It's Pronounced "E-K-choo-koo"

Is Chad Johnson positioning himself to either a contract extension or a new home next season? I'll give Chad this much. He's become quite the expert at feeling bad for himself -- or too much of himself -- and giving out excuses. Chad, your six touchdowns is why we're not big on you right now. Six? Yeap. Lowest output since scoring five times in 2002. Makes you regret wearing that Hall of Fame jacket on the season's opening Monday Night Football game, doesn't it? No? Oh.

The Cincinnati Chapter of the Professional Football Writers of America voted Bryan Robinson as the most cooperative with the media. I knew that the award has been handed out since 2001, but I never thought of the reasoning behind it. Handing out awards because you play nice to the media?

The Chapter also voted T.J. Houshmandzadeh as the team's Most Valuable Player. I know they have to hand out these awards. But I've never understood the logic of having an MVP for a six-win team heading into game #16.

I'm not questioning the people that received the awards. Just the necessity of them. Either way, good for T.J. and Bryan.

Jeff Chadiha agreed that T.J. is the team's MVP.

IR hits 20. The team put Eric Ghiaciuc, Madieu Williams and DeDe Dorsey on Injured Reserve bringing the total to 20 players. That's just under two-fifths of a team's active roster. I know some hate the point that injury hurts teams. When you have that much talent on IR, you're bound to reduce any semblance of production by second-level talent. I'm not saying it's the reason the Bengals are playing their way towards their first losing season in five years. But it's one of them.

Did you hear that? It was a city-wide groan after hearing that Marvin Lewis didn't expect "earth-shaking news". Then again, why would we? Complacency is standard. Don't worry Marvin, we've all but eliminated our expectations of you and this team.

And this.

It's Pronounced "E-K-choo-koo"