It’ll be hard to know the true impact, of the first week, save for a handful of impressions:

1.) The Bengals dodged the ol’ Ki-Jana Carter “lose ‘em the first day outta the gate” curse when Odom’s injury turned out to be just a sprain.

2.) This would be an entirely different camp already if Ocho Psycho hadn’t snarfed down the humble pie and showed up. Would’ve been an eighteen-ring Cirque du Merde (pardon my French…haha!) by now!

3.) The best offseason signings for the Bengals this year may turn out to have been Zimmer and Fitzgerald. Once again, we see lots of promising things from the defense in camp and are left to wonder, “Will they execute during the regular season?” This time, because of the new approach, I’ll bet they DO.

4.) It may not seem like the biggest deal, but the longer the Bengals go without solidifying who the KOR and/or PR is going to be, it’ll make it that much harder to solidify the rest of the roster.

5.) I’m glad the Bengals have more WR talent in camp than just the Chad ‘n T.J. Show…

Holdonaminit…strike that…reverse it. Thank you!

...and that none of the other WRs are named Chris Henry.

Which leads me to…

6.) Are you like me…is it just the eternal optimism of training camp and the preseason in general, or does it appear that the Bengals actually have more depth at more positions than they’ve had in the two previous seasons? More depth at WR. More depth at RB. More depth on both lines. More depth at secondary (even with Madieu’s Adieu. Pardon my French. Again.). Remains to be seen whether they’ve got enough depth at LB to overcome last year’s injury-riddled debacle at that spot, but I’m sure Fitzgerald would do well if we gave him 6 cigar store indians!

Here’s hoping. On to Week Deux!

Pardon my…aah, you’ve heard it…