Justin Bahr's Cincinnati Bengals fan blog

Just when I thought the Bengals couldn’t get any worse after an o and 4 start, they go and pick up another player in legal trouble.  That’s right, not only is Chris Henry allowed playing in this week’s game; now Cedric Benson can join him on the field.  I honestly believe that the Bengals organization is trying to p*ss their fans off enough that they can potentially move the team. 

By taking back Chris Henry the Bengals made a statement that they didn’t care what the fans thought about the organization being the laughing stock of the NFL due to their legal troubles.  Now after starting the season 0-4 and by picking up Cedric Benson the Bengals have simply slapped all the fans in the face.  They obviously don’t want the Bengals to succeed and are pushing for their consecutive sell outs at Paul Brown stadium to vanish. 

Continue reading "Are you kidding me?!?"

While last week I went 10 for 16 (honestly who saw the Dolphins beating the patriots with or without Brady), I am only 22 for 45 on the season.  So I may be no Nostrodomus but each week I seem to be getting better and better at these projections, so lets see what I can do this week…

AFC North

Bengals over Browns – I am very confident that Quinn will get into the game due to poor play by Derek Anderson.  I am also confident that due to this move it will put the Browns in a horrible position resulting in many turnovers.  Our offense is finally back on track, our receivers are past “pre-season” mode according to Marvin Lewis and we’re due for a win.

Pittsburgh over Baltimore- Regardless of Big Ben being hurt, they are simply a far superior team.  I know Baltimore is playing very well so far, but they had the benefit of an unexpected bye week for their last game.  Thus I see the Steelers taking this in a defensive low scoring game.

Continue reading "Week 4 Predicitions"

I read an article today that made me feel a little better as well as gave me a chuckle.  Ohio isn’t the only state with two NFL teams that are 0 for 3.  Missouri’s teams (Kansas City and St. Louis) also are winless on the year.  While normally I wouldn’t care about other teams, especially the browns, I still can’t get over the fact that after a great season last year for the browns, that they are winless.  I also can’t and don’t want to believe that my beloved Bengals are also winless on the year, but the fact that both the Chiefs and Rams are also winless for their state lets me feel a little more comfortable with the current situation.

On to Sundays “Battle of Ohio”… As you all may know Brady Quinn may actually get to play (he won’t get the start but has a great chance of playing) against the Bengals this Sunday.  While I openly welcome this, due to the fact I believe he is overrated and will buckle under the pressure giving the Bengals a much needed win, there is even better news.  N’dukwe will most likely get the start this Sunday due to Dexter Jackson still being hurt.  While this may seem insignificant and to our disadvantage, he happened to  play football with Quinn for 10 years.  They went to middle school, high school and Notre Dame with Quinn.  They have been friends for years and have played on opposite sides of the ball for years.  Thus when they practiced, I can guarantee that N’dukwe picked up on Quinn’s tendencies and habits.  Thus with N’dukwe at safety Sunday and with Derek Anderson struggling, Brady Quinn will most likely play and give up at least one interception or turn over to a smart and amazing sophomore safety. 

Continue reading "Winless Wonders..."

It seems like every website/ newspaper across the country wrote a small piece about the Bengals today.  Most of these articles were stating that although the Bengals are 0 and 3 on the season, they are the most upbeat of the winless teams this year, while the others stated that the true fans are back on board after Sunday’s loss to the Giants.    While I agree that as a Bengals fan I felt that our last loss proved that this season won’t be a total loss, I have actually given up all hope of a playoff berth for the Bengals and have decided to focus on other sports.

My reasoning for focusing on other sports isn’t totally influenced by the Bengals, it’s mainly due to the fact that I’m a ticket broker (I know everyone can hate me now).  As of this week my first NBA tickets are coming in and since my football tickets have officially sold out this is all I have to look forward to due to the teams I love frankly sucking this year.  Besides being a Bengals fan (and enduring years of pain/ losing seasons) I’m also a huge OSU fan.  Although OSU has only lost one game to number 1 ranked USC, we have simply been horrible ever since Beanie wells went down.  I feel that as a higher caliber team OSU shouldn’t blow up entirely due to one team member going down.  I can’t believe how horrible our offense has been (besides Tyrell Pryor), how our defense can’t seem to stop anybody like they should (Ohio and Troy beat us up), and how our proven leader and quarterback Todd Beockman has totally self destructed. 

Continue reading "Rants and Raves"

OK for the first time this year I think I can be almost 100 percent confident that we will win this week!?!

The Browns, like us, are struggling so far this season. Derek Anderson is playing horrible (which sucks because he’s on my fantasy team), he has sucked so bad this year that the Browns are contemplating starting Brady Quinn against the Bengals. While I understand this move (our defense can’t get pressure on the quarterback, and our defensive backs are quite banged up), I honestly believe we can work this to our favor due to his inexperience. On a side note I have always though Quinn was overrated and the Browns wasted their 2008 1st round draft pick on him. I also can’t stand “God’s team” aka Notre Dame.

If Quinn starts Sunday it will be the third time that a team has started an inexperienced quarterback against the Bengals in the past 2 years (Rams- Brock Berlin, Dolphins- John Beck). We just so happened to have won both of those games and we will definitely win this one if Quinn starts.

Continue reading "Quinn = winless season"

Although this was another loss and puts us at 0 and 3, I am actually quite happy.  Our offense was FINALLY back to almost normal.  While Chad never got nearly as many touches as I’d like him to get, TJ was quote effective, and Antonio Chatman came out of nowhere.  Our offensive line was still quite dismal and we definitely need to revamp it in the off season, yet they did show sparks of greatness when Chris Perry was running.  Perry had established himself as the back I once saw him as when he played for Michigan and I am now glad we got rid of Rudi Johnson. 

Carson Palmer reminded me of the true pro bowler he really is.  While he had a bum ankle he ran more in this game then I can remember him running in his whole career.  I also have to give him kudos for playing with a bloodied nose yet again.  He had a few bad choices with his passes, yet his accuracy and determination was amazing.  He finally looked like the leader we need/ he used to be.  If only he could find a way to hit Chad and TJ more often.

Continue reading "The good the bad and the ugly of the loss"

Sorry I haven't written for awhile, do to having no power this blog wasn't my top priority...but to make my one and only fan happy I'm back with week 3 predictions(although I went 7 for 14 last week and I'm 12 for 29 all time).  I must say though that my upset pf the week vikings over colts may have not happened but I doubt many people saw the vikings hanging in it for so long/ so close, and due to the ravens and texans not getting a chance to play I may have lost my other upset.

AFC North Predicitons

Giants over Bengals - I'm sorry bu the Giants are playing well, and well the Bengals are playing horrible.  I know that our new CB Pope played against the first team and made it to last cuts, but i highly doubt his notes will help us stop their defense form dismantling out offense.

Continue reading ""

I didn’t expect it to happen so soon, but the bad off season moves have finally hit home. While I felt that Deltha O’neal was on the decline, I did think we needed to keep him as a valuable nickel back, yet the Bengals didn’t believe so and cut him. Now with Jonathan Joseph sustaining a sprained ankle last week, we are down a valuable corner with no sustainable replacement. Thus the Bengals were forced to pull Geoffrey Pope off the Practice squad and cut Guard Frank Davis.

Ben Utech looks like he may well be out for the game as well, and with the struggling passing game we need any receiver we can get. Carson Palmer also sustained a sprained ankle last week yet he looks to be able to play this Sunday.

Due to Pope’s move from the practice squad the Bengal’s made some moves to fill the empty spots on the squad. They signed linebacker Abdul Hodge, a player from Iowa who was a third-round draft pick by Green Bay in 2006. He played in eight games for the Packers in 2006 and spent all of 2007 on the injured reserve list because of a knee injury. The Packers waived him Sept. 1. If my memory serves me correctly he was quite a player at Iowa and rivaled AJ Hawk as one of the Big Ten’s best linebackers. Hopefully he can get back to his college form and beef up his game enough to be a strong linebacker we need.

Continue reading "Serious repercussions"

So much for Marvin’s guarantee to win all home games this season…

WOW, this was the football weekend from hell for me… First, as I mentioned I went to the Purdue/ Oregon game, while I’m not a Purdue fan I did want them to beat a pac 10 school thus I was rooting for them. If you didn’t see it, they lost in double overtime… then since it was a double overtime game I had to conivince Purdue fans to rush me to a local bar to watch the OSU/ USC game, and we all knew how that went. Thus I was looking forward to a hopeful Bengals win, which didn’t quite happen, yet the worst part was that due to the high winds my power has been knocked out for over 24 hours, I missed half the game and I’m stuck away from home until it will be fixed “within a week.”

Continue reading "Marvin Lewis is a liar"

As requested by Jon Gibson I will contiue my week by week predictions even though I only got 5 predictions right out fo 15.

AFC North Predictions 

This is a Bengals blog so of course I'm going to pick the Bengals over the Titans, hoping that we can get our act together.  Plus Marvin stated we'd go undefeated at home, so lets see what he knows...

Pittsburgh over Cleveland - Pittsburgh looked unstoppable last week and thus I believe they will simply roll over the Browns.

Houston over Baltimore - I just don;t feel that Baltimore is a strong team and I really believe Houston is a great sleeper team for this year, so I'm going to be bold and go with Houston.

Other Predictions:

Green Bay over Detroit

Giants over Rams

New Orleans over Washington

Continue reading ""