We’re in need of upgrading, if not completely rebuilding, the offensive line. Left tackle Levi Jones’ body is breaking down bad, specifically his knees. Our center gets blown off the ball a lot, several times you see him pancaked in the backfield during a four-yard loss on a run play. And our right tackle, Stacy Andrews, is a franchise tagged player, though he’s hardly played up to that classification. We expect he’ll bolt.

In terms of the draft, in a perfect world, we’ll go offensive tackle in the first round and a center (like the kid from Cal) in the second round.

We do need to address running back, but right now, our line primarily the reason we have the league’s worst offense.

T.J. is the most likely to go because he’s an UFA. However, the Bengals aren’t afraid of using the franchise tag (they did it with Justin Smith and Stacy Andrews in the past). Chad Johnson’s chances of leaving are slim, and, in our honest opinion, they “bungled” that trade offer from the Redskins (they offered a first round pick in 2008 and a conditional third round pick in 2009, which would become a first if Chad had 95 receptions this year). We could have gotten a great set of team-building picks. Then again, we’re the team that refused the Saints ENTIRE draft because we wanted Akili Smith.

Palmer is the Golden Arm God of Cincinnati. He’s here until 2014.

It’s very likely all three could return.

In terms of Marvin Lewis, absolutely not. If any praise can be given to Lewis about this season, it’s his ability to keep things together. Save for Chad being inactive against the Steelers during Thursday Night football, the Bengals have held together. There’s no finger pointing right now, no players giving the PFT boys any fodder. He’s had questionable (mostly conservative) decisions on the football field.

However, below him, could be different. Paul Alexander (line coach and assistant head coach) is being mentioned for the Syracuse job, and our offensive coordinator must go — will he, I don’t know. Watching the game a few things stand out with our OC — mostly tendencies, running up the gut on third and one (we’ve failed to covert third and two or closer nearly 60% of the time). True, he has to have the talent to call a game, but most of his play calling suggests as if Rudi Johnson of 2004-5 is still in the backfield, and Carson Palmer is slinging passes all over the field. He doesn’t adjust at half time, nor does he adjust to the personnel grouping on the field.

Character hurt the team’s long term development. The biggest example of this is Odell Thurman, who was a finalist for defensive rookie of the year in 2005. He was supposed to be our long-term defensive guy, drawing comparisons from Lewis that he’s the Bengals version of Ray Lewis (not that… meaning on the field).

Then there’s Chris Henry. For the most part though, especially recently, the Bengals are still given that rap as a character problems, even though our incidents are long behind us.

As for Carson getting KIMO’d. Yea. That’s hurt a hellva lot more; some suggest that he’s regressed since then. I disagree, primarily because the talent around him isn’t getting better, and he’s being asked to carry the load.

They’ve done an excellent job making the frustrated voice of the fans more public; however they’re really doing the same thing that’s been done in the past, like boycotts, or not paying for concessions — however, the difference here is that they’re organized, keeping everything together. The Bengals have a jerk line set up at the stadium that people call for problematic fans (aka, super-drunks). One of their tasks were to flood the jerk line saying “Mike Brown is a jerk.” A lot of people called.

However, their last task was telling all fans to give their tickets away to a charity they choose for needy and sick kids. That was pretty cool.

Fans support them, have donated money to keep those billboards up into the off-season. Brown even admitted that he saw them, but blew it off. He’s still convinced that his way is the way that will make us winners again. History suggests otherwise, and insanity is “doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” As much as Bengals fans support them, we can only expect Brown to listen to the masses for so much. I mean, the guy has a website against him: “MikeBrownSucks.com”. LOL!!

Not at all. This team will continue to work with their younger players, hoping that the 21 players on IR, half of them the team’s expected starters, come back healthy without the effects of their respective injuries.

We are a cheap team. Per player, we have one of the lowest average salaries compared to the league. After our two biggest FA picks up this off-season, Antwan Odom and Ben Utecht, expecting them to play better than the back of their baseball card (and they’ve performed lower than what they did with their former teams), doomed any chance of being active in the free agency market.