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Ed Reed is upset because his team is going to lose to our favorite team this week. Again. (AP Photo/Nick Wass)

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So after a week off and me completely forgetting that it's football season, the Bengals are actually doing something this weekend, so I have something interesting to do for you guys on Wednesday morning. Without further ado, here are some quite varied pop-ups of "Cincinnati Bengals" in the news.

• Power rankings! ESPN leaves the Bengals at number 6. That's, of course, going to change after the next two weeks. After we beat the Steelers and Ravens, we'll be 3 or 4. Heh. Michael Silver also leaves the Bengals at 6, wondering if Hard Knocks is going to turn into one of the first blessings (rather than curses) in sports.
  
• Big Willie Anderson talked to Mr. Hobson at Bengals.com about the upcoming Bengals-Ravens game. I really miss that guy.
• Some guy (TJ Jenkins) tries to defend Hines Ward as a clean, legitimate, not dirty football player in the face of a 296 player poll that voted Ward the dirtiest player in the NFL. I think it's hilarious, and that guy is clearly in denial. 
• A couple of predictions on this week's game. First up, Sports Odds breaks down the various gambling components of the game. The Ravens are -3 favorites, which is good, because the Bengals are undefeated as underdogs. Bleacher Report highlights the Bengals-Ravens game in its Week 9 WhatIfSports.com simulation explanation. 
• Dayton Daily News has news on a tight end not named Foschi or Coats! Our boy Coffman apparently is "making progress," whatever that means, says Carlos Holmes.

I love you #9! via images.cbssports.com

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I like to browse the internets, particularly in the national sports media area, to see what the big famous heads have to say about my football team. Interestingly, they have a lot to say this week. Here are some discussion points.

• Carson Palmer is awesome. So awesome that he's CBS Sports' top story today! Pedro, where are you? He's finally using his legs to make plays instead of standing in the pocket like a statue. He's doing like Peyton Manning and Ben Roethlisberger - extending plays by moving around behind the line of scrimmage to give receivers time to get open. He's picking apart zones with pinpoint accuracy. He's thrown 7 picks or something, but I'd expect that number to stay low for the rest of the season given his performance against Chicago. Is Carson back to 2005 form? Is he better? Can we call him an elite NFL quarterback again? (By the way, Shutdown Corner doesn't think so. These rankings are absurd.)
  
• Playoffs. Yahoo is doing a lot of absurdly premature playoff looks. MJD is particularly excited to watch the next Steelers-Bengals game. Can you blame him? That definitely has the makings of a marquee match up, something that's been sorely lacking in the NFL this year. In other playoff news, AccuScore thinks the Bengals improved their playoff hopes by almost 20% last week, beating the Bears. Are the Bengals a playoff team? Let's think about the competition - Pittsburgh (division), Jets, Texans, Jaguars, San Diego (Wildcard) and Baltimore (wildcard/division). I like our chances, but it's going to be tough and in the back of my mind, I wonder how this team will play in big games down the stretch.
• Speaking of Steelers-Bengals being a marquee match up, when was the last time that really happened? 2005. Parity is dead in the NFL, and Kerry J. Byrne of Cold Hard Football Facts says so. The Bengals have been competitive - playoff competitive - only twice this decade. The Steelers have won two Superbowls. The Colts, Patriots, Broncos, and Steelers have dominated football for more than a decade. Is parity dead? Is that a bad thing? How would you fix it?
• Paul Daugherty is making his way into the national press this year, writing  guest articles or something along those lines for SI.com. Today, he highlights the emergence of Cedric Benson, which is an extremely trendy topic this year (watch out, Cedric is on pace for 375 carries, way over that "RB weardown" number. When he gets invited to the Pro Bowl, he should probably take it easy or he might be the next broken down former star). Interestingly, Cedric Benson was diagnosed with Celiac Disease shortly after he left the Bears. That means he can't digest gluten, which is primarily found in bread, pasta and the like. He says he's changed his diet - could the fact that Benson can actually digest the food he eats be a factor in his resurgence? 

I hope you find these discussion points as interesting as I do. Enjoy the bye-week fodder. Get into the thread and discuss!

More photos » by Tom Uhlman - AP

"I'm going to go to the playoffs, but thanks for letting me start our bye week early!" (AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

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It's Wednesday of bye week. How exciting!

• Vote for your favorite Bengals to go to the Pro Bowl!
• ESPN Power Rankings have the Bengals at #6, 2nd best of the 5-2s behind New England and ahead of the Stealers. Here's how the panel voted. Here's James Walker's understanding of the rankings. Also, James Walker talked about Carson Palmer being awesome on Blogger Blitz. Apparently, Palmer's mechanics (with his feet) have improved this year. He's been more athletic, or something.
  
• As Chris mentioned, Chad OchoCinco has a big week ahead of him. First, he talked to Yahoo! Sports about how he's going to revolutionize sports news. He'll be all over ESPN on Thursday, and cap the night off with Letterman. Fox Sports also talked to Chad about OCNN and about what has generally caused Bengal success this year.
  
• NFL films dun' good picking the Bengals for Hard Knocks, says Joe Reedy.
• MJD of Shutdown Corner says - Carson Palmer is the MVP of Sunday. In some quasi-power ranking sort of thing on Y! Sports, Michael Silver says the Bengals are #6.
• Poor Tank Johnson. 2 days after the victory over the Bears, he somberly testified in the trial against the man accused of shooting Johnson's best friend to death.
• Football Outsiders says Carson Palmer was the best quarterback in week 7. Yep. The advance statistics football analysts say "DYAR chooses Palmer as the top player of the week, and he sits right alongside Brees, Peyton Manning, and Elvis Dumervil as an early MVP candidate. For him to accrue these totals in only 24 attempts is taggering. Sixteen of his attempts resulted in either a first down or a touchdown."
• Dennis Dillon of SportingNews.com says the Bengals are a bunch of cast-offs finding success. Is Mike Brown's career ressurection tactic paying off, or is Mike Zimmer awesome? What is going on?!
• More advance stats that I still haven't quite wrapped my head around. DVOA ratings have the Bengals moving up this week. These ratings don't look upon Cincinnati favorably due to our early season habit of last-second wins, and emphasis on yards. Still, it's interesting to see if football is going in baseball's direction of finding new stats that more strongly correlate with wins.
• More unamity in power ratings. Pete Prisco from CBS says Bengals are... 6!

More photos » by Tom Uhlman - AP

13 days ago: Cincinnati Bengals running back Cedric Benson (32) meets with Chicago Bears fullback Jason McKie (37) after the Bengals defeated the Bears 45-10 in an NFL football game, Sunday, Oct. 25, 2009, in Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

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I hate the Bye and I love the Bye. On the one hand, it helps the football team get healthy and rest - and week 8 is a great time for rest and recovery. On the other, what the heck am I supposed to do with my Sunday afternoon?! I guess I could watch other football games (yawn) or be productive (unlikely), but Bye weeks are torturous. They're like an unwanted taste of the off-season when you can't look forward to watching the Bengals in a few days.

But, the Bengals are 5-2 after beating the Bears, with losses coming to the rising Texans (who won't be rising much longer if Andre Johnson misses significant time) and 6-0 Denver Broncos. The Cats have overcome a relatively difficult early schedule, beating Green Bay and Baltimore on the road and Pittsburgh and Chicago at home. Quality victories, folks. I think we all would have taken a 5-2 start to the season 7 weeks ago, especially with how close our beloved team is to 6-1. But it's time to get over the Broncos loss and move on.

We've got a bye, then Baltimore and @Pittsburgh. These are incredibly important games (we say that every week, and we mean it) before what should be sure-thing-victories against Detroit, @Oakland, and Cleveland.  If the Bengals manage to at least split those AFCN contests, they'll be in good shape. Anywho, this is about what professionals have to say about the Bengals. Links and notes, after the jump!

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We like to party. We like, we like to party. (AP Photo/Tom Uhlman)

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The Cincinnati Bengals (2-1) play the Cleveland Browns (0-16) this week. It should be an extremely exciting matchup as both teams are professional and not amateur (arguably) and are paid to perform on Sundays. But really, I hope the Bengals aren't taking the Brownies too lightly. We all saw the plethora of points scored last time that happened, and the losing streak that followed. I get the feeling that this team is too mature to have a let down like that, though.

Anywho, here's some mid-week news, including a glut of power rankings links!

• ESPN: 11 (last week: 24; +13) "They haven't been this impressive since winning the division in 2005. (Chadiha)"
• Sports Illustrated: Stay Tuned (last week: 14; expected jump (Steelers were 8 last week) +5) Other stuff from SI.com: Don Banks says the jury is still out on the Bengals in his review of teams with winning records through week 3. Since we play the Browns this week, I find it relevant to link to this Joe Posnanski story that calls Eric Mangini is the worst coaching hire ever.
• CBSSportsLine: 12 (last week: 14; +2) "They have to avoid a letdown against the Browns. Past Bengals teams might not have, but this team is better. Even so, they need to be careful (Prisco)." Also from Prisco - team grades. The Bengals got a B, which would have probably been an F if not for the 4th quarter, bringing the season GPA to 2.77 (that's a C+ average, is this a C+ team? I hope not.)
• Charley Casserly says the Bengals turnaround has been a long time coming. Agreeing with Trent Dilfer (who harped on this on NFL Tonight for ESPN), the strong finish last season featured an emphasis on defense when the offense was awful, and that's carried over to this year. The defense is very confident and has really stepped up in the clutch, allowing the Bengals to win games late. I'd really like to see them jump out to a strong start and play a WHOLE strong game against Cleveland, since they haven't played a complete game since the first 59 minutes and 30-some-odd seconds against the Broncos in Week 1.
  
• Meanwhile, Pete Prisco thinks Carson Palmer has been key to the rejuvination of the Bengals. I find it hard ti disagree - he's been clutch. He just needs to step up early in games and be more consistent. Good quotes from Carson and Ochocinco. Dunno how I missed this Monday.
• Fox Sports has the 1-2 Pittsburgh Steelers in the top 10 of their power rankings, ahead of the 3-0 Vikings (who dropped 1 spot after winning?) and a lot of other teams that have played better than the Steelers so far. More importantly, the Bengals moved up 9 spots to #13 (somehow still being Pittsburgh, who they beat, but behind Denver, who they lost to. Correctly they are 1 spot ahead of Green Bay. Yes, I know transitivity does not work in sports, but it can probably work through 3 games.)
• In fantasy terms, the Bengals are slightly above average according to Yahoo! Sports. Based on red zone appearances, third down conversion rates, yards per carry, yards per pass attempt, rank in sacks allowed per game, td rushes per game, and td passes per game, we're #13. Things to improve on: Yards per pass attempt (this has been really bad this year) and sacks allowed (surprisingly we're near the bottom in this category). 3rd down conversions have been better this year, but could stand to improve after the Pittsburgh game.
• Finishing up with a local touch, Mike Zimmer is awesome. Geoff Hobson talked with him and has a pretty cool article about Zim's standards and assessment of his unit so far.
  
• Good lord, the Cincinnati Enquirer has published a ton of stuff about the Bengals in the past couple days. Joe Reedy highlights how my favorite Bengals TE, Reggie Kelly, is contributing while injured. I think everyone loves Reggie Kelly. Reedy also did a short preview of the Browns game. He asks if the Browns have given up (legitimate question. It's week 3, by the way.) Here's a replay of the chat Reedy hosted this afternoon. Joe's been busy, highlighting emerging T.J. Who? replacement Andre Easy Name to Spell Caldwell. Talk about clutch (or cardiac) - that's this season's Bengals. Finally from the Enquirer, here are Joe Reedy's position-by-position grades after reviewing game film of last Sunday's game.

For those of you who thought Chad was just going to walk away quietly from the whole Twitter phenomenon, allow me to evoke my inner Lee Corso:

Not So Fast, My Friend!

According to James Walker, ESPN's AFC North Blogger, Chad Ochocinco has found some loopholes in the NFL's Twitter policy -- surprise, surprise -- and plans on exploiting them on Sunday against the Denver Broncos.  How, exactly, is unknown at this time.  You can chalk that up to the subterfuge method Chad has been known to use in the past, specifically concerning his Christmas touchdown celebration that was stopped by the referees a couple of seasons ago.

And yes, those are 14-karat gold personalized earphones on his head, via his rather enjoyable Twitpic profile. 

One last thing:  Since we already know Chad is planning on doing something Twitter-related this weekend, does anyone want to take a guess at how much the impending fine will be?

Well, Chad finally got what he wanted from the NFL: The right to have his new last name on the back of his jersey. Unfortunately, there is a catch. But first, here's a little reminder: When the name change was first announced, the NFL did not allow the jerseys to be altered because of financial obligations.

Now it's a new year, a new season and the NFL has relented.  One problem though -- when Chad Whatevermylastnameisnow sent his official documents in, he spelled "Ocho Cinco" as one word.  Because of that, the name on the back of his jersey won't look like it does in the lead picture.  Nope, it'll be Ochocinco -- not exactly the change number 85 was looking for, methinks.

This lastest chapter officially turns this whole name change saga from something surreal into laughing stock territory.  What started has another attention grab -- coupled with an actual savvy marketing decision -- has progressed to the point where, if they decided to go that route, HBO could have another pro football-based comedy on their hands.

Of course, this one would be a little more unintentional than 1st & Ten.

The Ben-Gals will hold tryouts in April at PBS.  On April 11th, at a cost of $35, there will be a clinic to familiarize participants with the tryout process.  Participants must be 21 and be employed or a full-time student.  There are two practices a week from June - December and three during the pre-season.  Pay is $80.00 a game and outside paid appearances are possible.  Team members will be expected to perform at a minimum of 10 outside charity functions supported by the Benals.

The registration materials put emphasis on the following quotes,

" Glamour is important and will contribute towards your score.  Full complete hair style and make up is HIGHLY recommended." 

"Flexibility and a good attitude is a Must!!"

$80 a week?  NFL cheerleaders need to unionize and get a CBA.  These hard-working ladies are seriously underpaid.  Just think of all those sideline shots on tv as they go into commercials...all the jumbo-tron shots...the late-season cold games...and all the times the Bengals are going 3 and out, Kyle Larson is coming into to kick a 30-yard punt, you are bored and have the binoculars...I know you sneak a look -- everybody does it.  I have even caught my sons sneaking a peak.  The bottom line is that sometimes the Ben-Gals are the only smiling faces in the whole stadium and that, in and of itself, is worth a lot more than $80 a game.