Very busy weekend coming up, on both radio and television. Sports Rock! Sunday night on Cincinnati's channel 5 is must see TV this week (every week, of course). Sunday in studio, UC head football coach, Butch Jones joins us. He'll have an update on spring football and a look ahead to the Bearcat Bowl on Saturday night at Nippert Stadium. Geoff Hobson from bengals.com and the Cincinnati Enquirer's Joe Reedy are in to talk NFL draft...

Saturday and Sunday, you can catch me on 700 WLW. I'm on Saturday from 3p-6:30p ET, then again Sunday from 9am-Noon EDT for Sunday Morning Sports Talk. Among my guests this weekend are Hub Arkush, the editor of Pro Football Weekly, Ross Tucker from Sports Illustrated, Seth Livingstone from USA Today and former Cincinnati Reds pitcher Wayne Granger. The draft, the Reds and the ongoing saga of Ben Roethlisberger will be the hot topics, I'm sure.

And keep checking my web site www.kenbroo.com for updates along the way.

Have a great weekend.

Just published to the front page of my web site: www.kenbroo.com is the lastest Broo View Podcast. My guest in this episode is Frank Coyle from www.draftinsiders.com. We preview the upcoming NFL Draft.

NFL 2010 schedule will now be released next Tuesday night.

Happy Wednesday.

Who knew the Reds could hit? After the first week of the season, the buzz was about the pitching and the buzz kill about the Reds inability to hit the ball. Did you watch the game Tuesday night? Ten runs, two big three run home runs from Ryan Hanigan and Jonny Gomes and the Reds have now won three straight.

Look, I don't think this team is going to be in the World Series this year. It'll do well just to be in a position to play for a post season spot when the month of September rolls around. But finally, the team has some life to it. The Reds have given their fan base a lost generation. They've been to the playoffs exactly twice in the last 20 years. And if a generation is defined as 25 years, there is really no one alive under the age of 25 who can remember what it's like to have a good baseball team in our town.

When you have a lost generation, you're really talking about 50 years, not 25. Because not only is the under 25 crowd missing the thrill of growing up with a winning team in their town, they're also less likely to support that team when they have kids.

I used to be the color commentator on the University of Maryland football games a few years back. Because of that, I always watch the Terps when they're on TV. I saw several of their games last season and became a fan of offensive tackle, Bruce Campbell. He's big, 6-7 about 325 and looks to be a power blocking pure left tackle. I've said I'd love him to be available when the Bengals pick at #21 in the first round of next week's draft. But I'm hearing this about Campbell from a lot of football watchers I listen closely to: his stock rose dramatically after a terrific NFL Combine and pro workout day. But the game tapes tell a different story about him. I'm told he's going to have a tough time adjusting to the pro game. Oh well....

The Bengals wouldn't consider trading a high pick for the Broncos' wide receiver, Brandon Marshall, would they? Probably not, after signing Antonio Bryant this off season. Marshall is available, after signing his tender offer this week. But imagine him lining up alongside Ochocinco, Bryant and Andre Caldwell. Would there be a better four wide receiver set in the league?

Draft expert, Frank Coyle, from www.draftinsiders.com joins me again this Sunday morning on 700 WLW. Frank's one of the best in the biz and his draft yearbook is a 'must' for anyone who's into the NFL. A lot of mock drafts have the Bengals taking Oklahoma State wide receiver, Dez Bryant. Coyle told me the Bengals should run from this guy. Bad news, he says, on and off the field.

Good Monday Morning!

Who told Lance Stephenson it’s a good idea to leave the University of Cincinnati’s basketball team. This is a really dumb idea on his part. Stephenson, as we all know, is the wonder kid who chose UC to play his college basketball. It was widely assumed before he arrived in town that he’d be one and done. He was just that good and the lure of the NBA would be so great, he wouldn’t stick around Clifton for more than one year. So OK, he plays well enough to win the Big East Conferences rookie of the year award. But I think that’s more of a commentary of how weak the freshman class of players was this season in that conference. And now, this week, after what was at best a mediocre first season, the kid known as Born Ready declares himself a candidate for the NBA draft.

Did I mention this is a really dumb idea?

For openers, a lot of underclassmen with a lot more talent and better resumes are declaring for this draft. They’re doing it for the money, of course. But they’re also declaring for THIS draft because there could be a very good chance of strike or a lockout in the NBA after next season. Patrick Patterson, DeMarcus Cousins, John Wall, Evan Turner, they’re all coming out early.

Unless Stephenson upgrades his game, and a lot, I don’t see him getting drafted. If he does get drafted, it’ll be late second round. And the NBA only has two rounds in its draft. Why do I feel that Stephenson will be in the NBDL next season, or Europe? He should have stayed in school. I hear that family members, in need of money, urged him to leave UC early. Had he played another year in Clifton, those same family members would have been able to harvest a bigger pay day. Now, Stephenson could be out of the game in a couple of years.

Did I mention this is a really dumb idea?

Not exactly efficient pitching by the Reds in this first week of baseball.

Opening Day, Aaron Harang needed 93 pitches to get through just five innings. He improved Saturday, going seven and throwing 99 pitches.

Friday night, Homer Bailey went five innings. But he needed 106 pitches to do it. And on Wednesday night, Johnny Cueto tossed six innings, but used 109 pitches to do it. It’s early. But I think the Reds starters may want to work on their pitch efficiency.

Did you see that TV commercial with Tiger Woods staring into the camera? I didn’t become nauseous watching it, as some people have claimed they did. But did he really have to exume his dead father to see golf shirts and balls? Really? What would have been better would have been Tiger staring into the camera and simply thanking Nike for sticking with him while he male whored it up and say once again that he’s sorry he let you down. That commercial didn’t want to make me go out and buy a bunch of Nike stuff. And here’s the really troubling part. The web site, Sports By Brooks researched where the words of Tiger’s father really came from. Apparently, Earl Woods wasn’t talking about Tiger, though the commercial would have you believe that. No. According to Sports By Brooks, the words you heard Earl Woods speaking came from a DVD, released in 2004, on the life and times of Tiger Woods. Earl spoken words were about the break up of his marriage from Tiger’s mother. They’re not about Tiger. So you not only have Nike trying to sell material on Earl Woods grave. You also have his words taken out of context.

If I’m the old man, I’m spinning in the grave like a Texas tornado.

Random thoughts from Opening Day....

Why in the world would Dusty Baker go through an entire spring training, have Drew Stubbs win the starting job in centerfield and then sit him in the opener? He's either your starter, or he isn't. He is a former first round draft pick. If you're protecting a player (from Cardinals ace Chris Carpenter) then you really don't have a starting player. By the way, when Stubbs got into the game, he had two hits, both off a right handed pitcher.

Laynce Nix and Chris Dickerson are and should be, the fourth and fifth outfielders on this team. And they start while Stubbs and Jonny Gomes sit? This is what will get Baker in hot water with the fans and his team's owner quicker than anything. He pulled the same stunt last season by sending Gomes to the minors to begin the season and starting Darnell McDonald in left field.

I don't know if Aaron Harang can be an effective every fifth day starter anymore. I hope he can, but I really don't know. But I do know this: when the count is 2-2 with two on and two out, you attack the hitter and end the inning. Instead, Harang, either on his own or from dugout instruction, tried to pick a runner off first, threw wildly and allowed the runner at third to score. Bad baseball.

Is Mike Lincoln on this team simply because he had guaranteed money? Yes. But if it were a choice of 'eating' Aaron Miles' $2.7 million or Lincoln's $3.1 million, I would have given Miles the chance to hit his way onto the team, rather than paying Lincoln. Besides, why was Lincoln the first choice coming out of the bullpen? And could Logan Ondrusek only pitch one inning Monday? He pitched a 1-2-3 eighth inning. Instead of letting him pitch in the 9th, when it was still a two run game, Baker opted for Nick Massett. He promptly gave up five runs. Another strange piece of strategy...

The new ballpark sushi is over priced at $12. I don't care how good it is......

There was no way the Reds were going to allow Aroldis Chapman to begin the season with the major league club. His contract is structured so that if he become a "Super Two" player (arbitration eligible after two seasons, which he would have become almost assuredly by starting this year with the Reds), the money due him would accelerate ahead of the five years it's due. But by starting him in the minors for at least the first couple of months, the Reds miss out on his gate appeal. Think about it: Wednesday night is game #2 of this series. If history tells us anything, it's that the second game of most Reds seasons is played before friends and loved ones. With Chapman pitching, this next game had an excellent chance of being a sell out. But that won't happen this year....

And how do you let the Cardinals best player, Albert Puljos, beat you? It's not like he's an unknown commodity...

Good Monday Morning!

Opening Day in Cincinnati. Nothing like it anywhere, any place else. The Reds go 86-76 this season. You heard it here first.

It's also NCAA Championship night. Duke by 9, but that's just a guess. Maybe it's the last, great game in what until now has been America's greatest sports tournament

What would possess the NCAA to want to want to screw up the single best thing in sports. Why would it want to take its showcase, the field of 65 NCAA Tournament and turn it into a high school tournament?

I knew the answer to that before I even asked myself the question and you do too. It’s money. As we like to say on Sunday Morning Sports Talk, the answers to all of your questions in life is money. There are television dollars, from ESPN, Comcast, CBS, whomever that will pay the NCAA more money to televise more games and that’s why it’s going to happen.

You don’t think money drives the bus in sports? Why is the NFL going to play 17, maybe 18 regular season games? Money. The broadcast networks want more product so they’ll be able to charge more money to their clients so they can pay the exorbitant rights fees that they have to pay to televise the games.

Why are there no afternoon World Series games? Why do they start at 8:30 at night rather than two in the afternoon, or seven at night? Money. Prime time starts mean prime time advertising dollars.

Increase the teams that make the NCAA Tournament from 65 to 96, you get more product to televise and more money from advertisers, a large part of which can be flipped to the NCAA in rights fees.

The answer to everything in life is money, but even more so when you’re dealing with television.

Here’s what I’ve heard in the last week, maybe you have too. Coaches want more teams in because it’ll help them keep their jobs. Make the tournament, keep your job. Really? How ‘bout when the 96^th team in knocks off the 70^th team in. You think that’s going to help the coach with the 70^th team?

Coaches want this because it will give their players the great experience of playing in the NCAA Tournament. No it won’t. Because the experience won’t be the same. You wouldn’t be one of the select 65. You’d be one of close to a hundred. Bigger isn’t always better.

Tell that having a field of 95 wouldn’t render the regular season meaningless. Tell me how the regular season of Xavier basketball will be enhanced by an expansion to 95 NCAA Tournament teams? Do you honestly think any Xavier fan, let alone someone who just has a passing interest in that team, will be all engrossed in whether or not they can knock off Richmond twice in January? Not when an expanded field pretty much guarantees that six or seven Atlantic 10 teams would be locks to make the tournament.

I heard the bracketology guy, Joe Lunardi say this last week. If the field was 96 this year, 12 Big East teams would have made it. Wasn’t just a couple of years ago that only 12 made the Big East Tournament? The number 12 team in the Big East this season was Connecticut. It was 7-11 inside its conference. Teams that are four game below ‘500’ inside their own conference is going to make this a better tournament?

If you’re going to do that, why don’t you just become the Ohio High School Athletic Association and let every teams in?

I could point out that expanding the tournament would render post season conference tournaments meaningless….I’m not sure that such a bad thing actually. And all of the late February, early March talk of last four teams in, first four teams out, meaningless. My buddy Jerry Palm would have to fold his web site, collegerpi-dot-com. RPI numbers wouldn’t matter.

But here’s the real thing that tells you all you need to know about the hypocracy of expanding the tournament: more games means more time in the classroom missed, right? You play more games, you miss more classes. In fact, another good friend of this show, John Feinstein, did the math. A team could conceivably stay at one venue for a week, while it plays its way through the first and second round of a tournament. Is the NCAA OK with that, or does time away from class only matter when the discussion is about a playoff in Division One football?

Good Monday Morning!

We were talking about this other day at work. In between the six and eleven o’clock newscasts, there’s a little bit of downtime when you can kick around a few topics. Between three and six, it’s a little hectic. After six, things tend to even out. So here’s what came up.

If you’re the university of Cincinnati, would you not want to follow the model Xavier has perfected? Xavier goes to the NCAA Tournament every year, rarely misses a trip. It builds it’s team around good shooters and playing well without the ball. Sometimes it wins it’s conference regular season championship. Sometimes, not quite so often, it wins its conference tournament. But always it seems, it makes the NCAA Tournament. It usually wins a game, maybe two, gets to the elite 8 every so often and that’s it. It’d like to win the NCAA Championship, what team wouldn’t. But its fan base seems happy with a strong regular season and not being one and one in the Tournament.

So somebody at channel 5 said why doesn’t UC adopt the same strategy. No pretense of building a championship team, just get to the Tournament and win a game or two. Everybody would get off Mick’s back, you play games until the final couple of weekends of the season.

Is that a fair assessment of Xavier? Is it settling and opting for keeping the natives at rest, rather than restless?

Think about what Xavier does, historically. It recruits players that big time schools take a pass on. Jason Love fits that description. Somebody, Sean Miller, one of his assistants saw raw talent in Love and took a flyer on him. Go back in Xavier’s basketball history, it happens all the time. UC, it seems historically, gets caught up in a player’s pedigree. Now to be fair, Xavier gets players that other schools go after and UC will take a guy that other schools pass on. Kenyon Martin wasn’t pursued heavily by a lot of teams.

But, by and large, Xavier has a system, seems to be the same system regardless of the head coach, and finds players to fit.

This was the discussion we were having the other day.

UC seems to get caught up in labels. Forever, whether it’s Mick, or Huggins or Andy Kennedy, we hear about a player being a ‘leaper’ or his great ‘athleticism’. At Xavier, it’s whether or not the kid can play basketball.

Playing basketball is a lot of things. But one of the most important things is putting the basketball into the net. UC has struggled a lot to find guys who can do that. Xavier never seems to be in need of a scorer. Holloway’s not hitting, there’s Redford. Lyons gets hurt or gets into foul trouble, there’s Crawford.

Well, wait a minute now somebody else said, there’s a huge difference between the kinds of players Xavier needs to recruit to win the Atlantic 10 and the kinds of players UC needs to recruit to win the Big East. UC plays in a better conference. It needs better player than Xavier recruits.

Is the Big East a better conference than the A-10? Yeah. But you get more bids to the NCAA Tournament every year from the Big East than what the A-10 gets. Everyone was howling at me when I said back in January the Atlantic 10 would get two, maybe three bids. Joe Lunardi, mister bracketology was on this program a month ago right after he wrote that the A-10 would get six team in. Told me, you, that day it’d be four minimum. They got three. The Big East got eight.

So the point of the argument was you get eight chances to make the Tournament, you don’t’ have to be a great team to make it from the Big East. You basically have to be a game better than ‘500’ inside your conference. Georgetown and Notre Dame made the tournament this year with 23 wins and 10-8 conference records. That’s it.. You don’t even have to contend for your conference championship. All you have to do to satisfy your fan base is ‘get in’. If you get in and get the right match ups, you might win one, maybe two. This is what Xavier seems to do every year. Why not, if you’re UC follow that blueprint.

So if I’m Mick Cronin, I’m not trying to build a championship team for next season. I’m not telling anyone that of course. I’m building a team that’ll win ten games inside of my conference and about 24 total and simply qualify for the Tournament. At least for awhile, it'll get the wolves off his back.

This blog may NOT be republished or retransmitted in any way without the express written consent of Ken Broo

So why all the upsets in the NCAA Tournament so far? I've heard a lot of talk about that this week. You know why? There are only about five dominant teams in college basketball anymore. Ten years ago, the number was probably around 12. 20 years ago, it was close to 20.

So why the fall off?

TV

TV is the great equalizer in everything. Has been and, in some form or another, always will be when it comes to sports. Ask any college coach when he's out recruiting what the two things a potential player is interested in. It's TV exposure and playing minutes. Everything else falls into the category 'also'.

20 years ago, even with ESPN, only a fraction of the games that're televised now actually made it onto the screen. You'd be lucky to see a half dozen games a week. Now how many games are televised? You can find a half dozen games on at the same time most weeknights, many more on weekends. The TV 'stick' that schools like Indiana, UCLA, North Carollina, UK and Duke could hold out with a carrot on the end back in the '80's and '90's is now something just about every Division I program can offer. 20 years ago, you would have been laughed at if you suggested that Pitt, West Virginia, Oklahoma State and Xavier were elite Division I basketball programs. They got their games on television, if lucky, three or four times a year. Now, you can find just everyone of their games on the tube every season.

20 years ago, the elite basketball programs would over recruit a position. They could, because they were the big boys of college ball. So a player who could've started at Tulsa or South Florida or Butler would have taken a scholarship offer from North Carolina, or Maryland or Indiana because they were the elite programs, with their games televised all of the time. Not so anymore.

Now with three main ESPN channels and their various college exclusive packages, with conferences starting their own cable channels and with game available on-line, players who choose non traditional powers can be assured they will appear on some sort of broadcast.

TV exposure=playing minutes=programs that have surged to the top of college basketball in the last 20 years.

What's happening in college basketball today should be no surprise to anyone, when you look at how the dynamics have changed, just in the last 20 years

Late Sunday/Early Monday

Good Morning!

Good draw for the Xavier Musketeers. Minnesota was one of the last teams 'in' and it simply has no team speed. If Xavier doesn't win by 20, I'd be shocked. 20 point spreads are a lot in the NCAA Tournament. But a quick look at the match ups tells me that Minnesota will be over matched.

Kentucky's path to the Final 4 is brutal. But the Wildcats have John Wall and DeMarcus Coussins and there aren't a whole lot of teams in the tourney with a 1-2 punch like that.

UC's NIT route is interesting. I think they'll handle Weber State, and Dayton for that matter, should it get to that. The real intriguing match up will come in the third round, potentially UC against Illinois. I said this on Sports Rock Sunday night: if UC rebounds like it did against Louisville, UC can beat any team in this tournament. Sure, it has to put the ball in the basket better than what it's been doing. But defense and rebounding can carry a team a long way at this time of the year.

Now, to your Cincinnati Bengals...

They should’ve signed TO. It’s got nothing to do with the Bengals signing Antonio Bryant. I like that deal. But I’d have liked this past week a whole lot better if the Bengals had also signed Terrell Owens.

It may still happen. In fact, several NFL insiders were predicting as late as Friday that the Bengals would still make a deal with TO. Maybe not now, probably later than sooner. But the predictions were that the deal will get done.

Here’s why I want TO in Bengal stripes. He’s good. And a lot of Bengals wide receivers lately have been average, at best. Chad? He recommitted himself to football in 2009. What kind of numbers did he put up? Average. Not great. And now that he’s off dancing with the stars or bowling for towels or whatever else he’s doing to amuse himself, how much is he going to be thinking about making 2010 a killer year? Certainly not anytime before June.

Andre Caldwell? I like him. He’s got skills. But he’s a possession guy. I kept hearing all last season how he had burning speed when he played for the University of Florida. Really? Did he blow a piston between Gainesville and Cincinnati?

Quan Crosby? Please. If the Bengals somehow wind up with Mardy Gilyard, Crosby gone before September.

And we won’t even get into Jerome Simpson. You want to make yourself sick (not that I’m suggesting it as a hobby) but go take a look at the 2008 draft and see who the Bengals passed on to take Jumpin’ Jerome. DeShawn Jackson and Ray Rice to name just two.

When the Bengals parted ways with Levernius Coles (and I might add a wise maneuver there to cut your losses) and when Chris Henry died, it created two openings at wide receiver. And even with Antonio Bryant, the Bengals are still looking for that receiver who can stretch the field. At 37, TO would fill that need.

Now you’re saying, Ken, wait a minute. TO, the same guy who held the Philadelphia Eagles hostage, who flipped out in Dallas. TO, the man who put the ‘va’ in diva, this TO?

Yes.

Look, I don’t know if Carson Palmer is ever going to be the quarterback he was before he got Von Oelhoffen’d in that playoff game in 2006. Maybe he doesn’t either. But I do know this, the man had absolutely no one last season who could get open and go deep. No one. TO can do that.

The market for Owens right now is non-existent. You hear the Ravens may be interested. But then they trade for Anquan Bolden and sign Derrick Mason. The Oakland Raiders are supposedly kicking TO’s tires. He must be thrill with the thought of trying to catch what pass for passes from Jamarcus Russell. My guess is at some point, probably in late spring, TO will still be looking for work. Incidentally a lot of NFL free agents will be. There’s a lockout coming in 2011 and teams aren’t in any mood to dole out big money and long term contracts for players who’ll probably be on a picket line come Labor Day 2011.

So if Owens is still available in mid June, why not make another run at him.
He made six million last year. The Bengals could probably get him for three mil. In the NFL, to a franchise just valued at 953-million dollars, that’s chump change.

You think TO would be a distraction. You think maybe he’d be on Mike Brown’s driveway in October doing sit-ups? Check his track record. TO is a model citizen the first year he’s with any franchise. He was in Buffalo last year, with an offense as bad as the one here. Guy didn’t’ say boo.

The Bengals love to tease you. They think they’re being bold. They’ll bring in Larry Johnson at mid season. They gave Chris Henry chance after chance when the rest of the world screamed ‘what’? But honestly, this team hasn’t done anything bold since it traded up in the 1995 draft to get Ki Jana Carter with the number one overall pick. 1995, 15 years ago.


So my advice to the Bengals is to get bold again. It’s 2010 and it might be the last year of football until 2012. Your best players on offense, your quarterback and 85, appear to be on the back nine. You know you have to throw the ball to win. Antonio Bryant was a nice ‘get’. Now complete the puzzle. Signing TO may be seen as just adding another act to the circus. But it just might be the thing that takes you from a side show, to the main event.

I don’t know if the Reds are goinig to be any better this season that last. They don’t, and you don’t either. Because at this time of the year, everybody believes they’ve got what it takes to win it all. I’ve been at spring training camps with the Reds, when their best pitchers were Jimmy Haynes and Joey Hamilton, and they truly believed they had the stuff to contend. I didn’t want to burst their bubble at the time, but even the team bus driver knew, they had no shot.

But after spending about five days out here in the desert, here’s what my eyes are tellilng me.

For starters, this team has never had more raw talent, more potential than it has right now, certainly not in the last ten seasons. The every day eight, the rotation and the bullpen is deeper than it’s ever been. Now, you and I both know that potential is sometimes left at the gate when the pennant races begin. No body has won a pennant ‘on paper’.

I did a side by side comparison between the Reds and the Cardinals a few Sundays ago. I thought it was a 50-50 split. On some levels, at some positions, the Cardindals were ahead of the Reds. On other levels, the Reds stacked up better. At this time of the season, it doesn’t matter. Who knows what injuries, slumps and sore arms await a team at this time of the year.
But here’s what I do know. The Reds lost their ‘ace’, Edison Volquez last season. But the starting rotation this year is the best it’s been maybe in 15 years. Maybe it’s a little bit of wishful thinking here. But I believe that Aaron Harang reverts back to his pre-2008 form this season. He’s as slim as he was last season. And Harang has also spent a lot of time in the off season working the weights.

Bronson Arroyo eats innings. Johnny Cueto doesn’t. And who knows which Homer Bailey shows up this year. The good Homer Bailey ended last season, looking very much like the prized draft pick from 2004.
The bullpan is over priced at the back end. Francisco Cordero is tying up $14 million dollars in payroll. But his 39 saves with a below average baseball team last season was more than impressive. If the starters can eat up enough innings, Cordero will easily hit 39 again in 2010.
Go up and down the everyday eight. Is there a better defensive infield in the National League than your Cincinnati Reds? Scott Rolen is the best defensive third baseball this team has had since Aaron Boone. Orlando Cabrera and Brandon Phillips have had gold in their gloves. And in a division with top to bottom maqui first baseball, Joey Votto more than holds his own. Behind the plate, Ramon Hernandez is easily the best catcher this team has had since Benito Santiago and Eddie Taubensee.
The big stat in baseball now is ‘run prevention’. That’s baseball-eese for good defense. In the Reds infield, ‘run prevention’ should never be easier to achieve than it will be in 2010.

In the outfield, there are five guys who can legitimately say they have a right to start. Only three can, of course. But Jonny Gomes, Chris Dickerson, Drew Stubbs, Jay Bruce and Laynce Nix all have a legit reason to lay claim to a starting job. Look it up: Nix and Dickerson and Gomes in left field last season dropped some solid numbers. Bruce was much better at the plate after coming back from his broken wrist than he was before he broke it. Drew Stubbs hit for power after being called up from Triple A. Stubbs and the word power used to be mutually exclusive.
Here’s something else: everybody in the outfield can fly. The team speed in the outfield is exhilirating. Centerfielders, by and large, aren’t usually lead off hitters. But because of his speed, Stubbs can fill that spot. Dickerson can too, if need by. Team speed is a real strength.
But no team, in professional sports, operates in a vacuum. The Reds certainly don’t. They have the Cardinals, Cubs and Astros to contend with. The Brewers were a contender late into last season. They play in the only six team division in baseball. The fact is, all of those teams have gotten better in the off season too.

What I’ve seen since I arrived out here on Tuesday has led me to believe this team can be a lot better in 2010 than 2009. I’m rooting for that. Not for the Reds, mind you. My job doesn’t afford me that luxury. In journalism, broadcast or print, you have to check your rooting interests at the door. But I’m rooting for the Reds to be better in 2010 than any other year in the last 15 because, we really need it. Maybe you remember the good old days. Maybe you don’t. If you’re not 26 or 27 years old, you don’t remember the last time the Reds won a World Series. That’s a major problem for this team. It’s marketing to a lost generation. Too many potential fans have grown up since 1990 and have taken their rooting interests to other teams; or worse forgotten about the game of baseball all together.

This lost generation doesn’t go to games, like their father and grandfathers (or grandmothers for that matter) once did. They now have families and their children aren’t being raised Reds fans, like a lot of us were. The lost generation doesn’t spend money on the Reds, doesn’t spend money on the businesses in downtown that rely on them. The economy suffers because the team hasn’t been good. And we all suffer because of that. Good business in and around Great American Ball Park suffer, or fold and we suffer along with them. Having a competitive baseball team, a team that plays like it has a chance to win, creates buzz and buzz creates dollars and dollars fuel an economy.

Downtown Cincinnati is struggling. The Chamber of Commerce and the downtown PR flaks will try to tell you otherwise. But go ask anyone who runs a business downtown how things are going. The prevailing answer is ‘not good’. A good baseball team can change that. It can bring fans to downtown, who might just decide to drop a few more bucks in the businesses outside the ball park. Having a winning team is nice. Having a winning team that generates income for surrounding businesses is nicer.
That’s why I’m rooting for the Reds to be a better team this year. When they win, Cincinnati wins. And Cincinnati, like a lot of cities around the country, are having a tough time winning these days.I think it’s going to be better in 2010. I’m always a glass half full kind of guy. But honestly, I don’t know. I just hope. And that’s what this time of the year is all about

Greetings from Goodyear, Arizona....winter home, (new winter home) of your Cincinnati Reds...

I'm sitting in the media room with some of the true Titans of Media...well, OK, Baseball Hall of Famer, Hal McCoy is here. While waiting for the Reds to finish a team meeting, some thought on Spring Training, 2010...

The new team complex is splendid....state of the art, with a clubhouse that rivals any major league ballpark digs. I'm told, it's 44,000 square feet, which is close to ten times the size of the largest home I've ever owned.

Dusty Baker has named Aaron Harang his opening day starting pitcher, which is only a surprise because apparently Baker had no other option. Bronson Arroyo, the most likely candidate, wanted nothing to do with it. Arroyo doesn't like the opening day hoopla that Cincinnati always offers. Harang has won only 12 games in the last two seasons. But he'll make his fifth consecutive opening day start. And no other pitcher, as in Reds history, has ever started that many consecutive opening days..

Baker said just a few minutes ago that this is the best camp he's had in his managerial career. That included some pretty good teams in San Francisco and one or two in Chicago. Why does he feel that way? Baker says he doesn't have to tell players what to do. They're doing it, he says instinctively. "We've finally got some ballplayers, man"....is his direct quote....

Outfielder, Chris Dickerson seemed a little surprised when I told him his comments about wanting to start, believing he should start, in centerfield caused a bit of a stir in Cincinnati last week. Dickerson believes he should be given the same chance as Drew Stubbs. He will be, of course. But for now, the former #1 draft pick Stubbs is the starter. If Dickerson can stay healthy, he'll get his chance. And stats would indicate he'd be successful getting on base. Dickerson's .373 career OBP is one of the better ones on this team....

There's an intra-squad game this afternoon, just a five inning affair. But it will be very interesting on a number of levels. Harang and Homer Bailey are the two starting pitchers, each working an inning. The final pitcher of the day will be the $30 million dollar man, Aroldis Chapman. His 100 mph fastball has had a lot of the media and coaches buzzing....

One final thought: Goodyear appears to have sprung from the ground in the last 15 minutes. This place is a lot of brown dirt, sagebrush and strip shopping centers. There's nothing but chain restaurants, unless you consider Arizona's infamous 'tent city prison' which sits about a mile or two from the complex. You can see the inmates just about every morning, picking up the trash along the highway. Just a hunch: I'll bet they're not buzzing about Aroldis Chapman's debut today...

It's hump day....

We're hearing it's going to be the best and the biggest women's hockey game in history. Thursday, it's the Gold Medal skate to the finals for the USA women, up against the Canadiens. Both teams have had their wins in games against each other. Team Canada was solid in the late Fall and early Winter. But Team USA is red hot now. This will be must see TV. Make sure you find it on whichever NBC outlet televises it.

I don't know what Yancy Gates did to incur Mick Cronin's wrath. But you can't leave your most dominant inside presence on the bench for the final seven minutes of regulation and all of overtime in a game you absolutely have to win to get into the NCAA Tournament. Marquette should send Mick a giant 'thank you' card for that one.

It's all about seeding now for Xavier. If the Muskies win out, I think they can snag a seven seed in the NCAA's. Joe Lundardi, from ESPN, had an interesting observation about this team. He told me that teams will key on Jordan Crawford in the tournament because Crawford is the only threat the Muskies have. But Lunardi was quick to add, in most NCAA Tournament games, it all comes down to the final three minutes, when most teams have only one 'go to guy'. And the Muskies have Crawford.

I'm glad the Reds signed Jonny Gomes. But honestly, I'm hoping that either Todd Frazier or Chris Heisey has a the kind of spring training camp that makes it impossible for the Reds to send them back to the minors. Gomes didn't attract a lot of interest in the off season (he was holding out for a major league deal which the Reds finally gave to him) because teams didn't know if the 2010 Jonny Gomes would be able to replicate what he did in 280 at bats in 2009. Personally, I think he will. But I'd sure like to see Heisey or Frazier make it a tough call for Walt Jocketty and Dusty Baker.

Check out my latest podcast on www.kenbroo.com. My guest this time on The Broo View Podcast is Wes Bunting, from the nationalfootballpost.com. Wes is the college football guhru at NFP and has an inside look at this week's NFL Combine. You can find this current episode on the front page of my web site.

Random thoughts for a random kind of Tuesday....

Can snow removal be that tough? I'm just asking.....

The Reds are picked to finish 11 games behind the Cardinals in the NL Central this season. So says the PECOTA theorists and numbers crunchers at Baseball Prospectus. St. Louis, predicted to win the division with 88 wins in 2010. Are the Reds really eleven games worse that the Cards? I'll give you Prince Albert at first, Matt Holliday in left, Yadier Molina behind the plate and the top of the rotation with Chris Carpenter and Adam Wainwright. But you'll have to concede Brandon Phillips at second, Scott Rolen at 3B and Drew Stubbs in CF. And, I'll take Francisco Cordero to close over Ryan Franklin. The Cards may win the division, but not by eleven over the Reds.....

I'm hearing more and more grumbling about the Bengals having the audacity to offer Pac Man Jones a tryout. I'll grudgingly accept Matt Jones, who had his trouble with coke, among other things, while with the Jags. But Pac Man Jones? The 'Make It Rain Man' from Vegas?

Let me ask you this: when the Indianapolis Colts want to get better, do they look at thugs? Or do they draft smartly? When the Giants Plaxico Burress shot himself in the leg by carrying a concealed weapon into a New York City night spot, what did the Giants do? They suspended him indefinitely even though they were in the middle of trying to make the playoffs. When the Colts Mike Doss got into trouble, Indy cut him. The Bengals then signed him. Just when you thought the Bengals were about to behave like a responsible organization, they go back to their future. And they wonder why they can't win.

If you had any doubts about the Big East being the best conference in college basketball, they should have been erased after what happened inside of 36 hours this weekend. Sunday, Rutgers goes on the road and beats Georgetown. Rutgers has struggled all season and the Hoyas will skate into the NCAA Tournament. Then, Monday night, Connecticut goes on the road and knocks off #3 Villanova. That's two road upset wins inside of a day and a half.

Xavier is back home Wednesday night against St. Joe's. I have a feeling the Muskies will now run the table into the Atlantic 10 Tournament and reach, at least, the finals. If all of that happens, they'll be no worse than a #7 seed, maybe higher.....

UC needs to beat one of the big three left on its schedule to get in, IMHO (Georgetown, Villanova or West Virginia) and the Bearcats have to take care of business with Marquette, DePaul and South Florida. But if they beat at least one of the 'big three' they have left on their schedule, it will be the NCAA clincher.....

I'm into the Olympics big time. But if NBC doesn't change its mind and put the USA vs Canada men's hockey game on 'over the air' TV, I think the network is making a big mistake. NBC has a vested (monetary) interest in the NHL. How can you have that and not put your home country's hockey game on TV, banishing it to cable? The rumor is, the game goes to cable so NBC can televise ice dancing. If the suits at NBC like ice dancing so much, why did their programming department pass on the chance to buy the Dancing With The Stars franchise, which instead was gobbled up by ABC,

Like I say...I'm just asking here....

We got a long way to go and a short time to get there, as the late great Jerry Reed used to sing...

It's Tuesday and it's snowing...wait a minute, it's February in Cincinnati, why is this a shock to anyone?

This may have been the last Super Bowl you’ll be able to enjoy for awhile. There will be at least one more, after this upcoming season. But the talk around that game will be more about labor troubles in the NFL than about blocks and tackles. The NFL is headed for a road block.

The owners want out of their basic bargaining agreement with the players association. The owners signed off on a new deal in 2006. But, within months, there was buyers remorse.

Now the NFL owners have exercised an opt out. They want a do over. And the players union is in no mood to give them one. I’ve been told by people who should know that the real intent of the owners here is to permanently break the union.

In 2006, when Paul Tagliabue was the NFL commissioner and the late Gene Upshaw ran the NFLPA, the owners signed off on a deal that guaranteed their players 59-percent of the teams gross revenue. It was then, and remains now, the highest ‘cut’ of any of the four major sports. The owners say, it’s too high. And since 2007, or there abouts, they’ve been girding for a lockout. The target season: 2011. Everything the owners have done leads you to believe they will lock out the players in 2011, effectively stopping the games. The owners have hired the man who engineered the National Hockey League’s player lockout from a few years back. The owners have negotiated a contract with their television partners that will guarantee them payments form the networks, even if there are no games to televise.

Now you’re thinking, OK, 2011 is a long way off. But the impact will be immediate. Because the owners have opted out of their agreement with the players (which incidentally they had every right to do, given the contract language) 2010 will be an uncapped year. That means teams can spend as little as they want on player salaries this upcoming season, or a much as they want. Guess which side teams like the Patriots, Redskins and Cowboys will come down on. Guess which side your Cincinnati Bengals will choose.

Owners with deep pockets and big egos, like Jerry Jones and Dan Snyder could spend past imagination to try and build a championship team. Don’t think it could happen? In 2007, Snyder spent $130-million more than the Minnesota Vikings. Not $130 million dollars in salaries. $130-million dollars MORE than the Vikings.

Ir’s more than just dollars. It’s the stark reality of trying to fix a football team that might be just a player or two away from being really good. Think, your Cincinnati Bengals.

Up until this year, a player with four seasons of NFL under his belt would be available for some form of free agency. Not now. In this uncapped year of 2010, the years of service goes up to six. That will cut down on the free agent pool. Players like Denver’s Elvis Dumervil and San Diego’s Darren Sproels, are now off the market.

The top eight playoff finishers from the previous season would be allowed to sign free agents only at the rate at which they lose them. So maybe there’s a silver lining after all, to the Bengals stinking it up in the first round of the playoffs.

Each team would be allowed to restrict two eligible free agents with "franchise" or "transition" player tags, rather than one., further limiting the free agent pool. In essence, the chances for a team that is, shall we say frugal, of getting better overnight, aren’t all that good.

You heard a lot of rhetoric this week from the union boss, Demaurice Smith and from NFL commissioner, Roger Goodell. You’ll hear a lot more in the coming weeks and months. With no deal in place by this time next year, the strike rhetoric will overwhelm the game. A lot of voices are saying today that the NFL and it’s union won’t allow it to get to a point where the 2011 season is interrupted, that there is too much money on the line for both sides to kill this golden goose. But we heard that in 1982 and again in 1987. And both times a major piece of the seasons were interrupted.

It could happen again.

I thought the Super Bowl ads were lame this year. Maybe it's because we've seen so many good ones in years past. This years didn't hit the mark for me, except for this one:

I'm told Leno flew in 'stealth' last week to tape this, in the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home to the Letterman show. In fact, Jay and Oprah were in the 'green room' watching Letterman tape his show. After that was completed, the CBS stagehands set up a living room set in the balcony of the theatre. The whole thing took about 25 minutes to tape. Letterman, reportedly, wrote the script. It was just brilliant. And witnesses say Leno and Letterman got along, putting aside their personal feud of about 15 years.

I mentioned this on my radio show Sunday, on 700 WLW: the Saints didn't have to be the better team Sunday to win the Super Bowl. They just had to be the better team for three hours, beginning at 6:25p EST. And, they were.

But it's still my contention that for the 2009 season, the best team in the NFL was the Indianpolis Colts. They were beaten by the better team Sunday night.

And I’ve been thinking about this all week. Why is Indianapolis so good? What makes that team the bell cow for every other team in the NFL, including the Bengals? And why do the Colts have a team that’s good enough to play in this game today and the Bengals don’t?

The easy answer is that the Colts have the best player in the game, Peyton Manning. But that also dismisses the other 30 teams in the league. So it’s deeper than that.

The better answer is drafting and assessing talent. If you’ve listened to this show for a moment, you know that I’ve consistently said the biggest problem the Bengals have, the one thing that has held this franchise back from contending is it’s process of player procurement. The Bengals struggle with it. The Colts excel at it.

In 1997, Indianapolis finished 3-13. They had the number one pick in the ’98 draft. They chose Manning. Could’ve taken Ryan Leaf. They Colts took Peyton Manning. In 1999, they finished 13-3 and won the AFC East.

But look at the other moves that came after that.

Also in ’99, they got Manning’s center, Jeff Saturday, off the unemployment line. Baltimore had cut him. He’s been the anchor of the Colts line ever since.

At right guard is Kyle DeVan, free agent pick up this past off season. Undrafted free agent. He was playing in the Arena2 league. He’ll start today in the Super Bowl.

Left guard, Ryan Lilja. Like DeVan, an undrafted free agent. He starts today. The Colts found him when the Chiefs let him go in 2004. That year, the Bengals were busy signing players like Kurt Kittner and Allen Augustin, names forgotten three minutes after they were signed.

The guy protecting Manning’s back side, left tackle Charlie Johnson, was a sixth round pick in 2006. The Bengals passed on him and took wide receiver Reggie McNeal. Johnson starts today. McNeal wound up posing for mug shots. Oh, in that same round in 2006, after the Bengals passed on Johnson and took McNeal, the Colts found the guys who’ll start at free safety today, Antoine Bethea. Correct me if I’m wrong haven’t the Bengals spent a lot of money and time trying to find safeties lately?

You get where this is going? The Bengals could have picked wide receiver Pierre Garcon in 2008. Instead, they passed on him twice in the 6th round of that draft. They took Corey Lynch and Chris Harrington. And don’t get me started on Jerome Simpson from that draft.

One of the best wide receivers in football was a first round pick in 2001. So was Justin Smith. The Colts took Reggie Wayne number 30 overall. Smith came here fourth overall.

And it’s not just offense. Don’t you think the Bengals would have saved a lot of free agent money, if they’d drafted defensive end Robert Mathis in 2003, instead of taking Kahlid Abdullah? Mathis had nine and a half sacks and five forced fumbles this season. Abdullah played two years here and had ten tackles total in his entire career. The Bengals took Abdullah two picks before Mathis.

And it’s knowing where the players fall through the cracks land, and how they’d fit into your system. Defensive tackle Daniel Muir for example. The Packers let him go in 2008. The Bengals could’ve claimed him. He’ll start for the Colts today. He was an undrafted free agent out of Kent State.

The Colts started undrafted free agents at safety, cornerback,and middle linebacker. Gary Brackett is the middle linebacker. Great story. He walked on at Rutgers, defensive captain by his senior season, undrafted free agent, starting in the Super Bowl today.

Why, in 2005 when they were desperate for cornerbacks, did the Bengals pass on Kelvin Hayden in round two and take Odell Thurman? Why did Hayden start in the Super Bowl and Thurman is in the UFL?

You like Dwight Freeney? Me too. Could have had him in 2002. He went one pick AFTER the Bengals took Levi Jones. What did Freeney have this season, 13 and a half sacks? And Jones is where right now? The Bengals also passed on Jeremy Shockey, Albert Haynesworth and Ed Reed in the first round of that draft. How’d that happen?

The answer to all of these questions is two words: Bill Polian. Actually, it’s four words: team President, Bill Polian. In ’97, he was fired by the Bills. The Colts didn’t waste a moment signing him. Why not? He got the Bills to four Super Bowls and the Colts, at least in their Indianapolis days, never had a whiff of one.

Polian had a vision, and more important, had a plan. He knew what kind of players he needed in his system to win. That’s why in the ’99 draft, he took Edgerrin James and passed on Ricky Williams. The Saints traded their entire lot of draft picks to get Williams AFTER Polian took James. Polian spent just one pick. The Saints spent six picks to get Williams.

There was the Corey Simon fiasco a few years back. But under Bill Polian, the Colts haven’t been big free agent spenders. It’s all about drafting, finding the players that should’ve been drafting and coaching.

For eleven seasons, the Colts have had a plan. Where have the Bengals been the last eleven seasons, or for most of the eleven before that.

Under Polian, the Colts have had their whiffs. But not many. The Bengals have faired better with some selections than Indianapolis. Rudi Johnson in round 4 instead of the Colts starting guard, Ryan Diem. Maybe a wash.

Look, I don’t know Bill Polian from the next guy. To be completely honest, in my first go round at channel 5 years ago, Polian was in Buffalo and was a jerk to deal with. I don’t sense anything warm and fuzzy about the guy. But he knows talent. And that’s why you should know this:

When you watched the Super Bowl, you saw a lot of guys playing for the Colts who easily could have been Cincinnati Bengals. And had they come here, instead of there, it might just as easily have been the Bengals in who played in Super Bowl XLIV.

Just another Manic Monday....

BTW, whatever happened to Suzanna Hoffs and the Bangles?

Whoa...didn't see this one coming, Saints win the Super Bowl! You can think the genius coaching of the Saints' Sean Payton. 4th and 1 from the Colts one, right before halftime, Payton elects to 'go for it'. The Saints didn't get into the end zone. But it left Peyton Manning and the Colts backed up. Payton had all of his time outs left. He knew if he held the Colts to 'three and out', he'd get the ball back in decent field position. It happened exactly that way and the Saints wound up with the three points they left on the field just moments before.

The on-sides kick to start the second half was pure genius, and headsy. And challenging the two point conversion try that the Saints didn't get on the field, but was reversed on replay, was another indication that Payton had his 'A' game going and Jim Caldwell, the Indianapolis coach, did not. By the way, there is NO way that two point conversion should have been overturned on replay. Despite what the NFL chief of officials says, it was not a successful conversion by strict interpretation of the NFL rule book.

I'm particularly happy today for the Cincinnati connection on that Saints squad. Former Lakota High and UC star, Troy Evans was a big contributer on special teams. And did you see him out there for the pre game coin flip? Zach Strief, the Milford High standout by way of Northwestern, will be wearing a Super Bowl champion's ring. And the linebackers coach for the Saints happens to be the son of Bengals defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer. When you factor in the time Sean Payton spent on the late Randy Walker's coaching staff at Miami University, Southwest Ohio didn't do all that badly on Sunday night.

Tuesday rumblings and ramblings...

If Colts DE Dwight Freeney can't play (torn ligament in his ankle) I think it greatly cuts down on what the Colts want to do defensively. Freeney downplayed the significance of his absence, should it occur. His contention is that the Colts are better in their secondary and at linebacker than they were even two years ago, and less reliant on their front four. But you tell me how a team isn't affected when their best defensive player is out, or not near 100%? If this game developes into a track meet, like it could given both offenses, not having Freeney will greatly hurt the Colts, IMHO.

Big day for high school football players is coming up tomorrow. And it's a big day for college football coaches. It's National Signing Day, where scholarships are handed out and players will make or break college coaches.

Check out my latest Broo View Podcast. It's on my web site www.kenbroo.com. My gues this week is Brian McLaughlin, the recruting writer for The Sporting News. Our conversation is how the NCAA needs to bring some sanity to the process of recruting players, and how it might be a good idea to have an early signing period, much like college basketball. If you're on the fly, here's a quick link.

Good Monday Morning!

The bus industry got a boost this week from your Cincinnati Reds. Three busloads of Reds players, front office folks and Dusty Baker fanned out over three states, spreading the word…optimistic of course at ever stop….to the small towns and ‘burghs that at one time were chock full of Reds fans. There are still plenty of Reds fans in southern Kentucky, Northwestern Indiana and the hills of West Virginia. But not so much anymore. Oh, there are plenty of fans who’ll listen to the games here on the Big One and follow the team in the hometown papers. But buy a ticket? Drive to Cincinnati? Spend the weekend at a local hotel and support the local eating and drinking establishments? You’ll get the answer on that from the restauranteurs and hoteliers in the Tri-State. Or just check out the license plates in the parking lots around Great American Ball Park on game day. You’ll see a lot of Ohio and Kentucky plates, a few Indiana plates. But not like it was even ten years ago.

We used to be able to park our news cars close to the players entrance at Riverfront Stadium. Walking out after covering a game, it was fun to see the cars from distant locations. You’d see Kentucky plates with dealership ads from Frankfort, Owensboro, Pikeville and Paducah. You’d see plates from Illinois, Tennessee and even Arkansas. Saw more than a few of those.
But lately, the Reds have become less of a regional draw and more of a local team. That doesn’t matter really to you and me. But it matters a lot to the guy who writes the checks. And that’s why Bob Castellini is going Greyhound this weekend.

The Reds Caravan was a big deal, back in the day. Anytime you had Pete Rose or Eric Davis or whomever the stars of the moment were rolling into Chillicothe, or Charleston, or Cambridge, it was big news. But then the team got bad, Marge got cheap and the the economy went south. Not too surprisingly, the Reds stopped be an attraction for a lot of people outside of Cincinnati.

But that’s changed now. The buses are rolling and the Reds are on the verge of being relevant in a lot of homes again. If you haven’t heard, a lot of the baseball experts are hopping on the Reds bandwagon. The latest diamond mind projections are out today. I won’t bore you with the statistical detail of the study. It factors in a lot of things, to come up with projected wins, projected wins vs actual wins in 2009. It’s the stuff that makes your eyeballs roll up into your forhead. Anyway, the latest projection has the Reds winning 86 games this season. That’d be an increase of eight wins over last year and would put them smack dab in the middle of the playoff chase..

PECOTA is another statistical study that would bore anyone who can’t spell sabermetrics. It’s big if you’re addicted to fantasy baseball Anyhow, the 2010 numbers are out for that and it has the Reds finishing second to the Cardinals in the NL Central, with an 81-81 record.

I think what I’m getting at here is that I think the Reds are going to be a lot better than some of us think they will this season. I’m not drinking the Kool Aid. I’m just looking at facts.

Joey Votto is now one of the top hitters in the league. If he’s around for the full season, he could deliver monster numbers. Remember, the Reds were very much in the race until Votto left for a month in late May. Brandon Phillips is just a year removed from a Gold Glove season. Drew Stubbs has blistering speed and showed flashes of power at the major league level last season. Ramon Hernandez is back to handle the pitching. He offers offense that the Reds haven’t had behind the plate in a long time.

The rotation isn’t bad. Johnny Cueto and Homer Bailey are the young guns. I’m willing to bet that Aaron Harang is back to his 2007 form. Bronson Arroyo will be his typical ‘500’ self. And the bullpen still has a legit closer in Francisco Cordero, with Jared Burton Nick Massett and Micah Owings providing set up and middle relief.

Jay Bruce is a large question. He hit well for the first two weeks of his major league career. After that, not so hot. There is no answer for left field and there’s no way the Reds are serious contenders with a short stop who hits ‘211’. The good news: Orlando Cabrera may be here by later today.

Look, the Cardinals signed Matt Holiday this winter. They still have Chris Carpenter and the best player in the game, Prince Albert. The Cubs just signed Xavier Nady and the Astros added pitcher Brett Myers among others.

But I get the feeling we’re going to be saying good bye to these 76-78 win seasons. 2011 looks like it could be a huge year, when Chris Heisey Todd Frazier, Yonder Alonso and Aroldis Chapman join the core talent that will play at Great American Ball Park this season.

It’s a good time for the Reds to spread the word. Maybe they’ll become relevant again, to a lot more people, besides you and me.

Check out my interview with Xavier basketball TV analyst, Steve Wolf, the former Musketeer. We're talking about Xavier coach Chris Mack and the always fundamentally sound Muskies. It's on the front page of www.kenbroo.com.

How's your Tuesday going?

Got a injury you need help with? Tonight at 7:30p on Channel 5 in Cincinnati, we're hosting another 'Call The Docs' show. It's your chance to call in and talk with the good doctors from Beacon Sports about whatever malady you may have. Free medical advice, no HMO or co pay. Such a deal!

There's a brand new Broo View Podcast ready to download. This episode features Matt Bowen from nationalfootballpost.com. We talk about whether or not Carson Palmer is still a quarterback capable of leading a team to the Super Bowl. You can find the podcast on the front page of my web site: www.kenbroo.com.

When you're number one, you never know who'll be calling. The UK Wildcats got a big surprise today. Right after a mid day practice for their game tonight in Columbia, South Carolina, John Calipari's team got a phone call from President Obama. He was calling to congratulate the Wildcats for raising over $1 million for Haitian relief efforts. While he was at it, Obama also congratulated the Wildcats ascending to the top of college basketball. UK is number on in both major polls this week, unbeaten so far this season. Super freshman, John Wall invited the President to watch UK in person and challeged him to a game of 'horse'. Obama politely declined saying, "I don't want to lose". There's a good chance they'll meet in person this spring, with the way the UK has been playing an NCAA Championship isn't out of the question.

For the first time ever, the NFL stages the Pro Bowl before teh Super Bowl. The game is this Sunday in Miami, site of Super Bowl 44. It's a better idea than playing the game as an after thought, which has been the case forever. But more than ten Saints and Colts players elected to the Pro Bowl will now have to beg off, with the Super Bowl, of course, taking precedence. Here's my idea: play the game BEFORE the season, much like the NFL used to do years ago when the reigning champion took on a team of college all stars. Play the game in August, AFC vs NFC and use it for what it is, a glorified exhibition game.

Good Monday Morning!

This is what I'm thinking about today: what do the Jets, Colts, Vikings and Saints have that the Bengals don’t? Why were those teams still playing Sunday, and your Cincinnati Bengals have scattered for the winter? The easy answer is this: they all play great defense, they all have impact players on both sides of the football and they all can throw the ball, even the Jets.

The tougher question is why. Why can the Jets do all of that and the Bengals can’t? A lot of it is talent. A lot of it is scheme. A lot of it is simply putting dollars into personnel that will have impact in the areas of the game that are now the most important.

There was a time when you could win in the NFL simply by running the ball, controlling the clock and then playing solid defense. It was a blue print to getting deep into the playoffs. The New York Giants did it under Bill Parcells. They did a few years ago under Tom Coughlin. And we know all about what the Steelers have done. But the game has changed.

This is what Bill Cowher said on the CBS NFL pre-game show back in October. And this is a direct quote:

‘The game has changed, the rules have changed," he said. "I think right now, I hate to say this, but the running game is a complement. It's not the foundation that it once was. “ Cowher went onto say, “You look at the last three AFC teams that were in the Super Bowl, that's Pittsburgh, New England and Indianapolis. They're all passing teams. The running game is a complement.”

Think about how many times you’ve seen a team get into the red zone simply because it throws the ball downfield. Sometimes, the receiver makes a spectacular catch. Sometimes, he turns that into a touchdown. But more often than not, the receiver doesn’t have to do anything.

In the NFL, pass interference is a spot foul. It’s not college, where the distance of the call is just 15 yards. If an NFL defensive back is called for pass interference on his own five yard line, that’s where the offense gets the ball. In college, 15 yards from the line of scrimmage, max.

Now think about the number of times the Bengals threw deep this season. In a lot of ways, what was wrong with their offense, could have been fixed, or hidden, by simply throwing deep. The difference between these four teams left standing and the Bengals? It was the Bengals inability to throw the ball with any consistency. But why?

I did a little digging, a little research. Three of the four teams left in the Super Bowl chase were in the top eight in passing offense: Indianapolis ranked second, New Orleans fourth, Minnesota eighth. The Jets were 31st, second to last.

Throwing deep, testing the secondary, keeping the safeties from cheating up into run support is something else the Final 4 NFL teams can do well, and the Bengals didn’t’.

Here’s the stat: plays of 20-or more yards this season, passing plays. The Colts had 62 of those. The Saints had 58, the Vikings 55. The Jets had 37 plays of 20-yards of more. Your Cincinnati Bengals, only 36. 36 pass plays of 20-or more yards in 477-passing attempts.

Passing leads to points. I’ve said this since October, the Bengals offense could not score enough points this season to make any reasonable thinking fan believe they could play with the big boys come playoff time. Eleven of the 12 playoff teams ranked in the top 17 for points scored this season. When you extract defense and special teams scoring, the Bengals total of 281 offensive points in 2009, left them at 22nd in the entire league. That comes out to 17 and a half points from the offense per game.

New Orleans and Minnesota, incidentally were one-two.. The Saints offense averaged better than 28 and a half points per game.

But why?

Of the 10-playoff quarterbacks, nine had better passing stats than Carson Palmer. Only the Jets Mark Sanchez was worse. Does this mean that Palmer isn’t the quarterback a lot of us think he is? Or did these teams have better talent around their quarterbacks?

Let’s start with the offense line. The Bengals line allowed 56-hits on Palmer and 29-sacks for a quarterback misery total of 85. The Colts allowed just 13-sacks, 44-hits for a misery total of 57. The Saints allowed just 20 sacks, misery total of 72. The Jets line, considered the best in the business, allowed 30-sacks and 53-hits on Sanchez. The Vikings total was a whopping 117. Favre was sacked 34 times.

But the Colts threw the ball over a hundred times more than the Bengals did this season. Manning, Favre and Brees were all top ten in attempts. Palmer was 19th, making the sacks and hits on him more glaring.

You know what the four teams left standing have that the Bengals don’t? A legitimate tight end. The Vikings Visante Sciancoe had twice as many catches as JP Foschi did this season. The Colts Dallas Clark caught 100-passes. Foschi caught 27. Sciancoe had eleven touhdown catches. The Bengals receiving corp, tight ends and wide receivers and running backs, together caught just 21.

Cowher is right. This is a passing league where you must score points to win. It was great watching Cedric Benson run all over the field this season. It was terrific to see the Bengals defense shutdown some big time play makers. But the name of the game now is throwing the ball and scoring points. And unless the Bengals figure that out between now and next season, my guess is we’ll get to this final four weekend without them…again.

Let me just say this: cardio rehab is a killer (if that oxymoron makes sense). How can a guy who got his heart rate up to 152 as late as December 21st be so winded after hitting 120 for just a few minutes? I actually nodded off for a few minutes tonight during a commercial break in the UC basketball game.

UC beats South Florida...good win. It was one of those games a team has to win if it thinks of itself as an NCAA team. It's also a game UC had to win, considering it had two bad losses already in the Big East (St. John's and Seton Hall). Impressive win, considering Lance Stephenson didn't play and Yancy Gates was in foul trouble from what seemed like the warmups.

Different deal for Xavier tonight. The Muskies had another chance to beat a ranked team and failed to do so. Temple isn't great. It takes no risks defensively and it's offense isn't exactly astounding. But the Owls don't turn the ball over and don't give up a lot of second chance shots. Did it kill Xavier's chances to make the NCAA Tournament if it doesn't win the Atlantic 10 Conference tournament? No. But this is at best a two bid conference. So you can do the math.

Nice benefit coming up Thursday night at Mason High School. The dual wrestling meet with Harrison has been dubbed "Pin Cancer". Mason student, Geoffrey McPherson is battling cancer.
The meet will be free admission. But they're asking you to buy a t-shirt for $7 with proceeds going to "Pin Cancer"

Just posted....my latest Broo View Podcast. My guest in this episode is Dan Wetzel of yahoosports.com. He's got a great idea how to implement a playoff system in Division I college football right now....the the proper guy with enough muscle to make it happen. It's on the front page of my web site, www.kenbroo.com. But here's a quick link to it.

Is Born Ready really ready? Tonight at 6p on WLWT, Cincinnati's channel 5, I've got a story on UC freshman, Lance Stephenson, who's progress from McDonald's High School All American to Divsion I college basketball has been slower than some would like.

More reports today that Tiger Woods is in a Mississippi clinic that treats sex addicts. America loves a comeback story. But Tiger is going to have to win a lot of golf tournaments to escape being the punchline that he's quickly become.

If Xavier beats Temple Wedensday night, look for the hype surrounding this team to blossom nationally. Xavier has been quietly piecing together a nice season (do they do it any other way on Victory Parkway) and flying below the proverbial radar. Temple is now the 16th ranked team in the USA. The Musketeers have a rematch with Dayton and a road game at Florida, down the road. But a win at Temple blows the cover off this quiet season Xavier has been enjoying. It could happen. But Dante Jackson has to continue his torrid shooting and Jason Love will have to bring his "A" game to his hometown of Philadelphia.

Marvin Lewis coach of the year in the NFL? I've always been a big fan of Marvin's. But I think he's smart enough to know he got the award this year from the Associated Press football writers in large part for what his team did defensively. And for that, he should thank defensive coordinator, Mike Zimmer. Marvin did a nice job holding together the team through the death of Zimmer's wife and Chris Henry. But the performance of the Bengals defense under Zimmer was just terrific.

I've said, the one thing Marvin needs to do is improve his public image. His foundation's work is exemplary. Every football coach should try to emulate what he does. But the personna he puts on display at his weekly news conferences needs a lot of work. Marvin comes off as distrustful of the media. Whether or not he is, isn't the point. The point is, he comes off that way. Bengals fans never hear the questions, whether good or bad. They only hear his answers. And too often, he comes off as curt. Marvin needs to take a page out of the Bill Cowher or Rex Ryan book of how to handle the media. It's about the only thing I can think of that he needs to work on.

I love the fact that the Reds have signed Cuban pitcher Ardolis Chapman. It's a bold move for a team not known for those kind of things. But I think selling the future is a tough sell for the Reds. They really need some sizzle for 2010. Good luck selling tickets with a short stop who hit .211 last season and a left field situation that got worse with the departure of Jonny Gomes. Mix in the loss of pitching ace, Edinson Volquez, for most of the season, and the prospects of a 70 win season don't look so hot. Have you seen the commercial the Reds are running right now? It's not about 'come see our young players take on the the goliath Cardinals". It's not about the youth and enthusiasm of players like Jay Bruce, Joey Votto and Drew Stubbs. The Reds first big ad campaign of 2010 is for a ticket package that includes four hat give-aways, hardly the stuff that will energy the casual fan to buy a ticket, let alone your ticket base.

UC did well in beating Notre Dame Saturday. But what the Bearcats desperately need now to feather their nest before Selection Sunday is a win over a nationally ranked team. They'll get plenty of opportunity for that in the Big East. Most of their higher profile games remain. But with the way the Bearcats shoot the ball (not particularly good) and with the way they seem to crumble at crunch time (the win over ND excluded), how can you realistically expect them to beat Syracuse, West Virginia or Villanova, teams they need to beat to climb into the top six in the Big East standings.

Xavier has a different problem. Right now, the Muskies are 4-0 heading into Wednesday night's game at #16 Temple. The Muskies may well win the Atlantic 10 Tournament and gain the conference's automatic bid. But failing that, they'll have to follow up their win over Dayton this past Saturday with another win at UD Arena later this year. Right now Xavier's RPI is strong and its schedule has been deemed 3rd toughest in all of Division I basketball. But the Atlantic 10, past Dayton and Temple, isn't very strong. Xavier will gain nothing from games against Rhode Island, Fordham and St. Bonaventure. If it can't win the A-10 Tournament, I think Xavier will have to all but 'win out' to get one of the two bids the conference will be limited to.

Random thoughts on a random Wednesday.....

More absurdity in college football. How can a school the size of Tennessee get duped into a 'one and done'? Maybe now, the NCAA will be more inclined to look into the silliness of college football coaches contracts.....

Former Bengals wide receiver, Ron Dugans, named today the wide receivers' coach at Louisville. I never remembered him as being a clutch receiver in his time with the Bengals. Maybe it's easier for him to tell others how it's done, rather than actually doing it...

If the Bears hire Bengals quarterbacks coach, Ken Zampese as their offensive coordinator, why didn't the Bengals look at him in that capacity? Bob Bratkowski has to be on 'life support' right now....

I think the Ravens are going to beat the Colts this Saturday night. But I have no data to support my theory.....

The Jets dream ends in San Diego. Same for the Cardinals....but the Cowboys will play on....

Outside of China, is there another country in the world whose athletes are so little known as Cuba's? And because of that, isn't it a little risky that the Reds are forking over $30 million to a Cuban pitcher, Ardolis Chapman, whom scouts have seen pitch just six times....and in simulated situations at that?

Just askin'.....

Conan O'Brien is going to walk on how many millions of dollars? To go where?

Jay Leno is the guy who played it smart. He said nothing when the network suits decided to send him back to 11:35pm. Leno let O'Brien react. Now, if O'Brien leaves, Leno gets the entire hour and the job he never wanted to leave in the first place.

Unless Leno walks....

Comcast...how we lookin' now?

UC desperately needs a win tonight at St. John's (Madison Square Garden, actually). The meat of the UC schedule is still to come. 2-3 heading into a Saturday game against Notre Dame with Louisville, a rematch with UConn and Villanova down the road, not good....

We'll know if Xavier is for real in a week. Tonight, it's a home game with Charlotte, then a home game Saturday against Dayton and a road game at Temple next Wednesday. If the Muskies sweep three, then we'll know they're legit....

When somebody tells me they're 'serious as a heart attack' anymore, I cringe. Is that part of the depression phase my doctor was telling me about?

Tiger Woods now loses his free ride from GM. The auto manufacturer announced today it's not giving Tiger and more free loaners. Has anyone had a worse two months than Woods? He's lost endorsement deals, his wife, now the car. You the the house is next...

Three things the Bengals absolutey have to get before next season: a legit deep threat at wide receiver, an NFL calibre tight end and something that will fix whatever is wrong with Carson Palmer....

The only way the Bengals fix their wide receiver problem is throught he draft. I've been screaming for Mardy Gilyard since October....

I don't see the Bengals trying to get Brandon Marshall away from Denver. I know it's the fodder that makes radio talk shows 'hum', but it will take too much (at least the Bengals first round pick this year and some subsequent later round picks)...

The tight end situation may be fixed with finally getting Chase Coffman on the field. But riddle me this: how is it a third round pick can't make it onto the field for one snap this season? Who does Coffman think he is, Jerome Simpson? Oh that's right, Simpson was a second round selection....

Doesn't say much about the coach charged with getting Coffman NFL ready, Jonathan Hayes.....

Palmer either has something physically, mechanically or mentally wrong. Everyone in Bengal-dom, including Palmer, says it's not a physical problem. But look at the game tapes from the Bengals vs Jets playoff game and you'll see his passes sailing high, wide and low. If it's mechanics, how was that not fixed during the season. And if Palmer is having trouble reading coverages, finding receivers or worrying about some past or present injury (mentally), then we've got real trouble, right here in River City....

Good Tuesday Morning..

I haven't posted in awhile. This may explain why...

Somebody once said that life is something that happens to you, while you’re making other plans. I thought about that line a lot on Christmas Eve this year.

On Christmas Eve, I had a heart attack.

I’m 57 years old. Unlike a lot of people in my line of work, I don’t mind telling my age. What’s the difference? There will always be people younger than me and there are plenty of people who’ve died wishing they would have made it to 57. If you take care of yourself, age is only a number.

And to be perfectly honest, I thought I was taking care of myself. I’m not overweight (180 pounds give a take a few depending on the season). I work out three times a week (cardio as well as weights). I eat well, maybe not as much as I should, but well. I’ve never smoked a day in my life. I don’t drink (maybe a merlot or two on Saturday nights) and I’ve never done drugs.

So you can imagine my amazement at approximately 8:15 Christmas Eve morning, when I awakened to numbness in my arms, unable to catch my breath and sweating profusely. I felt as though the next contestant for The Biggest Loser was sitting on my chest. I had all the signs, but was still in denial. I told my wife to get dressed, we were going to the hospital, but that it wasn’t anything big, no need for a 9-1-1 moment in our driveway.

Interesting side note here: hospital staff say the worst heart attack victims are the ones that don’t arrive by ambulance.

15 seconds on an EKG machine convinced the hospital staff at Anderson Mercy that I was having a heart attack. It wasn’t a Red Foxx special (kids, ask your parents about it). But it was significant. Later, the cardiologist would tell me it would be classified a s a ‘major heart attack’.

I was fortunate. From first chest pain to getting prepped in the “Cath Lab”, it was no more than 30 minutes. Doctors say if you can get to the hospital within 90 minutes of the onset of a heart attack, you should be in good shape. Of course, they’ll add, plenty of people simply keel over or die in their sleep. I was fortunate.

Some other poor guy, who’s name I didn’t’ get but I hope is doing well, rolled into Anderson Mercy about an hour before I did. The staff had to haul in the cardiologist on call, Dr.Craig Sukin, to assist him. The good doctor thought he was done for the day, when they wheeled my sorry butt into the OR. He knew from looking at my EKG what was going on. But there was only one way to make sure. If you get a little queasy about surgery, you may want to skip the next couple of paragraph.

The only want to see what’s really going on inside your heart, is to go inside your heart. And the way to a man’s heart is through his groin. You’re saying Ken, I think I heard this once in an adult film. Well, most likely yes, but let me continue. The major artery from the heart to the groin is the femerul artery, groin right. Slice it open, and stick in tube and up you go. A couple of right turns later, they found the root of my problem: I had blockage in the artery in my heart that feeds the lower right side of it. It was the mother of all blockages: 100%.

I’m not certain if it was at this particular time or not, but at some point, a hospital staffer burst into the operating room and screamed “Do you have insurance?” I assumed she was asking me. Actually, I was hoping she was asking me and not the doctor. If she was asking him, I might have climbed off the table. Nothing like being reminded of what hospitals are really all about while you have a tube stuck into your groin.

I needed stints, three actually, little things that keep your artery open so the blood can flow freely again. And I need drugs, a lot of drugs. Plavix is apparently my new BFF. I found it comforting that, when he was finished with my heart and my groin, the good Doctor Sukin looked down at me as I was lying on the table and said (and this is the actual quote) “You have to take Plavix for the rest of your life. If you miss a day, you’ll die. “ I was ready to take 100 on the spot.

I spent one night in ICU, two others in another room and was back home on December 27th. And that’s how I spent my Christmas. Physically, I feel fine. Mentally, I have to admit, it’s a challenge. I’ve never turned down an assignment, always worked late into the night and tried to be all things to all people. I know I can’t do that anymore, and I probably shouldn’t have been doing it all along. I’ve got to learn how to work smarter. That’ll be tough. But if it keeps me alive, I’m all for it.

So how was your Christmas?