THE BROO VIEW with Ken Broo

Good Monday Morning!

4-1! The next person who tells you he or she predicted that you can say YOU LIE!

We know this. They’re making plays at critical points in ballgames. For most of the last 20-or so years, when it came time to make a play, the Bengals withered. Now, we see the fourth down conversions that kept winning drives alive against the Steelers and Browns. Coaches will tell you, Marvin has said this, that most games come down to about five to seven plays. Execute properly, you win. Execute poorly, you loses. For most of the last 20-or so years, the Bengals have selected door number two. Not so this season.

We know this: when healthy, Carson Palmer is an elite quarterback. He hasn’t’ achieved the status of either of the Manning brothers or Ben Roethlisberger. Those guys have Super Bowl rings. But he’s playing a lot like he played in 2005. Two things have helped Palmer: the Bengals have a running game and they aren’t losing track of it during ballgames. Remember how we groaned on a weekly basis the past few years when Bob Bratkowski would fall in love with throwing the ball around and not letting Benson, or Rudi Johnson or Kenny Watson or whomever grind it out? Remember how we said that in the AFC North, you have to run the ball to win late in the season and you only do that by establishing the ground game in September and October? As the French like to say voila.

We know this: the Bengals secondary is good, very close to very good. You want to know the real reason why Odom got all of those sacks and why the Bengals numbers in quarterback hurries and hits are up this season? It’s because cornerbacks Leon Hall and Jonathan Joseph are playing better. And because of that, safeties Roy Williams and Chris Crocker and Chinedum Ndukwe can come up in run support. Gush over the front seven if you want.

You won’t get any argument from me. But it’s the secondary that’s making it happen.

We know this: Kevin Huber may be the best Bengals punter since Lee Johnson. He may be the best since Dave Green (kids wake your Dad up and ask him who that is). Huber only has four NFL games on his resume. But he’s doing exactly what he did at UC: getting the Bengals out of trouble and into decent field position.

To be honest, there is a lot of stuff that isn’t right. St. Louis and his snaps would be the most glaring. Too often, Palmer has to hurry throws because of the offensive line, still a work in progress. Too often, receivers are running the wrong routes, or Palmer is throwing to invisible men. Too often, we get those infuriating penalties, like false starts and illegal blocks on the return team. The Bengals were supposed to have an elite class of tight ends this season. Two of them got hurt and the guy they drafted from Missouri can’t get on the field.

But 4-1 is 4-1.

The real problem in our town, with as bad as both the Bengals and Reds have been lately, is that when we see a ray of sunshine, we’re dousing ourselves in sun tan oil. We’re not there yet. You don’t emerge from 20-years of dark skies overnight. But we’re getting there.

So my unsolicited advice to you today is this: stop wondering how many wins it will take to make the playoffs. Stop looking three and four games down the road. Take some time to savor the moment. This team is 4-1. It won its biggest game of the season so far today. It is exactly at the same point it was in 2006. That season went south. Maybe this season won’t. That’s why you take it, one game at a time.