At this point in the season, it’s hard not to give up. That’s speaking as a fan, I can’t imagine how disappointed the players and coaching staff must feel. But there is still a chance to go 8-8, and at this point, I’ll take it. I hope the team feels the same way, because I’m flying into town this weekend to go to the game.

Hey, against the 3-9 Rams, I may just see a win.

This season there’s been a lot of talk about selfishness on the team. And I’d imagine that most people have assumed that when Marvin and other Bengals talk about that, they’re referring to Chad Johnson, and maybe T.J. Houshmandzadeh. They’re both outspoken with the media, which means they must have a me-first attitude.

I won’t disagree with that, mainly because I don’t know. But I’ve found that any time you read a Bengals report from someone in the national media (ESPN or CNNsi especially), you get an impression a reporter has gotten from observing this team from very far away. Rarely do you get actual information gleaned from observing the team from a closer distance than, say, a fan with no credentials but a voracious appetite for all the Bengals information he or she can get.

That’s how you get the rumors that Chris Mortensen created about trading Chad. It was purely his speculation, he didn’t even stop to consider the cap implications of such a move.

Those last two paragraphs are a bit of a rant, I didn’t set out to complain about how superficially the national media covers this team. I suspect that’s true of most teams. http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif

What I really wanted to mention was yesterday’s story on Bengals.com, which really is the opposite of the national media and gives amazing insights into the team, 53 deep. It’s an interview with Justin Smith, and he talks about how the defense had to change its approach earlier this season and forget about individual stats.

This is the first time this season I’ve heard anyone implicated besides Chad or T.J. with this ubiquitous charge of “selfishness.”

Money passage:

He (Smith) has enjoyed this mini monthly defensive renaissance after a cards-on-the-table October meeting with the defensive players and coaches because he believes it shows what happens when selfishness can be stowed.

"Everybody was worried. 'We need to get our picks, we need to get our sacks,' linebackers want to have 100 some tackles," Smith said.

"When it got to the point, 'Hey, we're not a good defense right now, we've got tons of guys injured, we have guys coming off other teams that don't know our defense, we need to worry about just being a defense.' And I think we've tried to take all the selfishness out and it's helped us. We're happy when the other guy makes a play."

Smith suggested Monday to a group of reporters that the Bengals are still grappling with coming together as a team. Later he elaborated when he talked about knowing several players on the undefeated Patriots.

"It won't be a good team until our main focus is a 'W,'' not if you play well," Smith said. "Just being honest, if guys have great games and we lose, they're happy. If we win and they have a bad game, they're mad. We're not going to be a good team until offense, defense, special teams, are not happy unless the only thing that happens is to win and we're not there yet."

Of course, everyone would like to be the Patriots. And to many fans, Smith doesn’t have the greatest reputation. We’ve wanted him to be more than he is. But it seems, at least, that he’s become a leader for the defense and this team. And he helped remove some of the selfishness in the locker roon. Which is definitely something the team needs.

Some people would say that it’s a good thing he’ll probably be gone next season, but maybe we’d be better off holding onto him. What do you think?