: Sat Aug 08, 2009 9:05 am
I'm really excited for this year, not that i aren't excited for every year but it is usually just excitement that football is back. This year however i'm excited about my team... the Bengals which is the first time since 2005 i've been able to think that.
Now i know most of you people will be thinking that i'm stupid and that the Bengals won't amount to anything this year and who knows that may be right but i think that the chance we will have a winning record and be in the playoffs is higher.
I do have reasons to back this up and i will explain them to you.
1) The most important thing of all is a healthy Carson Palmer, on his day when he is in the swing Carson is a top 3 QB and i would be shocked if many people disagree with me on that, at the moment however i wouldn't put Carson in the top 5 as his injury last year knocked him straight down, this year however he is fully fit going into the season and hopefully no injury will be picked up durng it. He plays in a gamebreaking position and he is most definitely Cincinatti's game breaker.
i am expecting ot see a big season out of him.
2) This relates back to my first point as i'm going to talk about the guys Palmer will be throwing to. The Bengals don't have the best receiving corps in the NFL, (I don't think anyone will dispute Arizona when awarding that prize) but we must be up there. Chad Johnson was terrible last year which was a result of not training throughout the offseason when we all saw him trying to get out of Cincy and also an injury to his shoulder in preseason which should have been operated on but he continued to play through the season instead.
This year we have seen a big change in not only Chad's demeanour but also the effort he has put in through the offseason. The guy has admitted his mistakes and also spoke about turning it around this year which shouldn't be hard with the dismal year he had last season.
Not only do we have Johnson but the offseason season signing of Laveranues Coles a former number 1 with Jets is going to have a great impact on the offense, a lot of outsiders will say how good TJ Houshmanzadeh was a how much we will miss him and you'd probably be right we will miss him to an extent but Bengals fan will know how much TJ fed off the double teams that Chad created which is why he got so much ball. Coles is better than TJ, no doubts there so it will be interesting to see how he feeds off of Chad.
Further down at number 3 we have Chris Henry who is now past all his legal troubles of a good few years ago and has matured into a excellent deep threat receiver. This guy has a special talent which hasn't gone unnoticed by the rest of the team, leading to his nickname as Lil' Moss, Below him we have Andre Caldwell, Jerome Simpson and Antonio Chatman who should all make valid contributions this year.
3) The Bengals had a brilliant draft and filled so many holes that needed to be filled. Rey Maualuga will be a big time player and to fall so far has given him an extra determination this season i would seriously be looking at him for Defensive Rookie of the Year, at the start of 2008 Michael Johnson was touted as a number 1 pick and falling to the 3rd round was unheard off. He did though and the Bengals snagged him, if we can get him to play hard on every down then this guy will be massive. A human freak at 6'7 and 265lbs, he has already drawn comparisons with Jevon Kearse at the Bengals training camp.
The only problem with this is the fact that our number 1 pick Andre Smith is going through a long holdout in which he is missing valuable training camp time which is only putting him down the pecking order on our oline which is seen as the weakest part of the team.
There are many other things i could talk about which show the positives of the Bengals but i'm not going to act like a complete homer as the team do have problems, specifically the offense, we have had 3 tight ends go down with injuries during training camp one of which was season ending (Reggie Kelly). This has put more pressure on rookie tight end Chase Coffman to learn and master run blocking in a hope that it might soften the blow of losing Kelly.
The offensive line, as has already been said is probably the weakest part of the team with only two veterens in the line up (Andrew Whitworth and Bobbie Williams.) We have a brand new Centre who could take a while to settle and at right tackle whoever gets the nod between Anthony Collins entering his second year and Andre Smith the rookie could will probably have growing pains.
I don't think that the Bengals will win the division as that is the Steelers to lose but we can definitely take that wildcard from Baltimore who i am confident of beating this year. The Browns i see as a non factor as the circus will continue up there into the season seeing them finish in their usual place of 4th in AFCN.
If he "deserves" that amount then Brady should be a billionaire by now 
