THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Good Monday Morning!

Andre Smith signed with the Bengals Sunday, finally, agreeing to a deal he could have signed over a month ago. There are no winners in this negotiation.

Smith did himself no favors by holding out. The money is roughly what the Bengals made in their initial offer. And while Smith's agent tried to spin it by saying it was a four year deal, while most rookie contracts are six year offerings (thus, supposedly freeing the player to jump into the free agent pool two years earlier) the reality is the Bengals hold an option after the first four years are complete that would effectively make this a six year contract and then it would be for substantially less money than what the player picked immediately after Smith received, even less than what the player picked in Smith's spot in 2008 got.

The agent did himself no favors. Alvin Keels came off as a bit of a clown in his "Hard Knocks" appearances. And if he thinks any other agent or prospective 2010 client won't be able to see through what he got from the Bengals, he's kidding himself. Mr. Keels, you just got Bengal-ized.

The Bengals were losers here too. On two levels, they lost this battle. On the field, the wasted a training camp by not having a key member of Carson Palmer's protection unit. There is no way Smith will be able to make up the ground he lost. It's a crash course now to get him in some sort of game ready state by the season opener, now less than two weeks away. In the court of public opinion, the Bengals lost as well. They solidified their reputation of 'winning at the bank means more than winning on the field'.

This was nobody's finest hour.

In my business, we search for answers and information. It drives us. Some of the time the people you need answers and information from do little to help you. It’s not in their best interest. Some of the time, you find the information you’re looking for by simply asking the right questions. And sometimes, you ask and seek and you still can’t find what you’re looking for, even answers to some basic questions.

There are some basic questions about our two professional teams that need answering. And today, we don’t have them. That’s bad for the Bengals, who’ve got two weeks to come up with answers. Two weeks from right now, we’ll be hours from a game that actually matters. It’s not so bad for the Reds. They’ve got more than seven months to figure things out.

Some here are some questions about both.

Is the Bengals offensive line as bad as its looked?
Is the Reds 5 game winning streak a sign that this team can compete next season?
Is the Bengals running attack, 4.3 yards per carry in three games for real?
Has the light bulb finally gone ‘on’ for Chris Henry?

Four questions that no one has an answer for. So unlike fans in Boston, New York or even Dallas, you and I are left to guess.

The offensive line? What have you see through three of these exhibition games that would lead you to believe that Carson Palmer would be in one piece by Halloween? The party line from the locker room is “the line is coming together’/ But then, what we see are six sacks allowed to a Rams team that’s only going to the playoffs if it buys tickets. Did the starting front five allow all six sacks? No. But who didn’t see this coming? Isn’t this the reason why the Bengals drafted the ever expanding Andre Smith? And let me ask you this: did you see Hard Knocks this week? Did you see the little skit some of his eventual team mates put on, mocking Smith? Do you think maybe there might be some deep seeded animosity there? Smith was holding out for one payday that might be larger than what a lot of those guys may make in their NFL lifetimes. And while they sweat through a training camp, he was at home eating ribs and God knows what else. Did anyone in that Bengals front office ‘not’ see this coming? Did they not know that when they drafted him, he’d had a quarterback taken immediately before him and the mercurial Oakland Raiders selecting immediately after?

Eleven sacks allowed in three games. The Patriots defense should be pretty good this season. But the Rams and Saints?

Has the light bulb finally gone off for Chris Henry? I’m watching this guy. He’s got speed. And I don’t want to diminish anything he’s done so far in these exhibition games. 13-catches 217 yards and three touchdowns. But let’s be careful here. All three of his TD receptions have come against the other guys’ second stringers. Two of the three TD receptions appear to have been on the same kind of play. Henry runs a fade route well. But one trick ponies rarely make it big in the NFL. Can he make a catch over the middle? Is he willing to do that? Why is Marvin Lewis saying that Henry isn’t doing the other things a receiver needs to do?

We know how Henry handles failure. Not well. Will he handle success any differently? So is the light bulb on? It appears to be. I hope. But this is a guy who’s one good nocturnal mishap away from adios.

Is the Bengals running attack, 4.3 yards per carry for real? Bernard Scott averaged five yards a carry against the Saints. But he didn’t get into the game until after the Saints starting front seven was pulled from the game.
Against the Saints starters, they Bengals rushed nine times for 30 yards.

Against the Patriots, the Bengals rolled up 173 yards of rushing offense. Very impressive. They averaged just under 3.3 yards per carry.

Against the Rams, it was 144 yards on the ground, averaging 4.4 per carry.
Again, very impressive. Five fumbles lost? Not so impresive

But on balance so far, the Bengals running attack has been good.

Next up: is the Reds recent five game wining streak a sign that the team can compete next season? No. It’s a sign from God that you have to wake up and look at history.

How many years have we been in this exact spot? Here’s the script. We should know it by heart. Reds go to spring training with a collection of players that other teams have given up on or ‘projects’ coming back from one malady or another. Hype rolls out of spring training about how this pitcher has found his stuff again, or how this outfielder was just caught up in a numbers crunch on his last time, or how he’s completely back from whatever surgery pieced his body back together. Or Zeus zapped the guy with a lightning bolt or some other nonsense. Team breaks camp, starts out hot and looks like a contender…finally. And by Memorial Day, everybody is talking about the Bengals.

Then, along about mid August, when you can’t tell who’s playing for the Reds even with a scorecard, the team rips off a string of wins. It all sounds and looks great. Until you realize, it’s all happening with absolutely no pressure on the team, because it’s not a contender.

Look, good baseball is good baseball. But there’s a stark difference between playing well when you’re in the middle of a pennant race, as opposed to playing out a season. This year, like just about every year since 1995, the Reds are just playing out a season. When the heats not on, how do you really know how well a team can perform.

Remember a couple of years ago, you got so giddy over a pitcher named Tom Shearn. Nice guy, great story, lived in a trailer behind the centerfield fence at the ballpark in Louisville. Got hot in the second half of another lost season and everyone was talking him up. Where’s Shearn today?

Repeat after me: a team not in a pennant race does not have the same pressures and scrutiny that a team fighting for a pennant has. So no, I’m not encouraged about next season, given this recent winning streak. Nice, but the Reds have a multitude of sins to address before next opening day.

Here’s what they need to do in no particular order: they need to unload payroll to they can add better players. Arroyo, Harang or Cordero have to go. They need to take the cash they save there and go buy a left fielder, or second baseman or catcher that can protect Joey Votto, Brandon Phillps and Jay Bruce.

If they could bring the old scoreboard back and get a refund on the $10 million they spent on the new scoreboard….and spend the money on players, that would be good.

They need to continue developing talent in the minors. They need to stop changing general managers. They need to take a serious look at the quality of coaching that’s going on at the major league level. Too many base running gaffes this season, too many errors, too many times the team has failed in the game of fundamentals.