The Long Walk Away

In a passage titled, The Literary Shipyard, Mark Twain describes his writing process as a gas-tank that over time runs dry. He wrote that he always had unfinished works lurking somewhere like half-built ships awaiting their completion. When the tank ran dry on whichever novel he was writing, he would dock it with the others and find renewed interest in something else. Sometimes he would get around to finishing a few, I'm sure you've read one or two of them, but not always.

While I have nowhere near the necessary skill nor bravado to ever dream of comparing myself to the masterful Mr. Twain, I share his sentiments on dry gas tanks and old boats. I too have stories yearning to be told, but they are victims of my Bengal distraction. It wouldn't be fair to starve them outright until their whole concepts are forgotten, and to keep that from happening, the Bengals are out.

It will be a difficult subject matter to ignore. Because it has dominated so much of my attention for so long, it will take time to clear away some of that mental space, but it will never go away entirely. They are a morbid curiosity, a train wreck I cannot turn away from. Every time they release any information, I get even crazier than the time before and allow my stress-levels to rise. They certainly know how to get my goat. Well, no more, my friends. Rather than continue to spew hot-blooded hatred across the page at their expense, I choose cold indifference and leave it blank instead. In my opinion, a reader can only take so much negativity before being turned off by the writer entirely, and my mama always taught me that if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. Mama is always right.

That isn't to say you should stop reading about them though. You, the reader, are the only reason I ever carried on for all these years. If any credit is to be tossed around for the success of a blog, it is tossed to you. Besides, there are some terrific Bengal writers that need your readership to survive in their craft. If your interest level remains in the black and you're still excited for the local football team, then keep on brother, but as for me, my conscience won't at the moment allow me to take another step in that fruitless direction. There are bigger, and tastier fish to fry.

Still, this decision does come with a grain of regret. I promised you a thorough review of the season, where, upon completion, I would surmise a researched reason for the crappy year we all sat though during 2010. I like finishing these kinds of endeavors as painful as they might be, but this one will be docked as half-assed and abandoned. I'm sorry. Yet, as a feeble attempt to placate you, the loyal reader, here is a summarized conclusion on the matter:

The Bengals were doomed when they signed Terrell Owens. At the time, it looked like a splendid idea, but every tool has to be used the right way to achieve maximum efficiency, and TO was not a tool used well. As a result, every player on offense—including TO himself—didn't fully understand his role or function to the team and struggled to find a cohesive identity with each other. The season before, everything went well until Chris Henry broke his arm, and it was assumed offensive coordinator, Bob Bratkowski, would return to that style of play. TO could have taken the place of Henry and everything could have moved along swimmingly, but Bratkowski changed the entire scheme with the new superstar in training camp and everything went to shit.

Cincinnati trudged along this way, steadfast in their ineffective approach. Games were lost and the playoffs quickly floated out of reach. The offense was a sputtering nightmare which made the defense worse. Players started questioning their coaches to the media. A 10-game losing streak added a new and prominent scar to the already slashed and burned facade of the franchise.

Once the season finally ended, team ownership explained to the public that they liked their old-world business model and that they had no intentions to make any changes. The fan base responded with a frothing crescendo of spectacular fury toward Mike Brown, threatening to turn their backs altogether on him and his toy football team. Brown sacrificed his long-time scapegoat Bratkowski to the unruly mob as a gesture of his benevolence and the resistance did indeed quiet down some.

That summary demonstrates a flow-chart of blame for last season—as well as a few more jabs to the old man on my way out.

It's TO's fault for signing with the Bengals. Even though it was consistently reported that TO worked hard and was a good teammate to everyone present all season long, simply having him there negatively affected the way the rest of the offense was used.

Next to blame is, of course, Bratkowski for force-feeding the ball to TO and even Chad Ochocinco. I think it's safe to say that Brat thought a lot of TO and his abilities—he was drinking the kool-aid, as the kids say. Third-and-anything? Throw it up to TO. The result was 81 having a lot of yards and the team having a lot of losses. That particular offense was a promising one gone bad.

And, finally, the man who employs them all, Mike Brown. There's no need to further belabor the point that he sucks—feel free to page through any previous ramblings about him for that—but it can't hurt to point out once more that greed and personal villainy aside, his team has been the laughing stock of American professional sports since the day he took over. Everything under his umbrella of control—no matter how lucrative its potential—is likely to be wasted and mismanaged. Before any of us murmured the words “Super Bowl”, we should have first recalled who was in charge of getting us there. A poor assumption on our behalf, I guess.

So there you have it. A three-part interconnected answer. In all honesty, there was no reason to look for any others when the right one was staring right at us the whole time. The good news, I suppose, is that two of the three men blamed here are gone. The bad, of course, is that the most important of the three remains in his seat of power.

That is why, after 300 postings, I am hanging it up for awhile. It's all so bleak and ridiculous now; it's like sharing my opinions on support-group meetings for alcoholic clowns. There are many great and majestic interests in this world worth exploring and it's about time I get around to a few. Farewell, my striped brethren. May the tides turn soon.


Mojokong—it's been real.

The Other Brother

Jay Gruden: The new man with the new approach.

Had it been a public vote, he would have crushed his predecessor without the need for corny slogans like these. The mere fact that he operates with a different brain than the one we've seen in action for the past decade is all Gruden would have required to appease most of the fan base. Plus, because of his famous sibling, like a horror-film title, he is currently known as Chucky's Brother and that's just funny to me. Imagine a little murderous puppet patrolling the sideline and scaring the hell out of everyone—sounds like John Calipari actually.

Yet, Gruden isn't (presumably) murderous, or a puppet, or even all that little. He also isn't well known to most folks; only the association of his brother keeps him from being completely random. Still, he has paid his dues in the coaching ranks, including working with the his brother in Tampa, then winning championships in the Arena Football League, followed by his last stint in the United Football League with Odell Thurman's team, the Florida Tuskers. In a way, he exists professionally within the rich tradition of the Bill Walsh coaching tree, stemmed from the branch of Jon Gruden who in Green Bay worked with Mike Holmgren who in San Francisco worked with Bill Walsh. Jay Gruden has already used the words “west-coast offense” when describing his offensive philosophy, and that comes as music to my ears.

I was dubious of the hire at first. I hadn't heard of the man, and the whole thing conjured up those horrifying memories of the Dave Shula years. Like Shula and Gruden, Mike Brown is also the relative of a football great, and bringing in “legacy kids” such as these, made this most recent move more about Brown than about the team. But after researching his career and listening to other legitimate football minds compliment him and his style, I'm now convinced that Gruden would have been hired by some NFL team very soon had Brown not inked him into the coordinators booth first. His past indicates success everywhere he's been and it's nearly impossible not to label him as a bright, young, passionate guy who has surrounded himself with proven men along the way. This hire is more than just giving some obscure family member of a more noteworthy coach a chance at the big time. In short, he deserves this job for what he's done on his own accord and not because of his last name.

As for the job itself, it's a doozy. The more important veterans to this Bengals offense are mightily unhappy, and totally fed up with the losing and disappointment. In one corner of this dark dystopia you have the face-of-the-franchise quarterback remaining invisible somewhere in California and only sending out smoke signals that spell out trade demands and threats of retirement.

In another corner, exists two high-profile motormouth receivers that were key participants in the failed experiment of 2010. The bigger one is free to test the market and has not looked back in the Bengals' direction since being relieved of his contract after Week 17. He has given no indication that he intends to return to wearing stripes. The smaller one is shackled in Cincinnati for one more season and on some days voices his displeasure with the only franchise he's ever known and on other days sounds supportive of his team and its appointed leadership—an enigma wrapped in a conundrum if there ever was such a thing.

Then, in a third area of gray uncertainty sits a feature-back who has not hesitated to softly expound on the problems of the Bengals offense. He's been cooperative in his daily routine with the team, even though for the most part of 2010, he strongly disagreed with the approach taken by his former coordinator. Despite his dissent, he went about his business like a professional, recognizing his place within the organization's hierarchy and biding his time for his release. He is now officially a free agent but has been complimentary toward the developments of making Gruden the new offensive boss, and may be reconsidering fleeing the team that resuscitated his career three years ago.

Alas, even if all these aged footballers decide to collectively desert the team that has struggled for what seems like eons to gain a foothold among the league's elite, there remains a healthy stockpile of usable young talent to build a new machine from scratch. What is most encouraging to hear from and about the new OC, is that he is unafraid to use multiple personnel packages that gets all of his players involved. What doomed the previous play-caller was his insistence to force the ball to the proven veterans. From the sound of it, Gruden intends to hold each player accountable and throw them into the fire to see what they've got. There are far too many unique skill-sets on this team to ignore and keep dormant, and finally, the Bengals have employed a man who claims to see things that way as well.

While there are still plenty of organizational oddities that remain in place within the Cincinnati Bengals, hiring Jay Gruden seems like a sensible move that should generate grains of hope and excitement to the dwindling fan base which has endured spoonfuls of misery in the past year. Gruden shares an intensity with his brother, albeit a more subdued version, and hopefully also an infectious enthusiasm that forces his players to rethink the game of football. He has talked about committing to a scheme that emphasizes simplicity yet flexibility in its ability to use a plethora of players at its disposal. The words “west-coast offense” suggests a series of short passes mixed in with a heavy dose of runs that encourage sustained drives, clock usage, and field-position advantages inherent to its essence. No longer should Bengal fans need to murmur quick prayers that the ball in the air should land in the receiver's hands on the overused deep pass. Now it's up to the players to get the ball quickly and make plays on their own terms rather than wait around for any kind of twisted divine intervention to take place.

Of course, Gruden may not be the savior we are all so eager to label him as. He still must work within the backward confines of Paul Brown Stadium and listen to the man on top who remains convinced he has this running-a-football-team thing well in hand. More than perhaps any other opening in the league, this job opportunity comes with significant hurdles and traps and is not cut out for the weak-of-heart nor the go-it-alone commando type of coaches. Gruden must learn to tell his players no and his boss yes. Failure to do this will either result in a player-revolt or a jaded owner, each equally harmful to a coach's career. It's a tricky tight-rope walk to manage one's ego and aspirations to win without rocking the boat in the process. Mike Brown doesn't need Gruden to win. He just needs him to be good enough to convince the season-ticket holders that a healthy change of philosophy is well underway. That by hiring Gruden, Brown is really “doing something about it”.

You and I, however, need Gruden to win. We're beyond the smoke-screen of remaining competitive. While finishing in the middle of the pack once placated our wrath enough to still tune in and really care, the human condition always demands more and better, and our patience is waning. The right direction still remains a mystery to us who live in and around the Bengal universe. We thought we knew, but it was all a sham. It seems now that hiring Gruden might be a step in that direction, but, because we've been burned so many times before, we should remain steadfast in our skepticism. I wish him the best and am encouraged by his appointment, but I'll take the wait-and-see approach until I am fully convinced. God speed, Mr. Gruden. I pray you know what you're in for.


Mojokong—For tomorrow belongs to the people who prepare for it today.

Annual Reviews Part 5: Batman & Robin

The strange relationship between Terrell Owens and the Cincinnati Bengals began last year at the Super Bowl when Chad Ochocinco publicly campaigned for the hall-of-famer. They would be Batman and Robin, he promised, TO playing the role of Batman and Chad volunteering to become his sidekick.

Even though the team first signed Antonio Bryant only to find out he was damaged goods, TO did eventually end up in stripes and despite turning in a tremendous 14 games, he was perhaps the main ingredient to the offensive struggles throughout the season.

Someone within the Bengals became obsessed with getting the ball to TO. Many times, the ball was forced his way, typically just thrown up for grabs. The success rate for completions was low in this scenario, and more often, turned into immediate disaster. Not to say TO didn't make some great catches—the juggling act in the end-zone on a deep ball that was waived off from a holding penalty against Buffalo comes to mind—but there were multiple occasions where I felt he didn't make enough of an effort to either make the catch or break up the pass to prevent an interception. He may have giant, muscular arms, but it seemed they got awfully short if there were defenders running with him. He isn't one to stretch out and make the diving catch; the ball is either thrown into his arms or it falls incomplete—he will not go get it in the air.

Had he been targeted 30 less times or so on the year, Chad, Jermaine Gresham, and Jordan Shipley could have had more of an impact and force defenders to take on a much more balanced throwing attack—and he still would have ended with 42 catches and around 600 yards on the year. Would he have been satisfied with such low totals and kept his cool? Not if they were still losing, but ultimately, I think he would be satisfied with any role that wins games. He could have been an effective weapon with a unique skill-set if used in harmony with the other receivers, but instead he became the alpha dog of the pack and was overused, allowing defenses to hone in on the predictably of the play-calling and the telegraphed throws from Carson Palmer.

Eventually he blew up his knee and was mercifully removed from the equation. The moment that injury occurred, the balance returned and the offensive came to life.

Was it coincidence that the backups looked better than men dubbed Batman & Robin once they were put into the game? Not a chance. The younger the receiver is, the more he has to learn. Players like Gresham, Shipley, Jerome Simpson and Andre Caldwell have a lot more to worry about than nicknames, and I think that's what makes them better football players: attention to details that actually matter. Who consistently ran the wrong routes this season? Chad. Who dropped the most passes? TO. Who was the most reliable receiver by mid-season? Shipley. Who played with a mean streak and gave the most effort? Gresham. Who is your favorite receiver going into next season? Simpson. This little Q&A demonstrates what went wrong with the projected glory that Batman and Robin were so supposed to provide. A series of little problems culminated into one giant cluster-cuss by the end.

Now Chad is feeling a little ignored because of his crappy season and is making as much noise as he can through the social-media channels he adores. His value is at an all-time low and the success of the younger guys late last year demonstrates how replaceable he has become. In fact, Simpson looks like Chad Johnson in 2003. He moves like Chad, runs the same routes, and even has the ball-security issues after the catch. Why keep both when one is younger with limited mileage, and the other is no longer great but still commands good enough value in a trade? Seems like a no-brainer. Chad should go to New England and win Super Bowls in exchange for a couple of those first-day draft-picks the Patriots have stockpiled in this draft.


Alas, he will not be traded because that isn't the Bengal way. He will suit up next year with reportedly “Johnson” on his back and throw up his hands after he and Carson fail to communicate for the four-hundredth time in their careers. I like the guy, but he's frustrating. Getting the ball to him has become tediously difficult. When he does bring a pass down, I'm typically more relieved than pleased, and that hasn't always been the case with 85. I can't tell if his skills are eroding, or if the offense has grown out of hand for him to fully master. Either way, he doesn't frighten defenses like he used to and one begins to wonder if he ever will again.


Even if TO and Chad leave, the Bengals have one guy to lean on and build a passing game around: Gresham. This is a monster-man capable of Antonio Gates-like performances. There is no reason why he should not be a pro-bowler soon and end up as the best Bengal tight-end in the team's history once he hangs it up. The best part about Gresham is that he knows how big he is. He knows how to position himself just right to where smaller people cannot interfere with him making the catch. He knows he's big enough to mix it up with linebackers which he does often, and he knows where the first-down marker is and will battle to reach it. He's one of the nastier players the Bengals have drafted in a long time and fits in well with AFC North. In a run-first offense, the tight-end becomes a crucial player to convert third-and-mediums, which Gresham can do in a variety of ways. He runs the screen well, gets to the flats (except in New York, apparently), and uses his size in the end-zones. If safeties and linebackers begin doubling him, it would clear a lot of space for the shifty little Shipley to operate in.

Shipley is solid with excellent fundamentals. He runs crispy routes, is fearless running across the middle and has very good hands. The comparisons to Wes Welker may have derived from racial stereotypes in football, but it turned out that the two were used pretty dag-on similarly in their respective offenses. The smallish slot-guy targeted on third down is essentially a safety valve for the quarterback to pick up some key yards-after-catch and keep the drive going. Shipley can do exactly that, and could become Palmer's other go-to guy. Imagine Gresham and Shipley working as the inside receivers as they develop and improve. Third-down and red-zone conversions should become a forte to an offense with reliable receivers like that. Even if wide-outs, Simpson and Caldwell, don't consistently produce the way they did those last few games, the inside guys can easily make up the difference.

Out of those two outside players, Simpson seems like the more attractive one to keep for the long-term. Caldwell has had his moments—he boasts some game-winning plays within his highlight reel—but he hasn't had a season's worth of consistency. He seems like a hard worker and he still has some quality years in him, he certainly isn't a lost cause, but he needs to raise his game a few notches if he wants to be a starter in this league and force the Bengals to move Ochocinco.

As for Simpson, the man has enormous hands, is fast and lanky, showed some heart last year down the stretch and had ample time to learn how to be a professional. He has earned the increase in passes he is sure to see next year and he adds an element of entertainment for Bengals fans. After swearing him off for not playing—some questioning his existence altogether—so many of us are now intrigued to see the myth play well.

All of these young guys to throw to would excite most quarterbacks, especially since they're ripe to mold and call your own, but Carson Palmer is not excited. He appeared to enjoy himself more playing with this group of backups last year. The drama which he detests might finally drift away from PBS this offseason if the divas indeed find new homes next year, but that apparently isn't enough to tempt him into returning. Therefore, a new coordinator will call the plays for these young receivers in 2011 and a new quarterback will throw to them—to predict any future scheme is impossible at this point—but who ever these newcomers are, they will have a solid foundation of talent to use in the passing game. Without TO gobbling up the ball all the time, the young bucks should blossom in short time.


Mojokong—the sun is out.

Brat, The Sacrificial Lamb

Ding, dong, the witch is dead, the witch is dead, the witch is dead...

That song was chorused through the streets today all across the Bengals universe and beyond, as millions—many not even Bengal fans—agreed that the firing of Bob Bratkowski was a good thing. In all absolute honesty, I overheard two separate people on two separate occasions rejoice about the recent termination...on the bus, no less!

Apparently high-school kids, with the voices of megaphones, know more about football than Mike Brown does. They each shouted over their friends that the firing should have happened a long time ago and that Brian Billick should be the next offensive coordinator in Cincinnati. I couldn't disagree with any of it. The other time was the bus driver himself, eloquently opining about how the Bengals focused too much on TO and had abandoned the run. It was as if he had been reading the blog. Today, I was proud of my city for knowing their football.

Of course, it doesn't take a rocket-ship maker to connect the dots that Brat equals awful equals losses. Babies know this! Some primates and maybe even a border-collie could quickly get the gist. Yet, like the high-schoolers said, it took way too long for numb-nuts to figure it out on his own, and Brat went on to blow the last three seasons. What's somehow comically pathetic, is that I don't think Mike Brown really wanted to fire him. For the first time perhaps ever, I think that Brown tossed his constituents a sacrificial lamb to appease them enough to renew their season-tickets for next year. In his heart, I think this was a financial decision rather than a football one. Like the small general-store his team is mocked as, he would prefer to keep the same employees working there until he dies, rather than wade through the constant interview process and the press-conferences and all of that getting-up-in-the-morning stuff. He had a mediocre coaching staff that he was comfortable with averaging seven wins a season. Why busy oneself when there's all of that golf to be played and fast food to eat?

Even furthering the idiocy, the “front-office” decided to wait until every other team made their coaching moves first so that the Bengals could have their choice of the leftovers. Hue Jackson landed a head-coaching job with Oakland—not a bad gig if you can put up with nasty bouts of dementia telling you what to do—but whether he could have been lured to Cincinnati to work with Marvin Lewis again will never be known because of the curious timing of Bratkowski's termination. Another curiosity is why the team waited to fire him until after he coached this year's draft prospects at the Senior Bowl. Wouldn't you want your new coach to get a feel of who they might want to draft?

Carson Palmer may have a lot to do with Brat's dismissal as well. The big quarterback took a practically militant stance against team ownership last week threatening to retire if he's not traded. It was rumored that Carson had some demands of change and it would not be at all farfetched to assume that Bratkowski's removal was on that list. There really isn't even an argument over who is more important to the organization between the quarterback and the offensive coordinator, so it seems almost impossible that Palmer's dissatisfaction was omitted from the decision-making process concerning Brat's career.

Gripes aside, though, he is gone. That alone is breath of fresh mountain-air and instills in me a morsel of hope to a franchise that seemed to be facing its rapture. Bratkowski had been such a burdensome anchor for so long that one almost wants to stretch out their shoulders after ridding such a plus-sized gorilla from their back. The new man will be immediately challenged with a living soap-opera of drama, and before he writes an X or an O on the dry-erase board, he will have to convince emotionally-ailing superstars that they will get what they think they deserve, but only if they attend off-season activities with the rest of the team. He will also have to deal with a publicly-vilified owner who is notoriously cheap and stubborn, and a severe lack of scouts to bring him quality new players to mold. All in all, it's the not the best job a coach is looking for, but it's work all the same and someone out there is certainly interested.

As for who that might be, chances are, they will likely have some kind of familiarity with the Bengals, will probably have to come cheap, and be someone that jives with Mike Brown's way of doing things. Sure, I'd like Billick too—he and Marvin worked well together in Baltimore during their Super Bowl run—but he doesn't fit the aforementioned requirements. That's why I predict that either Ken Zampese is promoted from quarterbacks coach to offensive coordinator, Turk Schonert is brought in from the outside to take the job, or some obscure person no one has really heard of shuffles into the spotlight. All three of these scenarios are consistent with the way the Bengals do business, so any diversion of these options would come as a surprise to me.

Regardless who is handed the keys to an adolescent offense complete with an identity crisis and prone to noisy outbursts, this particular hiring is more important than any other within the entire organization (outside of creating a general-manager position, of course). This new person will the play the lead part in the upcoming soap-opera scheduled this Fall, The Cincinnati Bengals And Their Mystifying Offense, or WTF???, as it's known to teenagers. Yes, this brave soul will certainly have his work cut out for him, but at least he has the luxury of succeeding a total failure. One truly can't do much worse. Good luck, newcomer; may your armor be thick and your play-calling sharp.


Mojokong—minutely happier times are these.