look for a true feature back in the top rounds (I'm still looking at you, Trent Richardson...)

I'll stop there since it's likely BPA from that point on. I still think we should address depth at LB, OT, probably another CB or a S, and you can never have too many pass rushers, so if there's a project DE in there somewhere I'll never complain about that. Anyway, feel free to discuss. Anything but dissecting that nightmare of a "game" last Sunday...

Slow down...hear me out. Andy Dalton and A.J. Green are phenomenal a-no-duh. They are going to be the cornerstone of what should become a championship caliber team. In a thousand years I did not expect those two guys to be THIS good THIS soon, and they are both at very key positions that an entire offense can be built around for the next decade. Could not be happier about all of that.

But what about the rest of this year's class? Aside from the handful of starts Clint Boling got for a suspended Bobbie Williams, not a single other draftee (including Boling) has even dressed for a single game so far this season. And it's not like this is a team filled with wily veterans who have remained remarkably healthy all season. We have a ton of guys on IR and the average age of our roster is somewhere just north of 14. Dontay Moch and Robert Sands can't even help out on special teams with their speed? Ryan Whalen can't learn the playbook? Boling was good enough to start on opening day but now he's not even good enough to be a backup?

We're obviously all wrapped up in our excitement over Dalton and Green, and rightly so, but good teams stockpile NFL-caliber talent through the draft. We've actually been pretty good at doing that lately, picking up contributors in just about every round of previous drafts (Atkins, MJ, Scott, Sims, Shipley). This year we hit a homerun with our first two picks, but you have to wonder how well we utilized the rest of our draft and if that is further proof that our scouting department is in dire need of some help. After all, AJ was a no brainer in the first round and Jay Gruden basically single-handedly scouted Dalton. Whoever was making the rest of the picks was clearly a bit off the mark.

Discuss.

The news has come down that the Jaguars have officially fired Jack Del Rio. Not much of a surprise there. The Jaguars have been pretty disappointing pretty consistently and Del Rio never seemed to offer much as a head coach.

There has been a lot of speculation this season (well, every season since he's been here) that this might be the year Mike Zimmer gets a an offer to jump ship and be a head coach somewhere else. It should go without saying that NO ONE in Bengals Nation wants that to happen. If it were up to me, we would chain Mike Zimmer up in the basement of PBS and never let him leave. Make him Assistant Head Coach. Pay him more than Marvin. I don't care what, don't let him go.

That being said, if the unthinkable were to happen and a team (hell, possibly the Jaguars) lured him away, wouldn't Del Rio be a perfect candidate to replace him? Say what you want about his tenure in Jacksonville, Del Rio is still a premiere defensive mind squarely in the Marvin Lewis school of football. They are already good friends and have worked together before. Seems like the perfect fit to me. I hope it doesn't come to this because I want Zimmer to retire as a Bengal, but I can think of a lot worse scenarios than teaming Del Rio up with Marvin to run this defense.

Purely for entertainment:

The ESPN Playoff Machine

For what it's worth, it wasn't very hard for me to put together a scenario that has an 11-5 Bengals team flying across the country to play a 9-7 Raiders team in the wild card round. In fact, I just put my best guesses in for every game for the remainder of the season and that was the first scenario it spit out. More importantly, basically any realistic combination I plugged in had 10 wins getting us a playoff spot. Assuming we take care of business in the 3 "should-wins" - Cleveland, St. Louis, and Arizona - that means taking 1 of 3 from Pittsburgh, or Houston/Baltimore at home. Should be an exciting final 6 weeks.

"Talk about a life-changing decision. Hall received a four-year, $39 million extension that included $14 million in guaranteed money, $9 million of which came by way of a signing bonus. Hall could have decided back in September to roll the dice and play this season under the terms of the last year of his rookie deal, thinking that after the season he could get closer to, if not more than, the $23.5 million guaranteed that his former teammate, Johnathan Joseph, received from the Texans.

Instead, Hall went the conservative route, and after this injury, he has probably been thanking his lucky stars every hour on the hour that he made that decision. You know how much guaranteed money Hall would get if he had to go into free agency this offseason coming off a torn Achilles? Zero dollars and zero cents. There are very few examples of players at elite movement positions such as cornerback coming back from Achilles injuries and ever being the same player."

Right now Leon Hall is the only CB we have under contract for next year that has started an NFL game. Anyone still think we don't need to draft a CB in the first round?

A couple of things. First, doesn't this make everyone feel a LITTLE bit better about Leon Hall? Things could be MUCH MUCH worse. Second, what does this do to the AFC playoff picture?

The Texans seemingly had a strangle-hold on the AFC South before this. But with a Tennessee win and diminished prospects for big wins down the stretch, it might throw that division into AFC West territory, where a 9-7 team comes out on top. It also opens the door back up for Tennessee, who we have a tie-breaker over (a tie-breaker Baltimore does not have, by the way). Not to mention, our home game against Houston in week 14 suddenly looks a LOT more winnable with Matt Leinart under center whereas before a lot of people were looking at that as at least a very possible loss, if not a probable one.

Throw in the Jets and Bills both laying eggs yesterday, and this could open up the possibility of the AFC North sending three teams to the playoffs.

No replacement announced yet, but that just so happens to be the rematch of Bengals-Steelers. Looking at the schedule, the only other interesting matchup that week looks like Giants-Packers, but you'd think a relevant division matchup with a chance to put two Offensive ROTY candidates on primetime for the first time would win out over two teams that will have probably locked up playoff spots by then.

New Orleans-Detroit could also be a possibility, but assuming we're still in contention it should be a pretty easy decision.

I know it's Steelers Week, but I already have a post about that and it had lots of exclamation points so I just thought I'd spark another conversation - one that many people here will dismiss saying "I DON'T CARE!" But clearly, we all care quite a bit. or should.

Look at Oakland's schedule the rest of the year. They only have 3 games at home and those are against the Bears, Lions, and Chargers. Then they have 5 road games, including trips to San Diego on short rest this week, Kansas City, and GREEN BAY in December. Two more trips to Minnesota, who are playing much better with Christian Ponder and who can run on anyone now, plus Miami which might surprise a few more teams down the stretch.

Personally, I don't think this team can win more than 8 games, which would put them in the 12-15th draft postion. It's very possible they could only win 7, and not unfathomable to only win 6. That would easily put their pick in the top 10. That's prime Trent Richardson territory. Worst case scenario, we might be looking at a scenario where we would only have to trade up 2 or 3 spots to get him, which probably wouldn't require giving up our other 1st round pick - maybe a 2nd and 3rd? Or our 2nd this year and our conditional 2nd next year (I really don't think that's going to turn into a 1st...if the Raiders were going to make it to the AFC championship they were going to do it this year, not next year with zero draft picks).

A lot of people around here think this is way too high to draft a RB. Even more might say it's certainly not worth trading UP in the first to get a RB. But a lot of those same people thought 4th was too high to draft a WR last year. How's that worked out? Look at Atlanta. They mortgaged TWO years' drafts to move up 21 spots to get Julio Jones...a receiver. And not even the top receiver prospect in the draft. But were they crucified for it? Far from it. People applauded the move. They could see that the Falcons were one or two specific pieces away from being a championship caliber team, and adding an elite receiver was #1 on that list. Now think about the 2012 Bengals. Defense should be fine. We could use a piece here and there, a high rated DB would be nice, but even without that it should be a top 10 unit or better. And on offense we'll be set on the line with the hopeful addition of a starting guard, which you could find in free agency. But add an elite RB to the mix with a 2nd year Dalton/Green combination? That team would have to be considered an instant Super Bowl contender. So if it made sense for the Falcons to sellt he farm to move 20+ spots for a receiver, it would certainly make sense for us to have a small yard sale to get a feature running back that we desperately need.

I don't even know where to start. If you had told me in August we'd be on top of the AFCN going int this stretch of games, facing a very beatable looking Steelers (and Ravens) team I'd cal you insane.

But here we are. We desperately need Adam Jones back, and I wouldn't be opposed to cutting Kelly Jennings to being back Morgan Trent as an emergency backup plan. Mike Wallace gives me nightmares. But I'm confident we can contain Mendenhall and at least get in Rapes-lesburger's face enough to cause a turnover or two, though the idea of sacking that lump has proven to be too much to ask for. But man...it's STEELERS WEEK! Gotta love it.

In his locker room interview video on the team site he said he didn't watch the game this week because he was in Texas and he would have had to go to a sports bar to see it on TV.

Now, maybe this is one of those examples of a fan on the outside reading WAY too much into something, but even just from the standpoint of being a professional involved with an organization, don't you think it would be important for you to be AWARE of what was happening in the game? I know he was going to be sitting through film study this week, but if he was hurt he would have at least been on the sideline watching the game unfold. Maybe watching a game on TV live as it was happening would have been a unique opportunity to learn. But beyond that, aren't you even a FAN of the team you actually PLAY FOR? It was an important game for the team. A win put them right in the thick of the playoff hunt. Does he really care so little that he wouldn't bother finding somewhere to watch? You are a millionaire professional athlete. I am positive if you called your agent, or hell anyone in the Bengals organization, they would have found a way for you to watch the freaking game wherever you wanted to watch it.

I'm just less and less impressed by Cedric Benson all the time. I know this is a minor thing and doesn't directly relate to his performance on the field (which, by the way, has been lass than spectacular this year), but I really think he is the last of the old guard malcontents that need to be washed out of this locker room. If he's not stutter-stepping for a 3 YPC average he's whining about not getting the ball enough or getting in fights at bars that are always "misunderstandings." He would have to be 10 times the player he is now to be worth the hassles he gives this team and apparently he doesn't even care enough if they win or lose if it's not going to pad his stat line. I really hope we can find a way to draft Trent Richardson next year...

It's official, Carson and TJ back together in Oakland. There really can't be any doubt that Hue Jackson is calling ALL of the shots out there now. And I can't imagine this is going to end well for him. They have a solid group of young receivers. TJ might have put up good numbers here, but I think he was a malcontent in the locker room well before anyone else. He's WELL past his prime, shouldn't be able to break the lineup with the young guys they have out there, but they're clearly bringing him anyway just because Hue and Carson are buddies. It's hard to believe, but if I was a Raiders fan I think i'd actually long for the days of the level-headed leadership of Al Davis.

On NFL Countdown just now Adam Schefter reported what many of us suspected - Mike Brown wanted to draft Ryan Mallett in last year's draft but was "swayed" By Jay Gruden "and others" to pick Andy Dalton instead. This comes right on the heels of reports that the Carson Palmer deal was supposedly almost dead in the water the night before the trade deadline but Katie Blackburn was instrumental in resurrecting talks and convincing her dad to make the deal.

I've been using this as a hypothetical argument for why this team could be legitimately turning the corner for months now. Ryan Mallett had Mike Brown written all over him. Huge arm, body size, questionable character that dropped him out of the top 10. He just SCREAMED "Mike Brown draft me!" and I don't think any of us would have been terribly surprised if that had happened...particularly if Dalton had come off the board to Indy or Seattle or Buffalo. This isn't to knock Mallett. Personally, I think Mallett landed in the perfect spot for him. He gets to sit behind Tom Brady for a few years and get all of the ego knocked out of him by Bill Belichick before taking a snap, at which point I think he could be a pretty good heir to Brady. But here, he would have been a disaster. He doesn't have a 10th of the mental poise and maturity that Dalton has. He might have been able to make a few more 60 yard throws by now, but he would have been doing them in desperate comeback attempts and he'd probably have thrown 15+ interceptions by now...all on the way to likely being replaced next year with another high draft pick and washing out of the league within the next 3 or 4. Not to mention, uncertainty surrounding the QB spot would have probably shut down the trade talks for Palmer.

So this should give all of us a lot of hope, especially given the bounty of draft picks we have in the next few years. This says that Marvin Lewis is in the driver's seat along with a front office staff that seems to actually value solid football decisions over pure money considerations or pride. By being swayed on this one very crucial decision, Mike Brown enabled the team to draft a true franchise QB, saved future high round draft picks for supporting talent, opended the door for the blockbuster trade of the decade with Oakland that will only add more top tier talent, and demonstrated a new mindset in how personnel matters are being handled at PBS.

Give this team a few more scouts and a shared lease on UC's indoor practice facility and there is nothing standing in the way of them rising to the top of the AFC over the next few years.