Cincinnati Bengals Put A Waiver Claim On Wide Receiver Dezmon Briscoe

According to Howard Balzer, a sportscaster and writer, the Cincinnati Bengals were one of four teams that submitted a waiver claim on wide receiver Dezmon Briscoe, who was recently cut by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers because he failed the team's conditioning test. Along with being somewhat out of shape, Briscoe also failed to appear during most of the Buccaneers OTA sessions. Tampa Bay head coach Greg Schiano told Stephen Holder of TampaBay.com in mid-April:

"The deal is, this is voluntary," Schiano said. "I had people check to make sure he was okay. I’m not going to call on the phone and say, ‘Where are you?’ It’s voluntary. Our football team’s here.

"There are issues sometimes. I understand that. I don’t spend a lot of time focusing on the guys who aren’t here. I have a whole football team that is here, so I’m spending every ounce of my energy to get them to do the best they can. If someone’s missing, it’s a shame, because it’s hurting the team. But there’s reasons sometimes. Other times, it just happens."

Brisco's agent, Erik Burkhardt expressed shock when the Buccaneers released his client, then detailing two characteristics that makes one a great person:

"Yes, he had his personal issues this offseason, but he’s a great kid," Burkhardt said. "He doesn’t smoke, doesn’t drink. He’s a very quiet guy."

It is somewhat surprising that the Bengals put a claim on Briscoe however. According to multiple reports, the personal issues that everyone keeps referring to was a twitter spat between Briscoe's girlfriend and ex-girlfriend. Knowing how Marvin Lewis is likely replacing Chick Ludwig's photo with a picture of a twitter logo on a dartboard in his office, anyone with a history of knocking twitter boots would have thought to have been knocked out by the team's ninja and placed outside of the city limits.

Thankfully for the sake of Cincinnati, it didn't happen. The Redskins won the claim.