Well, at least the Bengals did a good job of establishing the punt.

Cincinnati had as many punts as first downs, punting on 10 of their 11 possessions in Saturday night's 13-0 preseason loss to the Saints at Paul Brown Stadium. The only possession that ended without a punt for the Bengals was their last, as Jordan Palmer threw an interception following the two-minute warning.

It was the first time the Bengals were shutout in a preseason game since 1999 in Detroit, and first ever preseason home shutout.

Starting quarterback Carson Palmer walked off the field before the end of the first half with his nose and lip bloodied, telling the entire story. Palmer was sacked three times and was 11 of 16 for 105 yards. He didn't return and was taken away for further examination after the game and wasn't available for comment.

"I'll tell you what makes me angry, seeing my quarterback get up off the ground," said offensive tackle Levi Jones. "That's what will infuriate me at any point in time. Especially seeing blood. I'm highly pissed off about that."

Palmer's been hit repeatedly in the last two preseason games. He was only sacked once against Detroit last week, but hit many times. It was much of the same on Saturday, as the first-team offense managed just four first downs in their six possessions in the first half, and the Saints rolled up 237 total yards of offense en route to a 10-0 halftime lead.

"In football, you've got to run, you've got to hit, you've got to catch -- there's a lot of elements that go into this game and we didn't do much of it tonight as a team," Jones said.

The Bengals finished with 165 net yards of offense, while the Saints finished with 458. The Bengals crossed midfield only twice, getting only as deep as the Saints' 47.

"There was definitely a lack of intensity out there today," said quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick. "I don't know what it was, because we have been practicing well. We've been practicing hard. We thought we would have come out and done better today. There is certainly a concern we didn't come out and do what we wanted to do today. They were fairly vanilla in what they ran today and we just couldn't get it done."

The Bengals have a short week, traveling to Indianapolis to face the Colts on Thursday in the final preseason game.

The team hopes to have running back Rudi Johnson and receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh, neither of whom have played a preseason game this year, back for the game against the Colts and Chad Johnson and Antwan Odom back for the Sept. 7 opener in Baltimore.

"It's definitely a problem, but this is the NFL and they're professionals," Jones said of the missing starters. "They guys behind them are professionals and everyone's got to go out there and do their job."

Guard Bobbie Williams said there's plenty of work to do in the next week before facing the Colts.

"I know I speak for everybody on the offensive line, we're just got to work harder and it starts in practice. We've got to work harder," Williams said. "I can safely say it's a carry-over. We had some -- I'm not going to say lollygagging -- but just going through the motions a little bit in practice, speaking for myself, and things carry over. No matter how well you think you do, you can always do better."

Jones put it a little more succinctly -- "I'm highly upset right now. There's going to be hell to pay this week."