Recently signed draft pick Andre Smith broke his foot today during a “non-contact drill.” Can you hear my chuckle from across the internet? According to my own personal source who knows more than even Chad Eightfive, this is how it went down:

Random Bengals player: “Hey Andre! Look, a donut!”
Andre: “Wah?!!!!”
And he falls down.

Non-contact drill? Is he a player for the NFL or the lingerie football league (which actually exists outside of my own head, believe it or not). I don’t know about you, but this guy is definitely not high on my list of “Guys I really like representing the Bengals.” And he hasn’t even played a down yet. To add comedic insult to injury, I read an article on espn.com today about how there’s a clause in his contract that states if his weight goes over 350, he loses money. He’s at 335 now. This is one of the reasons why it took 30 days to agree on a contract. Again, do you hear my chuckle? It’s one of the chuckles that has no thought process to it. It starts out at half snort, and then ratchets up about 20 notches when the brain fully realizes that all the fat jokes it has made were all legit. I mean, yeah, you want your offensive lineman to be a big guy, but the dude needs to be able to move around. He does you no good if all the defensive end has to do is run a circle around him (or throw a donut in the corner of the field).

As I’ve mentioned before, Anthony Collins seems to be a serviceable backup, and Smith wasn’t going to start the season anyway, so it’s not a huge loss. Of course, the number one problem right now with the Bengals is pass protection. They say it’s not the OL but the TE or RB. I don’t care who it is, they need to protect Carson Palmer. People need to man up and block somebody. I don’t care if the team didn’t really have a defensive plan for the last preseason game.  The players should be able to fall out of bed and pass block for Carson. Speaking of whom, Marvin Lewis said that Carson looked really good today in practice. That’s encouraging, but he also said that his main goal is for Carson to be ready for the first regular season game, raising doubts that he will start the preseason game on Thursday. I know, I know, it’s just a preseason game, but there’s a lot to be said about getting game-like practice reps before the regular season. Last year the offense had very few snaps with all of its starters before the regular season. Carson kept saying they will be fine. And they weren’t. 0-4 with Carson, 0-8 to start the season. To say I am a little worried/concerned is an understatement. Even the first game against the Broncos worries me. Kyle Orton may be out, but the Bengals have a knack for letting backup QBs tear them to shreds. I think our secondary is improved and the defensive linemen should be better this year, but you never know with a Bengals defense.

There’s a lot of apprehension right now. It doesn’t seem like anything is going their way. Is that different from any other year?