One of the things mentioned yesterday during Marvin Lewis' round of interviews with the local beat writers -- not including us who are still the scourge of the Bengals backside -- was Lewis' praise on a certain wide receiver who we've spoken about a lot on these pages.
Calling Andre Caldwell the most improved player during sprint workouts, Lewis likes the competition that's about to brew between slot receivers.
“He gets a guy that has kind of done it in the collegiate level at a high level, and played a similar spot and come in here and get in position to do the same things,” Lewis said of Shipley. “Jordan has really exceeded my expectations of him thus far and I had lot of expectations from him. I watched him and Jermaine every Saturday night for two, three years. One of them was on TV every Saturday night in the hotel room.
“Andre is probably this offseason’s most improved guy on the team. Yet both guys are kind of getting overlooked. You’ve got people pressing for (each) of them, which tells you we’re in pretty good shape there. I think, No. 1, the quarterback is happy about that.”
And who can blame him?
We've often brought up Caldwell's disappearing act in 2009, when he failed to record more than 35 yards receiving during the team's final ten regular season games. But we've also pointed out that Caldwell has taken it upon himself to become a better receiver this year going through a rigorous offseason training program. He's even recently reminded us that he remains.