One of the biggest stories in rotation, or the story of mainstreamism (my word), or what every one else is talking about, is T.J. Houshmandzadeh and next season. We spoke about this two days ago after a coy comment by Houshmandzadeh to remind us, the media and team officials that he has no deal. Mike Brown says that the problem with an agreement is money (fill in your own I can't believe that's true, comment). Long term deal is unlikely, at this point.

C Trent spoke with Houshmandzadeh, to which we learned that Houshmandzadeh doesn't worry about contracts, doesn't think about 2010, and that there's going to be changes for next season. Ludwig quotes Houshmandzadeh about being tagged:

"I don't know how I can put this," Houshmandzadeh said. "Would I be happy with it? Yeah, because it's a lot of money. But would I be happy with it? No, I wouldn't. I don't know if that makes sense.

"It's going to be my ninth year (in 2009). I didn't play (much) my first three, so I look at it as being my sixth year. You just want to know what's going to happen. If you get a franchise, they want to keep you for one year and that's it. It'd be cool, but it wouldn't be cool."

Until something new about this comes up, we may forgo talking about Houshmandzadeh's possible contract scenarios before we start the turn table with a scratched record. We all know the situation. We know that a long-term deal isn't close, and we expect that if the Bengals are keeping Houshmandzadeh around, that it'll be via the franchise tag.