Training Camp reminds me of a zoo. Not
in the metaphorical sense, in that I mean it's crazy—it's not
crazy—I mean a zoo in the spectacle sense. It's mass voyeurism
where crowds quietly watch the beasts mill about in their natural
habitat and occasionally yell out to them in hopes of some kind of a
reaction. It's a peak behind the curtain where one might hope for
football math to emerge to them from the practice field like a John
Nash chalkboard, but instead you see a lot of the third-string
offense running the same screen play against a defense of coaching
staff members holding big puffy shields to occasionally whack anybody
that runs past them. It's dry and mellow, yet well attended.
Discussion throughout the rows of cheap metal bleachers is sparse and
typically it consists of folks asking each other where various
players went to college. If the players were gorillas wrestling
about in their enclosure, you would pretty much get the same vibe
from those watching.
Like with all zoos, I began to
empathize with the creatures themselves. These men have been given an
area surrounded by terrible air quality. Here is Pete Rose Way,
there is I75, here are trains, there are piles of river industry.
Even my lungs felt the pinch of pollution as I walked the many blocks
from free parking to the practice field.
Once seated, like everyone else I
assume, I began to marvel at the really big ones. Andrew Whitworth
and Dennis Roland looked like Transformers as they stretched and
tried touching their toes. Andre Smith looked in fine shape too with
only a respectable lineman belly showing. All the concerns of his
offseason work ethic eased up in my opinion as I admired his build
from afar.
Then I noticed the new young chap,
Kevin Zietler. He looked rather smallish next to these other
prize-winning cattle. I wondered how he was gonna hold up on the pro
level until I remembered that all of these guys weigh more than 300
lbs. All of them. That being said, this man did not look like a fat
man at all. Unlike Whitworth who has surprisingly skinny ankles for
such a large man, Zeitler is tree-trunk legged, he has a thick, wide
torso but he is by no means fat. Also, he is supremely flexible.
While the other beefcakes awkwardly bent to to reach their cleats,
Zeitler grasped the grass well out in front of him and shifted from
side to side problem-free. Never have I been more impressed with a
person simply stretching, but after watching this little lineman do
his thing, I now know why Marvin Lewis is so caught up in the knee
benders. This guy isn't clumsy and he should do well at keeping his
legs healthy with such athleticism and flexibility. That alone made
me a believer in this kid.
The other individual whose sheer size
affected me was Jermaine Gresham. He is a power forward in shoulder
pads, a Julius Peppers on offense. No wonder people gush all over
his potential. He is simply enormous. I saw a few interesting
screens to him which I liked and he made a nice over-the-shoulder
grab after beating Dan Skuta on a sideline throw by Andy Dalton. Now
that I have seen him up fairly close, my expectations of him have
grown almost as big as he is. Orson Charles, by no surprise, looks a
little slight in comparison. I thought Charles looked like a thick
receiver but not a tight end. Antonio Bryant with the Bucs comes to
mind as a comparable build. Charles looks fairly agile, but I am now
worried about how well he can block.
As practice began, some things became
evident immediately.
A.J. Green is the best player on the
team without question. Everything the man does is electrifying. He
exudes stardom just standing in line waiting his turn to catch a five
yard slant undefended. He moves like football should be easy for
everyone. He doesn't just look the part, he is the part.
After Green and Gresham though, there
are a lot of questions about how all this is supposed to come
together on offense. The battle for the second receiver will be as
fierce as advertised with no one making the decision all that easy.
I'd say from what I saw on Saturday and Sunday, Marvin Jones has
impressed, while Armon Binns made the least impression on me.
Mohamed Sanu occasionally turns heads, but he also has dropped a few.
Andrew Hawkins also dropped a catchable pass and a punt on Sunday.
BenJarvus Green-Ellis also had a few drops on Sunday, the first one
on a halfback toss—technically a fumble for all those scoring at
home. It's just practice, but the playmakers appear minimal among
the second-tier offensive contributors. I think Jay Gruden's test
this season might be even more difficult than first imagined.
Then there are the corners. On Sunday
the only reputable corners on the field were Brandon Ghee and Jason
Allen. Five others, all starting-worthy candidates, sat the day out
watching in baseball caps. Ghee had a nice interception on a very
poorly-thrown Dalton pass, and Allen also made me remember who No. 25
was with his solid play, but the Bengals will need more than two
decent corners pretty damn soon. Before taking Sunday off, Adam
Jones was burnt twice on deep passes on Saturday. Leon Hall was
upset with himself after A.J. Green roasted him off the line in
one-on-one battles on Day 2. Taylor Mays didn't look all that fast
either day. The secondary isn't off to a great start.
One defensive back excelling, however,
is rookie George Iloka. Hue Jackson, the newest coaching addition on
the Bengals staff, has consistently been pleased with George and his
efforts. I caught the two low-fiving on numerous occasions.
Another guy I kept my eye on was
Vontaze Burfect. He is definitely still a very physical player. On
one pass near his zone, he grabbed some facemask in his attempt to
strip the ball from the receiver. On another he blasted a potential
blocker to the turf during an innocuous running play where no one was
to be tackled anyway. I like the mean streak and his instinct for
the ball, but there was a play where he dropped into zone coverage,
got lost and had the receiver run right behind him on a slant that
would have been a touchdown as a result of his blown assignment. I
know that zone coverage isn't the first thing a rookie will excel at
during his first few days of practice, but to me, it reemphasized the
reasons why he wasn't drafted. Being mean and hitting hard are
traits held by many men who are not recognized as linebackers,
therefore showing you know a thing or two about zone coverage might
be pretty key for Burfect to gain a good first impression.
All in all, it's extremely difficult to
take away much inside knowledge of the team after witnessing a couple
of training camp practices. There was one scene though that had
nothing to do with football that struck me as interesting.
I looked across the field and on the
other side I noticed Mike Brown sitting in his little John Deere cart
with his white hat and shades, watching and forming his opinions that
will change the lives of the men he employs forever. His thoughts
matter and everyone, even us sheep in the stands, could feel it. He
is the zookeeper, everyone else just works there. Then my eye trailed
along the sideline a little farther down where a bright pink blouse
burned into focus. There was the only female on the field, Katie
Blackburn, looking a lot like a little girl hanging out in her
daddy's front yard. She looked on too, trying to translate the
action on the field into some kind of shrewd business perspective,
but at the end of the day she may not give much of a shit. Who
knows? Then it became clear to me, that every grown man on the field
who was not a coach or a player were white dudes with polo shirts
tucked into khaki shorts and that most of them were in Mike Brown's
country club. The theory expanded when all the
Bengal personnel in sight who were not directly football related
appeared to be of the affluent Caucasian variety. Handsome young
blond people handing out tickets, strapping stubble-faced lads
ushering around the press as media liaisons, even the kids selling
Gatorade had those stupid yellow rubber bracelets that only rich
white kids wear. Then a young man came into sight who was clearly of
the same background, only this one had grown too large. Here was a
mountain of a 16-year-old, the telltale signs of adolescence
betraying his enormous frame, schlepping Sharpie markers and photos
of players to the rows of fans stuffed within the cheap metal
bleachers. I could just imagine Mike Brown soliciting this
white-collared behemoth at his country club.
“You're
a big boy, you wanna job with the Bengals?” MB would tease the poor
kid, get his hopes up to spot the d-linemen during weight training or
something bad-ass like that, but instead breaks it to him that he has
to sell autograph paraphernalia to weak, unprepared parents and then
laughs at the kid's crushed reaction after telling him. And there
would be Katie at the table next to her father, feeling sorry for
this large teenager but too deep into her bottle of white wine to say
anything about it. Troy might be there too, disinterested and
checking out the waitress' ass. Who knows? Not me.
But
that's what training camp feels like: a zoo that employs the golf
crowd and lets in the poor for a free taste of their attractions. At
the end of it all, no one really had to work all that hard—not even
the players. I imagine the autograph sessions work themselves into a
mild frenzy after practice, and I'm sure too many adults embarrass
themselves by jockeying around children for their favorite players'
signature, but my back always hurts after an hour or so of those
hard-ass cheap metal bleachers and I never last long enough to see
for myself. I left early both days, the second so I could fit in
this blog post. The first so I could fit in a cold one.
Mojokong—training
for something.
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