THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Good Morning!

Some things I’ve been wondering about. Good things to discuss as we begin a new week here in the tri-state. You know, when you discuss things, often times they get better and you feel better. At least that what my wife tells me, every time I’m wrong.

How close are we to total apathy about our professional football team? I realize that’s a question we seem to ask every year along about this time. Butt really, have we ever been closer to apathy with your Cincinnati Bengals? The opposite of love isn’t hate, it’s apathy. At 0-8, with Palmer probably cooked for this season, I’m smelling apathy a lot lately.

Here’s something else. It’s pretty clear one of two things are going to happen at the end of this season. Marvin Lewis is going to leave. Or Marvin Lewis is going to stay and have to make drastic changes to his offense. And remember, this offense didn’t get bad when Palmer got hurt. We had flashes of just how bad this offense was going to be in the summer. Remember the exhibition game against the Saints? Eleven possessions, ten punts. After eight years on the job, Bob Bratkowski’s job is on life support. So if he goes, how about this? Hire Brian Billick as offensive coordinator. OK, I know, around here he’s viewed by a lot of us as the anti-Christ. But remember, when he ran the offense in Minnesota, those Vikings teams were good. The only thing he couldn’t get in Baltimore was a quarterback. And how much of that was his fault? Or Ozzie Newsome’s fault? I don’t know how he left it with Marvin, when Lewis had to leave Baltimore. Remember, Lewis quit because he thought he had the gig in Tampa, then didn’t get it and Billick wouldn’t take him back. But still…if we’re looking for solutions in 2009, why not consider this one?

And I was thinking about this. If you’ve got Andre Caldwell and Jerome Simpson, do you really need TJ Houshmandzadeh and Chad Johnson? He’ll probably catch three touchdown passes today, after I say this. But I gotta believe even Mike Brown will come to the realization that Chris “I can’t do anything but go long” Henry isn’t money well spent. So let ‘em all go…or keep one, probably TJ. Slap him with the franchise tag and go young at wide out. Trade Ocho Cinco. You’re not going to get a sucker like Dan Snyder to pony up two number one picks now. But if you get a couple of mid rounders for him, do it. Use it to rebuild your offensive and defensive lines.

And that’s another thing. There are only two kinds of playing the Bengals should pursue for the next two years: players who protect Palmer and players who attack the opposing quarterback. In other words, offensive and defensive linemen.

The Bengals have dropped some serious dinero on both lines. They signed Levi Jones long term, Bobbie Williams long term, Andre Whitworth long term. They tagged Stacy Andrew and they’re paying him $7.5 million this season. How’s that working out? Don’t tell me the only problem on that line is Eric Ghiacuc. He’s become the whipping boy for this under performing bunch.

And on the other side, here’s some money well spent: 34-million two years ago for Robert Geathers and 30-mil plus on Antwan Odom this past winter. What does that Bengals defense have through seven games? Right, five sacks total. You can always ask each of them to give some money back. But here’s a better thought. Hire some more scouts who can actually go out and watch other NFL teams on Sundays, scouts who actually know what they’re doing and what to look for. The Bengals don’t have enough scouts and they ones they have apparently aren’t very good. Remember, this is the bunch that gave you Kendrick Allen, Michael Myers and Ed Hartwell in 2007. They couldn’t find Adalius Thomas with a map and a compass.

This came to me Thursday night after a bad piece of fish I had for dinner. Go find a guy who can score unconventional touchdowns. That’s the buzz phrase in pro football these days ‘unconventional touchdowns’. It means any touchdowns not scored by the offense. We don’t seem to have a lot of conventional touchdowns around here any more. So go get a guy the other team has to actually game plan for. An example: go get somebody like Devin Hester. OK, maybe he’s a once in a generation kind of guy. But Josh Cribbs isn’t. Antwan Randel-El wasn’t. Ed Reed isn’t. When was the last time you remember the Bengals actually drafting or trading or signing a player who can score an unconventional touchdown. Radical thinking, for the group at Paul Brown Stadium, I know. But maybe someone down there can eat the same bad fish I had Thursday and wake up with a revelation.

I watched Hines Ward deliver that hit to Keith Rivers last week. And incidentally, it was a good clean hard football hit. Plain, simple, end of story. Sorry that it ended Rivers season. He’s got a long career ahead of him. But my immediate thought after watching that transpire: when was the last time you remember a Bengals player delivering a hit like Rivers took. When was the last time you saw a Bengal hit an opposing player that had the entire league buzzing? Hello, never? Maybe once in the late 80’s?

If you believe the national commentators, the experts, some of whom live here in Cincinnati, the Bengals have the reputation of being a soft team. Worst thing you can call a defense is a ‘finesse defense’. It’s a code phrase for soft. I heard that description of the Bengals defense a couple of weeks ago on a national radio show. And I laughed this week when I heard Marvin chastise a reporter for asking if the Bengals should have retaliated for the hit on Rivers. The word retaliate was the wrong word to use. But the spirit of the question was dead on. Lewis chose to pounce on the word ‘retaliate’ but never addressed the real question. When you get hit in the mouth, figuratively…or in the case of professional football literally, you hit back, just as hard, just as clean, just as legal. If you don’t, the hits will just keep on coming. After Ward laid out the prized rookie last Sunday, Bengals safety Chinedum Ndukwe, said rather disingenuously that the Bengals would get Ward next time. Right. People who talk about next time soon discover ‘next time’ rarely comes. The time to lay a direct hit on Ward was the next play. The Bengals had a chance to do it. And the pulled up on an incomplete pass to Ward. The ‘finesse’ label stuck a little bit better to the Bengals after that.