Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis said there's no change this week at quarterback. Ryan Fitzpatrick will start and Carson Palmer will continue to rehab, but will not practice as the team prepares for the Philadelphia Eagles.

Palmer said there's no change in his situation.

Bengals rookie defensive tackle Jason Shirley was not at practice and back in Fresno, Calif., for his trial on DUI and hit and run charges from an arrest in Oct. 2007.

Also missing practice were linebackers Rashad Jeanty and Brandon Johnson, as well as offensive lineman Scott Kooistra and rookie receivers Andre Caldwell and Jerome Simpson.

David Jones had a Barack Obama t-shirt proudly hanging in his locker and told reporters of how he grew up listening to his parents tell him about Martin Luther King Jr. and the civil rights movement, and last night is something he'll tell his children and grandchildren about.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, a Harvard grad and Arizona native, was asked about the election and said, "it went as I thought it would."

While there was plenty of talk about the election, there were also mumblings of "running the table." It's something Marvin Lewis set as a goal for his team, finishing 8-8. It's highly unlikely, but isn't that exactly what their goal should be?

Carson Palmer spoke and said he's "slowly" coming to a decision about his season. He's going to see a couple of doctors in California during the team's days off and also a rehab specialist.

"Nothing’s different, it’s not any more or less important than any other week," Palmer said of the bye week. "I’ll continue to rehab and do what I’m doing."

As for injuries, Marvin Lewis said the team came out of Sunday's game realtively healthy. As they go into the bye, the only players on the injury report going forward are quarterback Carson Palmer (right elbow) and rookie receivers Andre Caldwell (foot) and Jerome Simpson (ankle).

He said Caldwell may have a chance to play Nov. 14 against the Eagles.

As for Palmer, Lewis said there was no update.

"I said at some point as we get into Novemeber, we'll see, but right now it's going to wait," Lewis said. "I can't offer you any more information right now."

* On Pat Sims: "Seen a lot of progress from Pat. Pat had a sore shoulder and was not very good in practice on Wednesday, and came close to standing beside me in street clothes. So it was good to see him pick things up Thursday and Friday, and he did a good job yesterday in the game. He got credit for probably his first NFL sack. But he continues to do well. And I think he's finding out that he can do this, and he can do it pretty good. He's just got to keep going and work harder and harder, and a little bit more understanding now of offenses and when it's going to be a screen now, it's second-and-10 Pat, it's probably going to be a screen in that situation. And some things like that's he's got to get better with, and I think he will. He's a smart enough guy to understand it, and I think he'll continue to grow."

* On Johnathan Joseph: "Well, we expect Johnathan to play better than he played the previous weeks. He can continue to play at this and better. He needs to play better, and he can still play better. He did some good things yesterday, and that's the way he ought to play week-in and week-out. He's a better player than he had shown the previous weeks."

* On Cedric Benson: "Your running game tries to mess with your back. After you’ve had a running back for a while, like we’ve had Cedric, we try to do things that fit his style. He still had a couple miscues that we need to get corrected. Which hopefully the mistakes don’t happen at the wrong time. We had one where Ryan (Fitzpatrick) got the ball back to the line-of-scrimmage, but we also had others at different times. We just have to keep going. Cedric’s style is running behind his pads and he is a good cutter. He is very quick and generally very deliberate in where he goes with the football. He has great vision and he has the speed and quickness when he does get to the next level...better than the guys we’ve had."

So, there were a lot of questions why T.J. Houshmandzadeh's 23-yard catch was nullified on the Whitworth-Henderson fight. He caught the ball 23 yards downfield, there were three penalties -- an illegal use of hands on Henderson, a disqualification penalty on both Henderson and Whitworth.

Marvin Lewis explains why the rule reset the play.

"Any time you have an off-set like that, the way it is so somebody does not come back and retaliate, so you’re penalized for retaliation and you actually lose whatever gain you have, or vice versa defensively," Lewis said. "You lose any positive play you had to keep the second person from coming back into the fray. That’s the way it’s officiated. In college football it’s done differently, they try to sort it all out, this one happened, then that one happened and then that one happened. In the NFL, so to keep it and it doesn’t look like WWF out there, they try to keep the thing clean and look better that way. They clean it up and make the guys act like pros."

So you get penalized more for retaliation?

"In that case we got penalized more. And again, Whit was not retaliating, Whit was trying to defend himself," Lewis said. "It’s a shame, he feels bad about it because it took us out of position and we lost a very good player. That’s the shame of it."

Lewis seemed to retract his statement that Whitworth was at fault that he made after the game. He said he felt Whitworth was only protecting himself.