All I want for Christmas...

The Cincinnati Bengals defense is known for having more holes then Swiss cheese. Since 1980, the defense has finished a season in the top 10 only twice. The team finished with the top defense in the league in 1983 allowing 276 yards per game and in 2001, the defense finished 9th in total defense allowing 302 yard per game. Both seasons ended in the disappointment of not making the playoffs finishing with records of 7-9 and 6-10 respectively.

Coming into this season, the expectations for the Bengals were to contend for a playoff spot with the possibility of making a run at the Super Bowl, providing the defense plays well enough and finishes strong. But that is not going to happen. I mean, qualifying for the playoffs. But finishing strong, well that seems to be a different story.

I am asking everyone to please light a candle for our Cincinnati Bengals during this holiday season. Seriously, we need everyone to light a candle, a match, spray some Lysol, or open boxes of Baking Soda. If we all work together we can do something about the horrible smell in Cincinnati before Christmas and the play-offs get here because your 2007 Cincinnati Bengals really stink!

This will go down as the most disappointing season the Bengals have had in the past 15 seasons. There have been far worse teams but that is why this season is such a disaster. During the 90’s no one expected this team to be good. Let’s face it, we were hoping for a .500 record during that decade and though we held out hope no one realistically had any expectations of a play-off appearance.

This season was supposed to be the Cincinnati Bengals breakout season. Ok, that may be a little over the top, but they were expected to contend for a playoff spot. Because of injury to everyone but the water boy and sloppy play from the team’s superstars, that expectation will only be met if the rest of the conference does a complete collapse. Now that those injured players are getting healthy and the stars playing as expected, the game against the Tennessee Titans became a day of firsts.

It was the first touchdown Rudi Johnson has scored since the Browns were not considered a playoff team. He had spent several weeks on the injured list with a hamstring problem and also was struggling to regain his explosiveness when he was healthy earlier this season. Now that he is back in the line-up full time looking to reassert himself as a powerback, Rudi was able to get into the end zone for the first time since week two. The hope is that his hamstring holds up the rest of the season, thus giving him the opportunity of scoring touchdowns several more times.

First of all, apologies for my absence the past couple of weeks—real life and a brutal schedule interfered. It’s always nice to write about games like Sunday’s 35-6 hammering of the Titans. Every season, you get one flawless performance—last year, it was the 30-0 crushing of the Brownies. That one was fairly predictable, and this one was a surprise.

Great to see Carson bounce back after the Cardinal nightmare last week. He was at is hyperaccurate, Troy Aikman-cloned best, leading every receiver perfectly, making quality check-down decisions, and mixing downfield throws with flat stuff. In the absence of their dominant run-stuffer, Albert Haynesworth, Tennessee tried to Cover Three their way to forcing Cincy into more red zone frustration. But they weren’t counting on Rudi getting his swerve back, at least for one week. With a reliable up-the-gut pounder keeping third downs manageable and punching the rock into the end zone, the Titans were up the creek.

This season has turned to mush, and as we look at the draft we have to admit that compared to prior seasons we are a little closer than we were in the 90’s.

The hardest position to fill in the NFL is quarterback. We know this because of the long line of pathetic bums and busts. It’s not that hard to remember going into the off-season with all of our hopes riding on Akili Smith or Jon Kitna. Those were the bad, bad old days.