The only silver lining – once you get past the giant turd in the way – is that we have competent backups. We have Jonathon Fanene, who has been a steady defensive end for the past five years, and has the most fun name to pronounce (the two “e’s” are pronounced like a long “a,” as in, Fa-ney-ney. Or, as I like to say, Fa-ney-hey-hey! Try it! It’s fun to say. It won’t sound gay at all). We also have the intriguing rookie Michael Johnson from Georgia. At one point in his career he was supposed to be a top ten pick, but he plummeted from the first round after scouts kept saying that he “takes plays off.” Defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer talked about Johnson’s work ethic in practice, and he said that Johnson has done nothing but impress him. All three of the Bengals QBs talked about how tough it is for offensive linemen to block him. He’s 6-6 and he has long arms, too. He blocked a pass by Matt Schaub last game – one of the few times we could stop the Texans. As for “taking plays off,” apparently Johnson was playing injured all last year and no one knew about it, so I could understand not wanting to injure yourself further if you’re not around the nucleus of a play.

It was obvious that after Odom was injured during the first quarter Schaub had all day to throw. But that’s not the ONLY concern from the game. The two Bengals tight ends who played during the game – Daniel Coats and J. P. Foschi – pretty much sucked more than Paris Hilton’s movie The Hottie and the Nottie (who, prey tell me, on this God’s green earth, would allow this, this thing masquerading as a “personality” on TV, to make a movie called “The Hottie and the Nottie”? What the hell is that about? Even people who like crappy movies (i.e. 13-17 year old boys – my students) would not see that movie). Coats and Foschi both fumble the ball, both in the fourth quarter, at times when we really, really needed them to hold on to the damn ball. Also, I have lost all faith with Coats catching the ball. He killed several drives where he needed to make a simple catch. Palmer deserves better tight ends.

And that leads me to rookie Chase Coffman from Missouri. He is the ALL TIME COLLEGE LEADER in catching touchdowns for tight ends. All… Time… Leader! Marvin Lewis, hello! Coffman hasn’t even been activated yet for a game. Why can’t you put him in for a few plays? Seriously? Marvin keeps saying that Coffman is improving tremendously week in and week out. The one knock on him out of college was that he didn’t do any blocking in college, which is a big part of the Bengals scheme for TEs, but… PLAY HIM. COATS AND FOSCHI SUCK BEYOND AN ACCEPTABLE STANDARD FOR SUCKING (the acceptable standard for sucking for a Bengal isn’t all that high (low?), believe it or not). Oh no, they’re not going to play him this week against Da Bears, according to Lewis. Man, just put him in. I’m not saying Coffman will cure all our woes – the defense needs to get their act together – but when a guy is not producing (ahem, Brad St. Louis, FORMER Bengals long-snapper, thank God), we need to demote him. If we can fire St. Louis, we can demote Mr. “I can only catch the football if the game is not on the line” Coats. Sit his butt down and put someone who can catch the (bleeping) ball.