Mojokong Lives!

When I left, I walked a great distance into the wilderness. It was either hot or cold and rarely pleasant out there. I sometimes heard sounds behind me but then I quickened my pace and felt safe again. I came upon a dessert canyon and camped atop a cliff along the ridge. I allowed myself to relax there. No greenery could be seen anywhere, no real observable life at all. Just rocks and dust. Finally, I felt I had escaped. This new terrain was my future now. This brave new world. Then, behind me, the sound of foot on gravel became louder as the thing approached—it had tracked me! I had no more space to move, nowhere to flee; it was face it or jump. I stood up, turned to it and looked it in its eye. A feeling of resignation and something like defeat entered into my conscious. The Bengals had found me once again.

So here we are. Me in front of lettered keys, you staring into an LCD screen, and the Bengals milling about like old inhabitants of a refugee camp. A nomadic peoples, starved of resource and given just enough attention not to die. Their story goes on, even if it seems unchanging, and it is me, the chronicler, who must see it through to either my end or theirs.

When we last spoke, nothing felt good. The entire 2010 campaign could accurately be summed up in a single crisp profanity. A dead, bloating corpse of a franchise was poked with a stick and rolled lamely into a nearby pond. The result: a 4-12 record, the career suicide of the franchise quarterback, and a fan base that either frothed with venomous hatred or laughed with self-protected indifference. The whole thing stank and garbage day was eagerly anticipated.

That garbage truck came in the form of the NFL Draft when a breeze of fresh air wafted into the dank quarters of Paul Brown Stadium. Here was A.J. Green. A lanky, super-quick receiver cut from the cloth of Randy Moss. Like that little guy, Willow, once said, “This child is special!”, and it has already begun to show. After a quiet first game, Green exploded in Week 2, highlighted by an incredible touchdown catch in the north end zone of Mile-High Stadium. The boy is hard to guard and aimed to maim and has more potential than any receiver a striped helmet has ever known.

Then in round-two, a carrot-topped, baby-faced gunslinger named Andy Dalton appeared on the list of Bengal draftees and selected jersey number fourteen to wear on Sundays. There was a lot of reservation and concern that swirled around this Horned Frog and it wasn't until Week 3 of the preseason that I myself was sold. As most expected, he has not preformed like an All-Pro oak tree but rather like a budding sapling, often in an awkward phase of its development. But the kid's got moxie. My favorite moment of Dalton's career thus far was seeing him rally his troops on the sideline after a crucial dropped pass that could have put the Bengals in the driver seat toward a win in Week 2. There is a certain humble optimism about Andy Dalton that reminds me of Woody from Toy Story. In fact, rather than the phallic nickname of Red Rocket or whatever it is people are calling him, I choose a different phallic nickname of Woody. Woody Dalton, not bad.

Since 009 decided to turn in his gun and badge and lay around on the beaches of California for the rest of his life, Woody literally became the new sheriff in town. He started out with a great new receiver, a promising blue-chip prospect at tight end, and most importantly, a new play-caller. The mere mention of offensive coordinator Jay Gruden's predecessor, forms an angry storm cloud above my head, so we will resist saying his name and agree we understand who I mean. That guy was finally served his walking papers after far too many seasons of miserable job performance, and was replaced with a bright young coach who actually makes sense when calling plays (*gasp*). Gruden's system is rhythmic and adjustable and even has pockets of effective tricks mixed in. With such vast inexperience on his side of the ball, execution hasn't always been there for him (2 for 21 on third down in the last two games) and I don't always agree with every play called, but to see multiple instances of actual coaching sanity in games is a nice change of pace from the last guy.

This is the new regime on offense. It's not pretty yet—it's clay before the kiln—but these underdogs are fun to root for and easy to forgive.

Not everything has come up roses, however. While the players and coaches come and go the owner stays the same and as I have exhaustively detailed in previous ramblings, the man is bad for the world. To rail on him some more would be like digging the horse up from its grave and giving it a kick, so I will spare us all, but until he either begins to experiment with hallucinogenics, has his team forcibly removed from him, or mercifully dies, there will be no overarching success and will remain the blight of our fair city.

Sadly, even with the new positives cropping up within the organization, the bad press deservedly continues to roll in like the high tide. The local populace has collectively denounced the villainous owner and home games have been only two-thirds full, making the fan response a national story. Many Bengal fans echo the mantra that they support the team but not the owner and would rather do everything in their power not to give the Bengals any of their money. It's an unfortunate conundrum to like the players but despise the owner, yet that is the reality in Cincinnati. As a result, I expect only the Steelers game to be televised locally in 2011. C'est la vie.

Then, of course, are the arrests and suspensions—seemingly a staple in the diet of Bengal players. Already two Bengals have been issued suspensions—Bobbie Williams for 'roids and Cedric Benson for dispensing knuckle sandwiches in Texas—and another, Jerome Simpson, had six pounds of dope removed from his house. Six pounds. Pac Man Jones was nabbed in the offseason for getting rowdy at a Downtown nightclub, but his neck has yet to heal and he's too irrelevant for the league to suspend or even bother with at the moment.

Then there is Carson Palmer. Many might boo him if they saw him, but the guy put up with a mountain range of shit while in Cincinnati. Sure, he was paid obscene amounts of money to nod his head and say everything was great with the Bengals, but he was living a lie and bailed on $50 million out of principle. No other player was as inside as No. 9, and he got out before it consumed him entirely. He might not have been able to stomach a whole lifetime of apologizing for a broken franchise. Doing local car commercials, golfing with the same eight or nine lame white guys, donning polo shirts with little Bengal heads on them, voting conservatively and attending Moeller games with the other GCL schleps probably scared the hell out of him. I don't blame him. More than Carl Pickens' or Corey Dillon's tirades against the man in charge, Palmer's actions rather than his words against his former employer truly exemplifies how tragically fucked the Cincinnati Bengals are under the Mike Brown rule.

Alas, as always, all is not lost. It is still fun to root them on. The first two games proved such a thing.

Week 1 in Cleveland looked like it was going to be an easy win. Woody came out blazing in the first half and went up 13-0. Then, in the second quarter, the Bengals came back down to Earth and watched the Browns take the lead with two touchdowns. Dalton hurt a wrist or a hand or something—I'm still not positive—and backup Bruce Gradkowski had to trick play the Bengals to a win. Doc B, as Deon Sanders calls him, looked like a man without any knowledge of the offense he was instructed to run and my heart sank watching him squirrel around fearing the worst for young Dalton. A win is a win, but without Woody running the show, a long season was shaping up.

Week 2 came around, and No. 14 was back under center. The Bengals hadn't won in Denver since 1975, and neither team came into the game as all that favored over the other. It looked like it would be another dull game of Bengal punts and futility with Cincinnati down 17-3 in the third quarter. Then Dalton and Gruden said the hell with it, started airing it out and before you know it, the Stripes were down two with the ball late in the game. The situation was 4th&1 on the Denver 36 yard-line. Nugent had the leg and the thin air to drill a clutch field goal from that distance, but Marvin felt wily and wanted to prove to his team and to the world that they really could convert a short-yardage play after all. A slow-developing bootleg roll-out was called, the Bronco linebacker didn't bite on the play fake and Woody flailed the ball to the turf as he went down. Game over. Bengal fans walked away from their TV sets, disappointed but not disheartened. Woody had brought them back and made a game of it. Perhaps things would be okay after all.

Then in Week 3, boredom returned. In an ugly game of punts and penalties, the offense appeared hungover and disheveled. Nothing really worked that well, and the third down and short-yardage problems persisted. A very quality defensive effort was wasted with a complete stinker of a game from the entire offensive portion of the team. Grumblings could be heard about Woody, Gruden and even the old draft horse, Cedric Benson. San Francisco simply managed to not suck quite as bad as Cincinnati, and for that, they were awarded a win. When Woody had another chance to be a hero, he threw a rookie interception. Then when he had the same chance a second time, the ol' miscommunication reared its head and delivered another stinging interception, Flashbacks of Palmer missing TO with an errant pass in a crucial situation were conjured up and I became nauseous. The game changed the taste of the season for the worse like discovering a cigarette butt in your beer. It wasn't necessarily the loss, but rather how the loss unfolded that remained stuck in the crawl of Bengal fans everywhere.

And that's where we are here in 2011.

Things aren't as bad as they could be, nor are they as good. The team, its fans, its owner, and the season as a whole just sort of floats along. There will likely be more losses than wins in this inaugural season for the key new members of the offense, but it's the development that is worth watching and is what brought me back to my post. If winning is all that interests you, turn away now, you won't be satisfied, but if it's improved football you're interested to see...then stay tuned my friend.

Mojokong—chained to this thing.