In a move that has been calculated and choreographed since Chad Johnson signed with Drew Rosenhaus 3 years ago, Chad made the rounds of Super Bowl media tables yesterday telling anyone who would listen how unhappy he is in Cincinnati. Since signing day, Rosenhaus has wanted out of Chad's contract with the Bengals. After the TO fiasco in Philly, Rosenhaus was able to quietly extend Chad's contract in Cincinnati in order to put $16million dollars in Chad's pocket for the 2006 and 2007 seasons and keep him a Bengal through 2011. However, through years 2008-2011, Chad is scheduled to make "only" $19.5million. So 2 years into the new contract, Chad and the Superagent Rosenhaus are again unhappy with his contract status. This time, Rosenhaus is armed with a season of bad press to push Chad's media hungry buttons. Chad is a puppet in Rosenhaus's game of getting Chad more money; Bad press plus lack of money equals the Bengals do not have your back. And with Chad's need to be on tv, it's an easy button to push after the media took a sudden negative turn this season.

Just how calculated is this move? Not only did Chad hit national media for the Super Bowl, but he went table to table working the radio for specific team markets. Here are a few quotes reported from profootballtalk.com:

Chad to WFNZ radio in Charlotte, "85 plus 89 equals a Super Bowl, period." Referring to Panthers receiver Steve Smith.

Chad to WSCR radio in Chicago, during which he said he'd make quarterbacks Rex Grossman or Kyle Orton into superstars. He also said, "I've worked myself to a point to where I make the quarterback look good regardless of what he does or where he puts the ball."

Johnson wrote on a note pad to Seahawks quarterback Matt Hasselbeck, "Can I play in Seattle?"

According to the Boston Globe, Johnson also approached a Boston reporter and said, "I'm going to be playing for your team next year.”

This in addition to his “Bill Parcells, call me” routine from earlier in the week.

Going market to market is a smart move in drumming up support for Chad trade talk. Seattle, Chicago and Carolina are possible teams that could make a move for Chad, but New England and Miami will never be interested in his services. New England is 18-0 with the top passing game in the NFL, they do not need Chad. Bill Parcells left Dallas because he did not want TO, and he was angry that Jerry Jones undermined his authority by signing TO anyway. TO is loud, big, physical, will block at times, and can run after the catch. Chad is just as loud, not big, less physical than Olivia Newton John, never blocks, and hits the ground after every catch. If Parcells did not want TO, why would he want the same headache from a lesser player? And to give something up for Chad when TO was a free agent signing.....never going to happen.

Back to the issue, it’s sad that the Chad-Rosenhaus combo has come to this considering Chad has been well paid recently. TJ, coming off a pro bowl season, has not been one of the top paid receivers in the NFL. If the Bengals are going to redo a deal for a receiver, it’s more likely and deserving to be TJ’s deal. Drew Rosenhaus probably knows this, and that is why he has turned on full juice to get Chad a new deal with another team. Here are the total salaries paid to Chad, TJ, and Rudi Johnson, all drafted the same year, through this past season:

Not exact numbers, but taken from NFL salary database
TJ: $10,974,360
Rudi: $18,412,526
Chad: $36,494, 380

In the end, Rosenhaus does not care about any of this. He gets 3% of NFL salary paid to Chad, and he perceives that Chad is not in a favorable contract. For paying 3%, Chad gets a phone call every 2 days telling him how great he is, that he deserves more money, and then the right time and place to launch a media campaign to get it. Now that I think about it, why don’t I pay anybody 3% of my salary to tell me how great I am? I only signed up for the 3% United Way contribution, and they don’t call me at all. All the United Way does is send me a bill each year asking for more money and telling me how my previous money helped them build the “Center for Kids Who Ain’t Readin Good.” Moriarty is a complimentary type of guy, maybe I should start sending him 3% a month to call me up and let me know that I am special and deserve more in life. Moriarty, get ready to receive monthly checks for $13.42.

Adding to the bad news is the Bengals front office. Mike Brown is very adept at handling personnel issues and extremely media savvy, right? This shouldn’t turn into a circus. Judging from past experience, the best Bengals fans can hope is that Rosenhaus puts on so much pressure that Mike Brown is forced to make a move before this builds to a full scale train wreck. The most likely scenario though is that this is a constant offseason story and a total distraction once camp opens. Mike Brown created another distraction this week by signing Carson Palmer’s brother. It will not go over too well when the team has to cut the brother of its franchise QB, Carson might be a little distracted by that. And once TJ begins to ask for a new contract, LOOKOUT!!!


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The Bengals kept it in the family the week when they signed Jordan Palmer (Carson's little brother) to a two year contract.

Palmer started in 42 of 46 career games at UTEP. He finished with 11,084 career passing yards and 88 touchdown passes, both school records. As a senior in 2006, he set single-season records for passing yards (3,595), completions (282), completion percentage (65.7) and passer efficiency (149.6).

Maybe he would be willing to play defense.

Who Dey


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How are the Bengals doing?

And if they aren’t doing well, then what does that mean for Marvin Lewis?

Those are two questions I’ve been thinking about lately. I’ve been reading a few articles here and there about how bad Bill Belichick was in Cleveland. Or maybe it’s how lucky he got in New England.

But the consensus is that he is inherently the same person in Cleveland as he is now in New England.

Based on that, I’m going to go out on a limb and say that Marvin Lewis is the same person who turned around a 2-14 team and immediately made the Bengals a respectable 8-8 unit.

But I don’t know how many Bengals fans agree with me. The Enquirer has been running these silly State of the Team surveys this past week. They had asked fans of all the local teams to complete a survey and then posted the results. The Bengals didn’t fare too well.

61% of the 3,910 fans who took the Bengals survey said the team is worse off now than 2-3 years ago. Over half of the respondents ranked the current state of the franchise a 3 or below, on a scale of 1-10. And Marvin Lewis was ranked equally low.

I’m as disappointed as anyone in the season we had this year, but this seems to be a really stunning negative response on the part of the fans. And I think a big part of this is that we care so much, and we felt we were so close two years ago, and we haven’t really improved since then, and that’s just extremely frustrating.

But I continue to believe that Marvin Lewis is the right coach. Just as Belichick learned from his time in Cleveland and improved in the areas he needed improvement, I believe that Lewis is doing that, too. Hey, he got rid of Barney Bresnahan; that is at the least an indication that he’s paying attention.

Lewis led this team over a huge hump his first year, from absolutely sucktown to thrillingly average. And his third year, he got them over the next hump into the playoffs. And lets not forget that every year, except for this past one, the team had a chance of the playoffs in the last week of the season.

That’s not a great track record, but it’s not bad. Not Belichick in Cleveland bad. And here’s one person who believes Marvin has the potential to get this team over the last few humps and win a Super Bowl.


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New line backers coach Jeff Fitzgerald is known for a coach that is all business. Fitzgerald spent his last few years in Baltimore and in 2006 had 4 players (Ray Lewis, Bart Scott, Terrell Suggs and Adalius Thomas) in the pro-bowl.

This kind of attitude is exactly what the Bengals need from their backers. It may just be me but I think if the Bengals are still debating switching to a 3-4 defense, this is the kind of LB coach that can help make that transition.

Who Dey


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Chick Ludwig of the Dayton Daily News posted an article recently calling for the Bengals to sign Albert Haynesworth as a free agent. I actually agree that this would be a great signing and could help the defense from day one. However, Haynesworth is another one of those players that has been known to get into trouble. Does anyone remember him stomping on another players head?



The Bengals already get slammed in the press about the character issues of the guys they bring on. I am sure when Haynesworth gets out of hand Chick's article will be right back on the character issues.

If it were my team, I would sign Haynesworth, and while I was at it, Pac-Man Jones would help the defense also. I will save him a seat at Concepts.

Who Dey


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The Bengals hire Mike Zimmer to be the D coordinator. Zimmer spent most of his career as the D coordinator for Dallas and most recently was the coordinator in Atlanta. Zimmer has been known to use the 4-3 and it looks to stay in the Nati.

http://www.bengals.com/news/news.asp?story_id=6594


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A few days ago I posted a link to an article in the Baltimore sun about Marvin Lewis possibly being courted by the Ravens. While I knew that it wasn't true I thought it was interesting in a slow news week. There is another interesting article in the Baltimore Sun site today that I also thought would be a good post.

Take it for what it's worth but basically they are stating they think Rex Ryan will not be with the Ravens next year. They say he will have the opportunity to be the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons or have a home in Cincinnati as the new D coordinator.

I personally think Rex Ryan would be a great guy to have here pushing our D. So I am going to cross my fingers.

Here is the article. http://weblogs.baltimoresun.com/sports/ravens/blog/2008/01/rex_ryan_4.html


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All of the talk about the Ravens and Marvin Lewis was sparked by a sports columnist in Baltimore throwing out possible options for the Ravens next head coach. As stated in the article, the Ravens front office has not explored the possibility of grabbing Marvin. If they ever do explore the possibility, the idea will be dropped quickly. Mike Brown is a cheap and miserly owner that only deals with issues in terms of nickels and dimes, not football. Searching for and hiring a new head coach is a very expensive and time consuming undertaking. Look at all of the time and energy being expended by the other current coachless teams. Also, once a new coach is hired, that coach will want to bring in his own staff and assemble his own team structure; Again more money, more negotiations, more time, more change.
Why would Mike Brown put himself through all of that work and money when he already has what he truly wants, a sold out stadium? The Ravens could offer a fair deal for Marvin in terms of football sense, but Mike Brown does not think in terms of football sense. During his tenure as team owner, Mike Brown has essentially made only one coaching hire, Marvin Lewis. Four months after taking over the Bengals in 1991, Mike Brown fired Sam Wyche over a money dispute. He then hired Dave Shula who was already on the Bengals coaching staff. After 4.5 seasons, Shula was fired and Bruce Coslet was hired as interim coach, later to become official head coach. After Coslet quit 3 games into the 2000 season, Dick LeBeau was hired as the interim coach, later to become the official head coach. Each time, the coaching staff was kept pretty much intact as the head coach was hired from within. Over 17 years of losing and embarrassment, Mike Brown has only made full scale changes once. What are the chances of him making full scale coaching changes now with the team at .500 and a sold out stadium? I know for sure that draft picks are not going to be enough. The only way Marvin Lewis will be the head coach of the Ravens is if he forces Mike Brown's hand and gets himself fired. Other than that, Marvin Lewis will be the coach of the Cincinnati Bengals until Mike Brown has a financial need for change.


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The Bengals are searching for a defensive coordinator. That alone is good news. It means that the front office realized that the last 5 games of the season don’t change the fact that Chuck Bresnahan did a lousy job.

This situation makes me think of what was being said about the hiring of Bresnahan when it happened. Here’s a story about the team’s reaction at the time, and what Bresnahan had to say about it during his first few days on the job. All in all, these two articles make it seem like Bresnahan was never a no-doubter.

Everyone assumes that once a team hires a coach with a reputation as being great on one side of the ball, like Marvin Lewis and Tony Dungy on defense, Brian Billick and Jon Gruden on offense, that their team will immediately take on those traits. But that rarely seems to be the case, as the Ravens of Billick (now fired) and the Bengals are the most glaring examples.

One thing that this situation reminds me of is Barry Sonnenfeld. Forgive me for going pretty far off the gridiron here, but Barry Sonnenfeld is a great movie director who used to be a great cinematographer/director of photography (DP). As a director, he’s done Men In Black, Get Shorty and The Addams Family. As a DP, he did Big, When Harry Met Sally… and a lot of Coen brothers movies like Raising Arizona and Miller’s Crossing.

This quote is from an interview he did with UGO.com.

UGO: How do you work with cinematographers now?

BARRY: Well when I became a director, the first movie I directed was The Addams Family. I looked at all the cinematographers that had tried to be directors. Gordon Willis did Windows, John Alonzo did FM; Bill Fraker did Legend of the Lone Ranger. These are all brilliant cinematographers and none of them made a successful transition. What I noticed about them in all those cases is they took their camera operator and made them the DP, which meant that they don't want to give up being a DP. I felt that if I was to be a successful director then I had to hire a DP that was so good and was so much better than me that I wouldn't dare tell them how to light. So I hired Owen Roizman. I still design the shots but I didn't want to do anything with the lighting. To this day I always hire really good cameramen for that reason.

To me, Marvin needs to find a defensive coordinator that’s great, and let that person do his job. Don’t try to find someone who’s going to implement what Marvin thinks we should be doing. Find someone who’s going to do his own thing, and do it great.

Apparently, the Ravens won’t let the Bengals interview Rex Ryan, but he’s the kind of candidate I’d like to see. Someone who other teams want to hire as a head coach. Someone who people talk about how clever his schemes are. Someone who gets the most out of the players he has, and identifies the right players to fit the system.

Also, Tim Lewis of Carolina isn’t being allowed to interview with the Bengals.

So apparently the names we’re considering are Kevin Coyle, our current secondary coach, and Mike Zimmer, the defensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons. I hope the list is bigger than two.

And I hope they’re not afraid to hire someone with a name we don’t recognize, but who we’ll be afraid of losing to another team in a few years.


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So Mike Preston up in Baltimore, it seems, is trying to start a swell to push the Ravens into trying to pry Marvin Lewis away from the Bengals and have him become the new head coach for the Baltimore Ravens.

I personally think the story does not hold water and the guys need to keep churning out stories to keep getting paid. However, lets humor it for a minute.

Why would Marvin want to take the job in Baltimore.
- He would not get to draft his own players. Newsome likes that responsibility.
- He would be taking a step back with an old defense and a terrible offense.
- There is no Carson Palmer to draft in this years draft to build an offense around.
- If he thinks the media in Cincinnati is bad, I hope he remembers them from his days over there.

I personally don't believe that Marvin is on the hot seat. He is building a team and I for one am optimistic about what the future holds.


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Looking for some motivation other than gambling, fantasy playoff drafts, or the desire to see the Steelers lose? How about a local kid making good.

Tampa Bay’s Bobby DeAngelo Askew, Jr. was born in Cincinnati August 19, 1980. He’s a ’99 Colerain grad who went on to play for Michigan where he set the record for running back receptions. He was selected in the third round of the 2003 NFL Draft by the New York Jets and then went on to sign with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers before this season.

Go Bucs.


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Chuck Bresnahan, aka Barney Rubble, has been told his services are no longer needed by the Cincinnati Bengals Football Team. I mean he's been fired.

We've all been worried by some of the comments that Marvin has been making about the type of changes we can expect. To me, it's always seemed that he wasn't saying anything about who was going to be fired and who wasn't. He was just telling the media to shut up. The Enquirer has been doing a real good job of blowing his comments out of proportion. To listen to Mark Curnutte, this was totally unexpected. But it wasn't really.

Anyway, our long regional nightmare is over. But don't be surprised if a lot more of the defense is gone in the upcoming months.

And, I'd like to point out that Rex Ryan was let go when the Ravens dumped Brian Billick. If he's not hired as a head coach somewhere, he could rejoin Marvin Lewis's staff. He was a defensive line coach on Lewis' record-setting and Super Bowl winning 2000 Ravens D.


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As for the season, I didn't like it. This was a very disappointing season for the Cincinnati Bengals. However, going out on a winning streak is always a good thing considering the last couple of years we have had problems winning the final games.

I like that TJ dropped the ball. I hated how much talk there was during the last couple of games about records and pro-bowls. Who cares about that stuff when you play so bad all season. He competes with Wes Welker who is on an undefeated team.

Here's to a new year and hopefully some coordinator changes to come.

Who Dey


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