How 'Bout them Bengals
 

31-3 trashing of the pats:
C. Plamer - 12/19 179yds 3 TDs 0 Ints... 4 sacks too... rudi averaged 4.75yds/touch (16 for 76), and kenny watson put up 47 yards on 8 touches (3rd highest yardage)... did i mention this was on the patriots?? 14-0 bengals at the end of the 1st quarter.

looks like they'll have a good shot at the postseason this year...

Where are all the people screaming how amazing the Patriots are? I'm sure they played their starters for the first quarter.

it's still the preseason isn't it?

I guess the Pats are headed down the toilet now

It's preseason, but your starters shouldn't give that up to the Bengals, should they? Pats won every single pre-season game last year.

ANd we've got to play them, just when they get good. So much for our "weak" schedule. Damn parity!

The Bengals are definately going to be a force to recon with this season. I wouldn't be surprised if they made the playoffs

they have the advantage of a fairly weak division, which helps...

i wasn't saying the pats are going down in flames matty, just that the bengals are looking even better than last year, and they were able to match up with a very good team for 15 minutes and come out ahead, and that palmer seems to be a good QB too.

look out for our hometown boy Kelley Washington (Stephens City, VA)- this guy my overtake Warrick for the second WR spot soon.

warrick had a good season last year, hes a good compliment to chad johnson

no arguments there... but k. wash is a beast. he also was in the same draft class as carson, so they've probably had a lot of practice reps together last year.

I assume hes fully recovered from his neck injurry at this point?

The bengals have a good team. I wouldnt make to much about that game though. Brady might have only played one drive, you never know. I mean, Portis played on drive. We played our qbs a lot becuase he hasnt picked a starter yet. You can always speculate from preseason but how much you can make out of it is arguable at best. The cardinals went 4-0 last year in preaseon

but the other 3 teams that went undefeated made the playoffs

yeah... the records for undefeated preseasons last year ended up as 4-12, 11-5, 12-4 and 14-2... two of those four even ended up in the superbowl.

I think it still makes a statement, but nothing's guaranteed.

really depends on how deep of a team you are, or how long you play your starters

I think the Bengals will not get better or get any worse this year.They are starting a QB with no expierence and that is never good.
They still have enough talent to beat you if you take them lightly.Unfortunatly for them last year they raised enough eyebrows to make people stop calling them the bungles and take them seriously.

Palmer is the big question mark for the Bengals. Seems like Lewis may be throwing him to the wolves a little too soon, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. With the season Kitna had last year, I don't know how you can't go into camp with an open competition.

i wouldnt say he has been thrown to the wolves, he was the #1 overall pick last year, and soaked in a lot of knowledge from jon kitna. but i am not sold on him, only one good year in college. the reason there was no competition is because the bengals do not want to make it seem like they wasted another high pick, so they are trying to get their money's worth. had kitna had a year like last the year be4 carson was drafted, the bengals wouldnt have taken him im sure.

This was surprising. Yeah, it's pre-season, but isn't the big thing with the Pats supposed to be how they have great depth? Remember how they were decimated with injuries last year, but still managed to keep winning (except against us :) ). I'd say Belicheck will not shrug this off, and will use it as a big motivating tool.
On the other hand, Lewis really seems to be doing an excellent job with the Bengals. Oh how I would LOVE to see them win their division over the Ravens!

Like Gibbs, Bellichick plays things close to the vest in the preseason. I don't think he'll be too worried until the games start to count.

it is still a little suprising that they didnt score a TD at all

what I care about most in this preseason is the fact that no touchdowns have been socred on our starting defense. I think it will take Gibbs a few weeks to iron out his offense and we are going to be depending on this D for a while so its been very exciting watching them

I know it's a little early to be predicting, but I can see our defense being one of the top 10 in the NFL. What do you guys think?

There are definite signs of improvement for our defense, but they have not had to to do for 4 quarters yet but they have looked better. One thing I have noticed that I did not see much of last year was the enthusiasm in the coaches, everytime that offense line came off the field there was Buges patting them and encouraging them, Samuels looks like a man on a mission (and i love it). Greg Williams is the same way very excited looking letting players know they did something good or bad. I can defenitely tell the attitude change in the players and coaches.

I definitely agree with top 10. We're not less talented overall than we were in years under experienced d-coordinators Rhodes, Schottenheimer and Lewis. We finished in the top 10 all those years. No reason we can't under Williams.