Shayne Graham was able to resist the false promises of Emperor Palpatine (a.k.a Bengals owner Mike Brown) and signed with the Baltimore Ravens last week.

Graham holds the Bengals franchise record for highest field goal average. If you lived under a rock and you were told this, you’d think to yourself, “Are the Bengals that dumb to give up their most accurate kicker ever?”

Yes, Graham is the most accurate kicker of all time for the Bengals, and he actually is up there in all of NFL history in terms of average, but he has been notoriously inaccurate for some of the biggest kicks of his career.

Most recently Graham missed two field goals against the Jets during  the playoff game that would have changed the complexion of the entire game for the Bengals. Both of them were easy field goals. And back in 2006 Graham broke Cincinnati’s heart when he missed a game-winning field goal that would’ve sent the team to back-to-back playoff appearances. He didn’t miss ALL of his game-winning kicks, but still. You gotta hit THE big ones. Especially if they’re completely within your range.

Even though Graham failed in the clutch, he was a great influence in the community and he did some great charity work. I mean, the Bengals could use more Shayne Grahams in the character department. Yes, the Big Game Misses sting the fans’ psyche, but he was still a hell of a kicker and was pretty much automatic for 90 percent of the regular season.

So now the Bengals will have a competition between Mike Nugent and

Dave Rayner for the kicker. Unfortunately I doubt if they are going to be better than Graham, but it’s obvious that he wasn’t going to sign for the amount that the Bengals were offering him. And now the Bengals will see Graham twice a year against the Ravens.

Wouldn’t it be poetic justice if Graham kicked a game-winning field against his former team?

I sure hope the hell not. But I wouldn’t put it past him if he did. I wish Graham luck and success with his next team. Except against his former team.

(Bonus to those who get the allusion that I made in the blog title.)

Bengals Blog: www.cincyjungle.com
Follow David Jacob at http://twitter.com/HoldenCarraway