The Morning After: Holt lost front teeth and some fans claim Chad faked injury

Bengals recap on 21-33 loss to the Buffalo Bills.

Casualties

• Herana-Daze Jones didn't return after suffering a knee injury.
• Chad Johnson left with a neck injury -- still in pain, but CT scan normal | tests "normal".
• Anthony Schlegel struggled to sit or stand after the game with an apparent rib/abdominal injury.

Clark Judge asks: "Who's the better team in Cincinnati -- the Bearcats or Bengals?"

Chad Johnson quote in this issue of GQ (via, Mo) [It is the Chad Johnson show]
On the half-time explosion during wild card game #1 against Pittsburgh: "I just wasn’t being utilized at all. I was very pissed. And I fussed about it the entire week, ’cause I knew what they were gonna do, and we had no answer for it. I prepared stupid hard, and I studied; I went to the coaches, and they had nothing. In the biggest game of our careers, you can’t get your best player the ball? The plan was not to utilize me. The plan was to allow them to do what they did to me and just use everyone else. I go back to that moment in Pittsburgh and they’re giving me an IV and I’m thinking about Santa Monica. You know how hard I worked to get to this point? That’s why I blew up like that."

Speaking of Chad, some fans believe he was faking the injury. Are you one of them? Speak up. Are we really those type of fans?

A compliment from Peter King to officials getting a call right AFTER reviewing the play initially called incomplete:

Yes, Peter. Watching a replay, from multiple angles eventually changing a wrong call, must be a challenge.

Mark Curnutte interviewed Mike Brown a few days back. Here's the highlights.

On 2007: "Disappointed".
On Defensive players becoming free agents. "Address when the season is over."
On Marvin Lewis: Secured.
On Chad Johnson: "I'm real happy that he's here playing for us."
On fans being disappointed: "Who?" (just kidding)

On hiring a General Manager (on Curnutte's blog)

Mark Curnutte goes on to tell us that we shouldn't "buy the product" if we're unhappy. This argument is constantly overused that, if even applied, wouldn't work. First of all, when has that actually worked before? Second of all, we are not the primary customers. That distinction goes to multi-billion dollar television contracts, shared revenue and corporate sponsorship. They're like Microsoft. They appeal to the massive corporations first. Eventually, they get to the end user who is the lowest chunk of their revenues. That's today's NFL, not yesterday's where team sales drove the product. Furthermore, a commenter detailed that refusing to go to games, using your pocket books as the ultimate intimidator to the Brown family, then you're really hurting downtown business. Excellent point.

But isn't that the trend? After abusing the Bengals because of horrible play, the fans become the media's next target. Sad. (sigh)

Say what?
"I thought Rudi played fine," Lewis said. "We got off to a good start running, but it seemed like we didn't get enough blocks; some (Bills defenders) slipped off blocks and made plays."
- Marvin Lewis [Running game stops cold in Rudi's return]

Without teeth.
"It was in celebration," Holt said. "The bad thing about it was Dhani Jones jumped and hit my helmet at the end and hit my facemask. I lost my two front teeth."
- Glenn Holt on 100-yard touchdown on kickoff return. [Enquirer's Bengals notebook]

Digressions in abundance is sad.

Carson Palmer: "We're not a very good football team, it's frustrating. There's nothing more you can say about it, it's just frustrating."
Marvin Lewis: "That's what we are, we're 2-6. I'm not happy about it and there's nothing I can change about it. It's disappointing, but we've got to make football plays. We didn't make enough plays again today. We only got 14 points offensively, so we've got to score more points."
[Bengals.com]

No runs and no hits [Goheen - Post]
Road to nowhere [Curnutte - Enquirer]
Bills sick offense gets well Sunday [Hoppe - Enquirer]
Holt, then jolt [Bengals.com]
Bengals can't cash Bills [Bengals.com]
Chad trashed after talk [Bengals.com]
No words, just numbers [Bengals.com]