Bengals Early Bird Special: Bring On The Steelers.....Again

Good morning Bengals Nation. Make yourself a pot of coffee, grab something to eat, and blare some Journey or Led Zeppelin from your stereo. It's going to be one of those days apparently. So why not have some awesome music playing in order to make your day better?

It's Steelers week round two. This time the Bengals aim to even the season series against Pittsburgh. It won't be an easy task, but one way to make it not as challenging involves not letting the Steelers score on their first two drives. In all honesty, if the Bengals defense showed up at the beginning of the game then the Bengals would have had a better chance at winning during round one of one of the most epic rivalries in all of football.

Another factor is that Jerome Simpson is going to have to show up this time. He can't drop passes like he has been. That's a horrible habit of his. He's either an explosive receiver (when A.J. Green isn't playing) or he's a total dud (when Green does play). And unless Green gets injured between now and Sunday, he'll be playing, which means Simpson probably won't. That needs to change. Andy Dalton needs more than one or two targets to pass to. He needs to have a handful of receivers to be able to pass to.

And finally Cedric Benson needs to have some sort of repeat performance from last week against the Cleveland Browns. Or the running game needs to do some sort of damage. Otherwise the Bengals offense will be one-dimensional and Pittsburgh's defense will have an easy time at containing the Bengals.

Alright enough ranting. Here's what you may have missed or overlooked from Tuesday.

• The Bengals have had a fair amount of failures and success against the Steelers. And on Sunday the Bengals will need to have success in order to keep their playoff hopes alive.
• Veteran quarterback Jake Delhomme has signed with the Houstan Texans. Why does this matter? Because the Bengals play the Texans in the near future.
• Cincy Jungle's Unsung Hero of the Week for Week 12 goes to........
• Cincy Jungle's Week 12 MVP goes to........
• Bengals linebacker Keith Rivers' season is officially over after he was placed on the Reserved/Non-Football Injury List. Let's hope he comes back healthy next season and ready to contribute on defense.
• Linebacker Cornell Banks has been signed to the Bengals practice squad and in a corresponding move linebacker Bruce Davis was released.
• The Game Ball of the Week goes to.......
• A.J. Green's 51-yard reception that set up Mike Nugent's game-winning field goal is this week's play of the game. Green continues to make jaw-dropping catches.
• Is anyone curious what a win against the Steelers means to the Bengals?
• Bengals running back Cedric Benson had an amazing game last week by running for 106 yards on 21 carries. And his efforts have helped him be nominated for FedEx Ground Player of the Week.
• Andy Dalton has been nominated for the Pepsi NFL Rookie of the Week.
• Jermaine Gresham has an amazing work ethic and a huge amount of potential. So far he hasn't disappointed anyone. And his main driving force is fearing that he will be a bust.
• With Pat Sims status unknown the Bengals have shown some interest in defensive tackle Donald Fields.
• With the Bengals playing so well this season and exceeding everyone's expectations, it's hard not to like them. It's as if they are that underdog team in every sports movie that everyone roots for. You always pull for them to take down their enemies.