The guys at Who Dey Revolution got a chance to speak with Chineum Ndukwe.

The Bengals and Shaun Alexander are still talking. Alexander left New Orleans without a contract offer.

Scout.com got a chance to chat with Keith Rivers.

There is no update or comment on Ahmad Brooks' who is schedule to appear in court June 6 to answer charges.

Ludwig provides commentary on the Bengals' acquisition on Maurice Purify.

On Thursday, the Bengals signed Maurice Purify -- undrafted wide receiver out of Nebraska. The 6'4" receiver played in two seasons with the Huskers recording 91 receptions, 1,444 yards receiving and 16 touchdowns. Purify was ranked as the 40th best wide receiver coming into the NFL by Scouts, Inc. with a big "C" flag for two separate incidents. The first, Purify was charged with "two counts of assault, resisting arrest, trespassing and failure to comply after a May 5 (2007) incident at a downtown bar. Purify was accused of throwing a man over a table, hitting him several times and striking the man's girlfriend." Later in the year, he was pulled over for driving while intoxicated. He was then suspended indefinitely from the team. A Lancaster County judge sentenced Purify to a year on probation after a deal was made with prosecutors to drop the charge of failing to comply with police and reducing the trespassing charge to disturbing the peace.

He was quickly reinstated after the court's ruling and felt "grateful" for the second chance. JReilly posted a scouting report from NFL Draft Countdown. Here's Scouts, Inc. too:

Strengths: Excellent size for a wide receiver. Is tall with adequate bulk and room on his frame to get bigger. Displays adequate-to-good straight-line speed for his size. Uses his size to create separation from man-coverage and shield defenders from the ball. Outstanding weapon in the red zone. Seems to be at his best working the sideline on intermediate-to-deep routes. Wins most jump balls with wingspan, leaping ability and long arms. He can overpower most defensive backs at the point of attack as a stalk blocker.

Weaknesses: Not a crisp route-runner. Rounds off too many of his routes. Takes too long getting in and out of his cuts. Struggles at times to catch passes thrown below his waist. Lacks elusiveness and initial burst to be a homerun threat after the catch. Effort as a run blocker is spotty and technique must improve. Former JUCO transfer comes with significant character baggage. He was suspended indefinitely from the Nebraska football team on June 8th, 2007 following his arrest on suspicion of drunken driving, his second run-in with law enforcement in five weeks. He had been charged with two counts of assault, resisting arrest, trespassing and failure to comply after a May 5 incident at a downtown bar in Lincoln, NE and Nebraska suspended him fore the season opener consequently.

Overall: Purify enrolled at City College of San Francisco CC out of high school, compiling 92 receptions for 1,762 yards and 30 touchdowns in two seasons (2004-'05). He transferred to Nebraska in 2006, playing in 14 games (five starts) and grabbing 34 receptions for 630 yards (18.5 average) and seven touchdowns that season. As a senior, he had 57 catches for 814 yards (14.3 average) and nine TDs in 11 games. He also threw a 28-yard touchdown pass (in '06) and had three career rushing attempts for 16 yards. Purify was suspended for the 2007 opener after separate off-field incidents in which he was arrested on suspicion of two counts of assault (among other charges) and was cited for suspicion of driving under the influence. He is the uncle of former Colorado running back Bobby Purify. Purify is a tall, rangy receiver that flashed his big-play ability during his first season at Nebraska (2006). However, the former JUCO transfer has had two separate run-ins with the law during the off-season leading up to his senior season and he doesn't always give his best effort on the field so he projects as a seventh round pick.

Purify becomes the sixth different wide receiver the Bengals have acquired since the 2008 NFL Draft. The seventh in the off-season -- if you include Doug Gabriel.

 

You know that the league is in a state of confusion. When Chancellor Goodell released his plan to crack down on character in the league, we immediately wondered how that would help. The problem will never be solved by punishing the players more. The problem is allowing teams to acquire these players that come with significant baggage and flags. It's telling when five-time arrested wide receiver, Chris Henry, was allowed out of house arrest to, get this, find employment with a new team (interested in Saints and Cowboys... New Orleans is his home and Dallas trades -- TRADES! -- for Pacman Jones -- how would Henry not be welcome there?).

Perhaps he was being targeted?

"It's been kind of rough for me," he said. "You know, just the fact that these little incidents in Cincinnati have been kind of negative things for me, dealing with cops and things like that.

I'll just leave that excuse for your own commentary. As long as teams have "winning" as their bottom line, most will pick up the players that help them win no matter the PR cost. The Bengals used that philosophy and it worked for them going from 2-12 to 11-5 in three seasons. Punishing teams for picking up character risks or for something that a player did, is foolish. When billions change hands, and the bottom line is making money, making the teams responsible for a player's own actions opens a can of beans. Perhaps we should have benchmarks. If three players are arrested in a year, you're ineligible for the post-season and the first day of draft picks the following season. Then again, what if three players are arrested that had no priors? Should the team be responsible then?

You want a solution? Ban players that commit felonies, suspend those that commit misdemeanors for a full season (you choose the punishment based on degree) and, for the love of god, quit making added generalizations of character risks -- like player missed History 201 three days in a row, might have focusing problems. Be tough. Don't do it half-ass or at all.

The general feel right now is that the Cincinnati Bengals HATE bloggers. I'm sure there's truth that they are annoyed by the constant ramblings of an incompetent owner, reports of a chaotic lockerroom and general negative press (mostly all the time), the feeling is that the Bengals went after one for reasons more than copyrighted material. Now, it should be understand: The Bengals aren't sending letters threatening lawsuits because they blog about the team, players, coaches or the constant (justified) bashing of the front office -- or we would have been knocked down long ago; only that Stripe Hype used copyrighted material.

In one sense, I actually do understand the point of keeping your own work (that's where my understanding ends). On the other hand, blogs like us provide a free opportunity for the Bengals to get their word out to fans. Using their logo should be a small price to pay for free word of mouth. Instead, their intentions of protecting their work backfired. And to be honest, I was hoping for some commentary from Cincinnati based media on the issue. I guess the drawback from being traditional media is that you lack the opportunity of promoting your voice (reason #1 why I never aim to be a sports journalist).

(Note: the leaders of SB Nation took great care avoiding these type of issues, so we don't use the Bengals material nor does our site's name reference 'Bengals')

The lack of understanding won't stop over-reactions from others -- which is totally at the fault of the Cincinnati Bengals. For instance Who Dey Revolution simply states that Mike Brown hates freedom saying "he seems bent on now silencing the teams biggest fans". From my understanding, the cease and desist letter had nothing to do with content or voice -- there was no content changes, revisions or deletions. Though I completely agree that this issue just adds to a list of things that keep wearing out fans until their base dwindles to a singularity. I also agree that the Bengals are not only wasting their time, but damaging their own PR cred (as if they had any) in which, ironically enough, bloggers will be forced to repair to justify using our free time, with free coin, to talk about the team (even some of it good!). Even so, it's getting pretty tiring when we're inundated with this team's trivial rest stop bathroom antics against fans.

However, this issue really isn't about new media vs. traditional media. If Stripe Hype received permission to the logo, nothing happens and they're allowed to do what they will. The worst part about this whole parade lap of "beat the fans down" is that the main blogger took the fall and resigned soon after -- David, call me! -- though we're not sure if he was forced out or left on his own accord. Not that it really matters.

If this issue were about the team going around and telling bloggers to stop blogging about the team, then we'd have war on our hands. A fight that all bloggers -- who are a tight-nit community -- would readily fight. Legally, the Bengals really can't do much more than fight for their own product -- i.e., images, articles on Bengals.com etc.. Fortunately, this isn't a new media vs. traditional media fight -- though as you can tell reading through the internet, some are drooling at the prospect.

So I suppose we can nickname this off-season the "Suicide Sessions". First, it was Chad Johnson's character from fun-loving to egomaniacal minion of Oil Slick. Now it's the Bengals' suicide PR campaign against their own fans.

The Indianapolis Colts could be in discussions with Jim Steiner, Shaun Alexander's agent, writes Geoff Hobson. Which, of course, is probably an overstatement for an agent to increase the player's demands. Either way, Steiner says that he and his client will review their visits with the Cincinnati Bengals and New Orleans Saints to see where everyone is. While the Bengals haven't made an offer just yet, Stampede Blue writes that Dominic Rhodes is "likely back in the fold". That would "likely" knock Alexander out of the fold for the Colts. NFL Network's Adam Schefter has named the Denver Broncos as potentially interested.

To me, teams would be foolish to let two luke-warm teams interested in a former MVP running back to go without interest. This is, without a doubt, Alexander's season to either leave the NFL or build a second-wind for his career. He probably won't cost much because the demand just isn't out there.

Bengals head coach admitted to our biggest fan, Peter King, why the Bengals are restocking wide receivers. It's not just Chad Johnson threatening to sit out. It's not just the Bengals cutting Chris Henry after his fifth arrest. It's also a likelihood that the Bengals might not be able to sign T.J. Houshmandzadeh after his contract is up this season.

"T.J.'s at the end of his contract this year,'' Lewis said, "and I don't know if it's possible to re-sign him. Chad says he won't play without a trade. We just have to be prepared for anything this year, and for the future.''

We've spoken at length this off-season when Chad Johnson's career suicide campaign begun after the season was over. Once Chris Henry was cut, and Chad Johnson being, well, Chad, we figured that T.J. could be another departed because his deal will be up after the season and we're sure that the Bengals wouldn't pay the value that T.J. believes he'd deserve. And who can blame T.J. for wanting to try the free agent market. He's getting older and this will likely be his final chance at a big-time contract that we know the Bengals won't hand out.

We wonder though if the team doesn't intend to sign T.J. for different reasons, but similar to Chad Johnson, after "league sources" surfaced that Chad and T.J. were trying to run the team even shouting at mega-messiah, Carson Palmer. The Pro Football Talk guys wrote in mid-December:

A league source tells us that there is growing animosity in the Bengals locker room toward receivers Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

Per the source, both are yelling "all the time" at quarterback Carson Palmer, but coach Marvin Lewis doesn't say or do anything about it. Players are also upset that the two receivers are trying to "run the team."

The situation reminds us of the latter days of the Denny Green era in Minnesota, where receivers Cris Carter and Randy Moss were berating quarterback Daunte Culpepper and operating under a separate set of rules.

I'm not saying one way or another, but we do wonder.

If you haven't seen this, then perhaps it might strike a dreadful trend. The Cincinnati Bengals have threatened another Cincinnati Bengals blog with a lawsuit because the site was using copyrighted photos and logos on their site.

We can't say we're surprised. The NFL in the past year have issued warnings and tightened policies about using their material. It was a basis of a post we wrote a few weeks back. And we're hardly surprised that the team would make an enemy of a fan-run site that, for the most part, promotes the team based on fanaticism -- which is in itself crazy because this team isn't all that successful (embarrassing and shaming would be better words). Though we'd advise to stripe hype that they shouldn't take it too personally. It's simply a nature of the business and we know that the Brown family is all about business -- not the actual game.

What's interesting about the Shaun Alexander sweepstakes is that the two teams that have publicly expressed interest (Bengals and Saints), have two running backs coming off injury in Rudi Johnson and Deuce McAllister. The Bengals let Alexander on the plane without offering a deal while he concluded the visit was "a good visit". If Alexander were to sign with his home town team, then the Bengals would use him as a backup to Rudi Johnson and an "insurance policy" if (or should we say 'when') Chris Perry goes down for the season.

In related running backs news, Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis expects Chris Perry "to be on the field when the voluntary camps start May 13"

Curnutte's Saturday morning notes during rookie minicamp.

There were five UC football players participating during camp.

Rudi Johnson stopped by a school last week to thank kids that donated money to The Rudi Johnson Foundation.

The Bengals are restocking their wide receiver corps.

Will Jordan Palmer win that coveted #3 quarterback job? It's between him and Jeff Rowe.

Mark Curnutte looks at previous Bengals drafts (actually 2005 and 2006).

There will be a lot expected out of Pat Sims.

The Bengals signed three that participated on a tryout basis. DT, Antwon Burton signed a one-year deal after playing 2006 and 2007 in Denver. LB Dan Howell and Clyde Logan signed two-year deals respectively as college free agents.

Keith Rivers is wearing #58 for now but negotiating with Ahmad Brooks for #55. Depending on how Brooks' June 6 court appearance turns out, negotiations could be pointless.

Lewis isn't saying anything about Brooks or Alexander.

"What do Antonio Gates, Tony Romo and Jeff Saturday have in common?" They were undrafted college free agents.

Did you know that T.J. Houshmandzadeh was rated as the worst vertical receiver in the league last year by K.C. Joyner's metrics? (Vertical YPA, 8.8)

The Ohio State's John Cooper was elected into the College Football Hall of Fame.