THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Just posted, my latest Broo View Podcast. Late Saturday night, after she won the gold with the USA women's 4x400m relay team, Mary Wineberg phoned from Beijing to talk about the highlight of her track and field career. You can find the Broo View Podcast on the front page of my web site: www.kenbroo.com or you can download it here.

And now, your Cincinnati Bengals....

I need some help here. I’m really struggling right now to find something good to say about your Cincinnati Bengals. They’re certainly not my Cincinnati Bengals today. They’re all yours.

Saturday night, I wasted three hours of my life watching their exhibition game against the Saints. Exhibitionists, your Bengals are not.

Up front, I admit I understand the ramifications of not having Chad and TJ in the line-up. I get that. But here’s what I don’t get: Carson Palmer getting hit on virtually every passing play. Not just last night, through three exhibition games this summer. Here’s the morning memo to the Bengals offensive linemen: you sent the most important player on your team to the locker room at halftime with blood streaming down his face. It’s OK to block the other guy. Really, it is.

The way this Bengals offense has performed so far this summer will be the biggest bargaining champ Houshmandzadeh will have this off season. And if the Bengals are sincere in re-visiting Johnson’s deal next winter, same thing for him.

The way the rest of the Bengals wide receivers played last night made me salivate for Chris Henry. It was that bad.

Chris Perry ran well. Guess what: other teams will give the Bengals that all day long. You know what he wound up with? 12-carries, 36-yards. Take out his one carry for 13, he averaged two yards a pop

Other teams will gladly let Perry run for a buck, if they don’t have to worry about pass coverage. Antonio Chatman caught a few nice passes Saturday night. Guess what: the Bengals were so impressed with Chatman’s play this summer, they went out and sold their souls, they signed Henry.

The Bengals calling card, their offense? 165-yards, total. 38-on the ground.
The Bengals defense allowd the Saints 458 yards. The Saints threw over the middle and deep. The Saints had more than seven more minutes of clock time than your Cincinnati Bengals.

Every single Bengals….you can’t call them drives…there were eleven possessions and three ended in negative yards….every single possession ended in a punt except the final possession. That ended with an interception.

For the first time in team history, it was shutout at home in an exhibition game. Do you know how hard you’ve got to try to get shutout, do you know how inept you have to play to get shutout in a National Football League game?

When Palmer and the first team offense was in the game Saturday night here were the numbers: 27 plays, 94-yards. The Bengals crossed he 50-yard line once last night, once, all the way to the Saints 49.

Does this sound like a team that’s ready to begin an NFL season?

So I’ll ask this question to get things rolling today: is there a chance that this Bengals team isn’t as good as we, or they, thought? We’ve had three exhibition games to see if this team is any better than last year’s, and the answer today is a resounding ‘no’. Do Houshmandzadeh and Chad mean that much to this offense, that without them it appears to be clueless?

Saturday night, after the game, offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said, in essense, that the protection problems weren’t all on the O-Line, but on the running backs (it was only Chris Perry for the first half) , the tight end (that would be Ben Utecht, one of the only bright spots) and the quarterback (that would be the guy who left with his DNA running into his mouth). If that’s the case, then Bratkowski’s side of the ball was total failure.

Is it all a lack of TJ and Chad? Or has this offense suddenly gone stale? Both are legitimate questions.

And now, if you’re Marvin Lewis, what do you do? You have your fourth and final pre season game coming up next Thursday night. The last thing any head coach wants to do is play his starters deep into the final exhibition game. The Colts certainly won’t do that. So if you’re number ones are going up against the Colts’ twos and threes, how much are you going to gain from that?

As for the other side of the ball, the secondary was again picked apart and the pass rush was, how can we put this, limited? The Bengals gave up 458-yards of offense. The first team was pretty much out of the mix two series into the second half, But listen to these numbers: 54 plays, 342 total yards.

OK, the high priced free agent lineman, Antwan Odom didn’t play. Neither did Chinedum, who’ll probably be a starter again when he’s healthy. Neither did Rashad Jeanty, who may be a starter when he’s healthy. But what else does that side of the ball offer up for an explanation.

The games start to count two weeks from today. The Bengals open in Baltimore. About the only good thing you can say about that today, is that the Ravens still have Kyle Boller as their quarterback. Other than that, I’m looking for answers. Help me, beause I’m fresh out of them.