Bengals coach Marvin Lewis has been in Cincinnati long enough to know when his team might start feeling full of itself. This team has not often handled big wins well.
After a road win in Green Bay and a home win over the Steelers, Lewis didn’t want the Bengals to lose sight of the team-first mantra he’s been selling all offseaosn.
So he pulled into his bag of mental/motivational tricks and had the entire team practice in nameless, numberless jerseys all week. The team’s equipment “had to work overtime” to special order the jerseys.
“It doesn’t matter what your name and number is, it’s football and focus
on what your assignments are,” Lewis said earlier in the week. ”It’s
just where we are right now and what we have ahead of us. It’s
important as we go forward.”
Whether ploys like this make a difference is debatable. But Lewis’ message, that it’s not just about Cincy’s stars, is true.
Carson Palmer has not really played his best yet, and the team isn’t stretching the field at all. Instead, the team has shown a knack for timely drives and constant defensive pressure.
Now the young Bengals team will have to show they can beat a Browns squad that most of Cleveland probably wishes would just turn in all their jerseys for the rest of the year.
I wouldn’t be surprised at all if the Ravens and Bengals are in the postseason this year and the Steelers are not.
Oh please. Chad Johnson probably just showed up with his roll of black “HOF” tape and did his ridiculous Ocho Cinco bit on the back of the practice jersey. This is the TO story all over again. The media takes a talented receiver, fuels his egomania with nonstop exposure, then bemoans how he became such a me-first monster. Thank God I get to cheer for Hines Ward.
He’s gonna mess with OchoStinko big time.
/ Change his jersey number every couple of weeks..
Is Chad Johnson going to change his dumb ass name to Blanko Blanko?
Mickey Mouse games with grown ass men. It’s pathetic he feels he has to do this . This is no knock on Lewis, but the knuckleheads on the roster.
bearsrule…….what knucleheads are on Cincy’s roster?? Just as all Bengals fans need to let go of ’05 so do all the detracters. When was the last time you can honestly say you’ve heard anything about any bengals players getting trouble??? LET IT GO!!
Deb…. sounds like your still crying about losing to the Bengals last week lol. You, also need to LET IT GO!! I’m praying that the Steelers get a win this week against San Diego otherwise the local police will be working overtime talking all the Steelers fans down from the bridges, cliffs and roof tops ha ha ha…Good Luck
Bengals did play good D last year they just could not score. With Benson and Palmer healthy I wouldn’t be surprised to see them in the playoffs.
This team has not often handled big wins well.
How would we know that?
Child Please!
@BlackBerryStorm:
I didn’t cry when we lost to the Bengals. I was sick that night and pretended I was hallucinating. Please don’t spoil my lovely mental fog.
My comment wasn’t so much about the Bengals per se. The story just reminded me of Johnson taping HOF on a gold jacket–which reminded me of the inexplicable media obsession with this guy. If Lewis was trying to bring egos under control, gee, I wonder who’s ego was most in need of taming?
PFT has been deleting any comments regarding spelling or proofreading issues.
@Deb
Comparing Chad Johnson to TO now (after you got waxed last week) is a typical Steelers comment. Chad has played for one team, where TO is on his fourth. Chad isn’t anywhere near as productive as TO, but anyone close to the organization will tell you there isn’t one Bengal that works harder than Chad.
Glad you cheer for Hines Ward? A thug, cheap shot artist who has bounties on his head from defenses around the league. Seems like the guy can’t go two weeks without a cheap shot or some sort of confrontation. Glad he got his 10,000 yards though, maybe now he can just go away.
@WhoPlaysWhere …
Johnson may well be a great guy in the Bengals locker room. I don’t know–I haven’t been in their locker room. Have you? But it was reported in the not-too-distant past that he was causing all kinds of problems for his coach, so that doesn’t sound as though he was a great team guy. His egomania has been on display for everyone to see for years. I don’t like egomaniacs no matter what uniform they wear. If a Steeler ever ran around the sidelines in a mock HoF jacket, I’d be throwing things at my TV set.
Interesting about those bounties–if you have inside knowledge, maybe you can share it so we can let the NFL in on the plan and have some players suspended. It’s against NFL rules to put a bounty on another player (you were aware of that, right?)
The reason defensive players don’t like Hines Ward is that they’ve been knocking wide receivers senseless for decades and they’ve finally met one who hits back. More than enough current and retired players–and even radio broadcasters for, say, Jacksonville (which isn’t exactly Steeler country) have said the league needs a lot more receivers just like him. A lot of defensive players respect him. Warren Sapp said they need to put him in the Hall. You might know that if you listened to something other than the sound of your own voice.
That score last week was hardly a waxing. If you must brag, wait until you’ve actually won a championship.