Mark Curnutte actually "interviewed" Mike Brown. I use quotation marks, because I havent seen such softballs since this past summer at Rumpke Park. However, what MIke Brown had to say was astounding, at least to me. MC's first question was about Coach Lewis and Mike says "They coach the same...They are teachers and... they do their jobs". Mike Brown believes Marvin and his staff are doing their jobs. 1-10-1 must be acceptable to Mr Brown. MC's 2nd question was "Where have things gone wrong this season?" Mike Brown states "It's hard to have success in this league without your core players" Mike states that "We're playing with literally less than half the people we thought would be our starters... we lost Carson Palmer who is our linchpin player. We lost our best defensive player before the season started Odell Thurman. The Linebacker corps we thought we would be playing with was Rivers, Thurman, and Pollack. They are all gone, two for good. When you have that kind of erosion on your football team, it is hard to be successful. We have not managed to overcome it." OK this is unbelievable to me. Odell Thurman hasn't played a game since the playoff game against the Steelers following the 2005 season. David Pollack broke his neck against the Browns in September of 2006. Mike built his defense around a player who has been suspended for two years by the NFL and has been and out of rehab numerous times since 2006 and a player who broke his neck in 2006. It has been obvious to me that we were short on linebackers, but rather than replacing those players who were obviously done in the NFL we built our defense around them. How stupid is this man??? MC's third question asked will Marvin Lewis have a chance to overcome this season?? Mike Brown answered "I think in many ways he has done an incredibly good job Our players still try hard. He has them out there trying to the best of their ability" I see lollygagging and guys playing at 90% effort with their heads on a swivel. Mike Brown sees great coaching and great effort. The interview goes on and Mike's quotes are "I am pleased with the effort and the coaches effort""I think things would take a quantum leap forward if we had Carson back on the field and playing the way we know he can" "I call them themes. They like to talk about different themes when things don't go well" This man is so far removed from reality that it's scary. We just need to get Carson healthy and get Odell and Pollack back to the team and we are set. We'd be Super Bowl bound according to MIke Brown.  I didn't see anything about fortifying our offensive or defensive lines. I didn't see we need a pass rusher on defense. I didn't see we are still without a good running back. I didn't see that maybe we need to improve our use of gametime decisions especially clock management. I didn't see that our offense is stagnant and we haven't ran a new play in 5 seasons. I didn't see that we maybe should've oughta could we replace Odell and Pollack. I didn't see that it is disgusting to me to be 1-10-1 and I am amazed we won and tied a game. I didn't see that it causes me to puke every time i think of how bad we have played, coached, and ripped off our fans this season. Mike Brown must be a masochist, because losing and being embarassed on the field don't seem to hurt this man one iota. It's obvious Mike Brown doesn't care and I wonder why do I.

Let's get this straight Texas BEAT Oklahoma on a neutral field by 10 points. Texas lost on the last play of the game at Texas Tech 39-33. Texas won all of their other games. Oklahoma got beat by Texas by 10 on a neutral field and beat Texas Tech at home 65-21. So the BCS ratings have Oklahoma at #2 and Texas at #3 behind an undefeated(for now) Alabama team. Texas and Oklahoma each have one loss and Texas beat Oklahoma by 10 on a neutral field and Oklahoma is ranked higher than Texas, the team who beat them by 10 points. HMMMMMMMM!! Does this make any sense to anyone in the free world??? PLAYOFFS??? DON'T TALK ABOUT PLAYOFFS!!!! ARE YOU KIDDING ME???? PLAYOFFS?????

What a horrible mess this Bengals team has become. I am not sure that Sunday's game versus the Ravens wasn't the worst Bengal game in team history. The Ravens thoroughly dominated the game in all phases. They could run and pass at will. Their defense had no problem completely shutting down the Bengals offense. The Quarterback was running for his life all game long. We couldn't run the ball at all either. Our punting game was decent, but when you punt 11 times you should have that down pat. I watched maybe 3 quarters of the game and I wasn't upset or surprised by the outcome. The team that Mike Brown has assembled has little chance to win unless the opponent throws the ball on the ground several times. Players didn't seem to give much effort. The coaching staff didn't put anything in the gameplan new that I could tell. I am sure they have no idea how to turn this team around. The front office never supplied the team with enough good players even though 21 players have been put on Injured Reserve. The playoffs are a distant memory and there seems to be little hope of getting there anytime soon either. The team will get a very high draft choice and no matter who we draft that player will have little chance of doing well due to the lack of talent that will surround him. It makes me wonder if past draft busts were really that bad or did they have any chance to be a high end player for a team as bad as the Bengals. I wonder if anyone affiliated with the Bengals really cares or has an idea what it takes to be a winning team. You'd think we would copy the blueprint of the Steelers since we play them twice every season and they seem to be the team to beat in the AFC North. We will hear that Mike Brown needs to hire a GM, fire the coaching staff, let players go and start over. All I'd really like to see is someone take responsibility for this failure and share a plan of how this mess will be corrected.

Hopefully everyone had a good Thanksgiving with family and friends. I have heard that Tennessee is hiring Lane Kiffin and that is great news for UC fans. I think Brian Kelly needs to see this BCS bowl berth through and enjoy it. I doubt that Coach Kelly is here in the Queen City for decades to come, but if he could sustain this program and get it built right it would be phenomenal. I rarely follow the NBA, but the Stephon Marbury thing is something else. Starbury is sitting out the season yet getting paid 20 million+ from the New York Knicks. Now the Knicks want him to play, but he refused? Starbury says he didn't say he wouldn't play. You'd think 20 Million would be spent on a guy who actually suits up for his team and plays, but this he said/they said is silly. Cut the guy lose and cut your losses and let him move on and resume his career, if that's want Marbury wants to do. The BCS is really working out well this year isn't it? No less than 3 or 4 unbeaten teams can't even get into a BCS bowl and the teams that will likely play in the championship game have a loss. To top that off there are 6-8 quality one loss teams and it appears a computer or polls will determine college football's best team. I'm sure the college president's who voted for this wonderful BCS system can justify why this is best. No one with a brain is buying it though. Every team sport that plays decides their champion on a field/court/rink/track except NCAA Division1 football. Those guys would be harmed by missing class for a couple extra days, oh wait most of those schools are off for winter break for several weeks. It doesn't even make sense from a financial standpoint as a playoff system with most of the lower bowls would create an increase in money coming into the colleges and universities involved. I guess we will enjoy the Florida/Alabama/Texas/Oklahoma vs Texas Tech/Boise State/Penn State/USC matchup that we will see. Geesh!! Is anyone up for the big Bengals/Ravens game this weekend??? I can't wait to see how the Bengali's play with the mash unit they have assembled from practice squads/waiver wires/off the street they have created. Have a great weekend and enjoy the leftover turkey and dressing!!!!

I watched today's Bengals game versus the Eagles and while I have been quite critical of Mike Brown and Bengals front office personnel, the coaches aren't blameless either. Every time the Bengals sent pressure on defense, it seemed good things happened. When they didn't McNabb had all day to throw. They should've blitzed the Eagles much more than they did. The offensive play calling of Bratkowski was atrocious. We ran the ball left, right, incomplete pass and then punted way too often today. Could Coach Lewis manage a game any worse?? We had timeouts available in both regulation and overtime that weren't used. We left time on the clock what two or three times in regulation when we should've ran the clock down to prevent the Eagles from having chances to win. Only the Eagles incompetence kept the Bengals in the game. What a terrible game to watch from both teams and anyone with a pulse could tell what the Bengals were doing on offense. I can't recall an offensive innovation for several years. The wildcat offense is all the rage throughout the NFL everywhere except in Cincinnati. A halfback pass, a flea flicker, a hook and ladder, heck we even botched a fake punt. I'm not suggesting we run these plays regularly, but a wrinkle here and there might open up a big play occasionally. We rarely run a draw or screen pass for that matter either. Let alone throw to the tight end we signed in the offseason. We have the shovel pass and that's about it. To bad they don't use that shovel to haul this excrement out of town!!!!!