Hey, no one said all of the blog entries had to come after glorious wins, and today’s is the classic example of that. Raiders 20, Bengals 17, and my team of choice has no one to blame but themselves. Costly turnovers late, another bad snap on a field goal, and a very sloppy game are very simple things to blame. Yes, these all could have been overcome if Andre Caldwell holds onto the ball, but face it, he’s won us two games this year with his late game catches, and sadly, he didn’t come through today.
No panicking though, the 1988 Super Bowl team did lose to the Chiefs, a team that ended up 4-11-1. So, this does happen, the question is the resiliency, and making sure they bounce right back.
Other game thoughts:
* No one by the name of Bruce Gradkowski should ever look comfortable in the pocket, but the Bengals did not get any pressure on him today. No, he wasn’t great, but even bad QB’s not named Jamarcus Russell can play well when they get all day to throw.
* Bernard Scott had himself a very nice day, and I’m glad to see it. With all the Larry Johnson talk this week, even though we know he won’t play much, it’s good to get a 100 yard game out of this very promising rookie to make sure the conversation is put away. He’s a solid #2 back and kick returner now, and should get plenty of opportunity to showcase both, good for him!
* Sebastian Janikowski and Shane Lechler are absolutely awesome kickers, but Lechler’s beard is horrible. Sorry, just stating it as I see it.
Other NFL thoughts:
* Not much sympathy for the Browns losing, but that is a tough way to do it. More importantly, Matt Stafford just elevated himself in my book for coming back out for that last throw. It was probably balsy and stupid, but if you make the play, you deserve the credit for toughing it out. Well done, Matt, consider the respect given.
* Thank goodness for the sake of the Bengals that the Steelers, the Browns, and the Ravens also lost, and all in close and sometimes devastating fashion. At 7-3, the Patriots and the Chargers are right there at the top of their divisions all vying for the #2 seed and the bye. The Bengals-Chargers game could well be an elimination game for that provided that they do not stumble, and the Pats need to win tough road games against the Saints and Dolphins or risk falling out of that race. Oh yeah, the Texans loom at the end, and they may well be fighting for a Wild Card.
Oh wait, it’s Week 12! Time to can this and move to next week!
I know it’s only Monday, but I think I can safely talk about the week that has been. I mean, the two games tonight are likely very predictable. The Pats will probably win their game, and Brady will be talked about ad nauseum (whatever), and the Chargers will annihilate the Raiders in the night game, the first of Oakland’s 16 mercy killings before the end of the year, allowing them to use the next #1 draft pick to pick the fourth best quarterback and overpay him.
Bengals fans have understood what it’s like to have coaches who can’t count, leave points on the board, and seem to pull defeat from the jaws of victory at every possible moment. Of course, it’s easy to forget about these times too … when the final score is 38-10, a coaching decision won’t turn that outcome around!
The situation is this: The score’s 14-3, six minutes or so to go, 4th and Goal from the four yard line, and you’ve lost yards with every attempt at the end zone. If you kick the field goal, it’s a one-score game, you just need the 2-point conversion. If you go for it and don’t get it, you’re still down two scores. If you do score the touchdown, you are down just three (or five), you’ll need the two-point conversion either way.
The logical choice for me would be to take the points, get the game down to 8 and leave yourself a chance to drive for a score. The 20-yard field goal was a chip shot. This did not happen; they did go for it, did not get it, and most assuredly, they lost by three points, 14-11 in the end.
Welcome to our world, Browns fans!
Look into your crystal ball for the Bengals and tell me what you see. 0-6 is starting to look very realistic from here. Maybe one of you can show me the signs for optimism, but considering they were not competitive against a average to below average division foe, and then lost at home and wasn’t even in the game to a decent club, the next four games look like:
It’s almost the end of NFL Week 1, and I have never been more happy to not have the #1 pick in my Fantasy Draft, and I would have never thought that my later round pick of Donovan McNabb would look so good! Thank goodness, it might be my one saving grace this year.
Chris Henry’s Story Of What Could Have Been
It has not been the best week to be a Bengals fan, the team lost a member of its family this week in Chris Henry to an accident during a domestic disturbance at the young age of 26, leaving a fiancee and three children behind. To say it’s tragic is an understatement, because it doesn’t hit at what’s really been lost here. Yes, those who are cynical can look up, and probably very rightfully say that with his past, his arrests, his maturity issues, that something like this was coming, even with him appearing to turn his life around and figure out how to deal with the fame and stress of being an NFL player. I prefer to look at it in another direction due to my own personal experience. What’s tragic is of course what was lost, a father, an immensely talented young man, but what’s most tragic to me is looking to see what COULD have been.
His death had led me to reflect quite a bit this week on my own losses in life, most notably that of my brother Jeff in 1997. Hard to believe it has been twelve and a half years since he’s been gone. If you don’t know the story, you can search the blog to read more (or keep reading for bits and pieces). There are a lot of very eerie correlations between my brother’s death and that of Chris Henry. Both were about the same age (Jeff was 27, Chris was 26), both had issues in their life and both at times appeared to finally be putting it all together to erase their past demons. Sadly, neither of them could, to some degree, those demons were their undoing.
I look at where I am now, nearly 30 years old (and yes, it’s scary to think I am now older than my brother ever was), married, with a baby boy, and then promptly look back to Jeff, and the saddest thought is to think about what could have been … the relationship we never fully had as big and little brother, any chance he had to put a life together greater than even his own, and what his mission in this world really could have been. I understand now that his missions in heaven where he is now are far greater than they ever could have been on Earth, that’s how I keep myself level thinking about the weird parallel of being an only child with a big brother (which is how it usually was), and seeing such a correlation in Chris Henry’s death brought so much of that back.
In the reactions of his teammates, Chad Ochocinco’s, Carson Palmer’s, you can see those same thoughts really abound, that of promise unfulfilled. I believe it to be true that many if not most people don’t ever fulfill the full promise of their lives, and that’s a more true metric of success than any single material thing or statistic, and as a Bengals fan, it makes me pull for the team even more now than I have before. I do believe their success this year as a 9-4 team in many ways resonates back to their heart and character, something that from a very superficial look through a sports window, I have often questioned. I won’t be doing that anymore. Chad was right on one thing, you can’t question what God’s plan for each person is, but it’s natural to, and sometimes it’s very unfair.
My prayers this weekend are with Chris’s entire family, with the Bengals organization, and with everyone in his life. I pray for them to play even more inspired football this week and for the rest of the year, not for my own selfish wishes as a fan, but as a tribute to the members of the Bengals family that aren’t here now. When Jeff passed away, I went and took a final exam at college the very next day, it was my escape, something to buffer myself from the sadness and grieving for a few minutes. I pray that the three hours the Bengals spend on the field in San Diego serves a similar outlet for the team, and that they rise up and play like they never have before.