Former Tampa Bay wide receiver Antonio Bryant has signed a four-year, $28 million deal with the Cincinnati Bengals.

Doubtless he won’t be as entertaining as Terrell Owens, but he offers hopes of a medium-term solution at wide receiver, and moreover, helps clear the way for a non-wide-receiver pick in the first round.

TUESDAY’S NOT GONE WITH THE WIND YET UPDATE: T.O. gets the coveted Ryan Fitzpatrick endorsement:

“It’s hard not to like T.O. He was fun to play with and no one worked harder,” Fitzpatrick said Tuesday. “And let me tell you something. He can still flat out run by people.”

“The Bengals and Terrell make a lot of sense,” said Fitzpatrick, who started 12 games for the Bengals in ‘08. “Carson is at his best when he’s throwing the long ball and they’ve had trouble lately getting Chad freed up because he’s always double covered. They don’t have a deep threat on the other side and Terrell can bring that because he can still run and make big plays. Just knowing Carson, I think they would work well together. I saw Carson’s quotes that he’s pretty much handled it all and seen it all when it comes to wide receivers and I think he’s right. Terrell wants to win. A great competitor and I think he and Chad would feed off each other. The guy was a good teammate.”

EVEN TUESDAYIER UPDATE: T.O. has arrived.

The sometimes controversial player says joining the Bengals is his “first option”. At the airport tonight, he told Local 12 Sports Director Brad Johansen he would be anxious to play with Carson Palmer and would look forward to the chance to play with his friend Chad Ochocinco. After leaving the airport Owens said he was going to have dinner with Coach Marvin Lewis and simply see where things go from there.

TUESDAY UPDATE: Antonio Bryant has left the building. Owens arrives in town tonight.

OP: And the wide receiver follies in Cincinnati continues as the Bengals, who have already inked outcast receiver Matt Jones, will host both Antonio Bryant and Terrell Owens tomorrow.

As I’ve said before, what the heck, sign ‘em all! Cincinnati had just about the worst passing game in the league last year, so there’s nowhere to go but up.

On a more serious note, if I had to guess I would say Bryant’s visit is just more pressure on T.O. (as are the rumors about the Bengals considering Marshall) to sign.

Yes. Yes, I do now believe that T.O. will be a Bengal. Yep, this should be fun.

DT Tank Johnson will re-sign with the Cincinnati Bengals, per the team’s official site, which passes along word from Johnson himself via his Twitter feed.

According to ESPN’s John Clayton, Johnson signed a four-year deal.

Johnson appeared in 14 games (13 starts) with the Bengals last year, recording 29 tackles and two sacks. He was hampered most of the season by a case of plantar fasciitis, but despite that played well and was seen as one of the in-house free agents the Bengals most needed to retain.

The Cincinnati Bengals fessed up to a $10 million mistake today, cutting wide receiver Laveranues Coles just less than a year after signing him to (fail to) replace T.J. Houshmandzadeh. With not a lot available in free agency, this will only increase speculation that the Bengals will look for a wideout in the first round next month.

The Combine has (surprise!) the NFL rumor ‘n’ speculation ‘n’ disinformation mill running at full blast. Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis put in his $0.02 today, providing some insight into how the team is approaching this year’s draft.

That the team’s top priority is getting more out of the passing game is no secret.

We need to be able to make vertical plays and if we throw it down 40 yards and get a pass interference penalty that counts. Those are the things we’re going to look to do. We need to make more chunk plays offensively and be able to effect the game so that we don’t grind it out and have 25 first downs every week.

The bigger question is, will the Bengals address this by going after a wide receiver, a tight end or an offensive lineman (with an eye toward improved pass protection) early in the draft? If Lewis is to be believed, it seems WR is the most likely answer. Lewis says he hasn’t paid a lot of attention to the TE position yet, and he was very complimentary toward the offensive line and last year’s first-round pick, Andre Smith.

We have a group up front that really grew together that came out of the ashes and grew to be pretty cohesive and effective. We’ll be able to have Andre (Smith) in there from the start which will help immensely.

Meanwhile, asked about current Bengals wide receivers Laveranues Coles and Jerome Simpson, Lewis offered fairly boilerplate praise of Coles’ professionalism and the same-old-same-old on Jerome.

Is Jerome Simpson ready to break through? “We’re going to do everything we can to help Jerome progress down that road. He’s a player who I feel very good about. He tries to do everything we’ve asked him to do. We can’t get him on the field and let him feel good about himself enough. We’re going to take some steps to keep him down that road.”

Can he be that deep threat? “He can be that guy. He should be that guy. That’s why we drafted him.”

Not exactly a ringing endorsement, that.

On the defensive side of the ball, Lewis said flat out that linebacker would not be a position that they would focus on early in the draft, but safety would be “considered” at some point in April.

Of course, how much of this is real and how much is smoke is anyone’s guess, but I didn’t read anything in Lewis’ comments that struck me as fishy, except possibly the bit about not having paid a lot of attention to the TEs. For my money, it still looks like wide receiver at 21.

UPDATE: Cincy Jungle has a man at the combine and some bonus Marvin quotes from a post-press conference mini-presser with local Cincinnati media assembled in Indianapolis. In this, Lewis says that he’s looking for a vertical threat who can contribute earlier rather than later in the season, suggesting the Bengals head coach would prefer a free agent. That could be a tough sell to a front office still reportedly feeling burnt by the Coles signing last year — and thanks to the CBA mess, free agency this year is more sparse than ever.

The Cincinnati Bengals and the Dallas Cowboys will kick off the 2010 NFL preseason August 6 in Canton, Ohio in the annual Hall of Fame Game.

Both franchises are celebrating inductions that take place the day before at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Former Bengals head coach and long-time assistant Dick LeBeau takes his spot 32 years after he became eligible. Meanwhile, 41-year-old Emmitt Smith, the former Cowboys running back and NFL’s all-time leading rusher, celebrates his first-ballot election.

For the first time in 28 years, the game at Fawcett Stadium lines up division champions. The Bengals won the AFC North last season at 10-6 and Dallas won the NFC East at 11-5 in what will be the first-ever preseason game between the clubs.

Playing in the Hall of Fame Game means both clubs will play five preseason games. They will also be able to open camps a few days earlier than the rest of the league.

The overhyped meat market known as the NFL Combine is almost upon us, so here’s one last look at the mockosphere’s pre-combine predictions for the Cincinnati Bengals at 21 this April.

As has been the case all year, Oklahoma TE Jermaine Gresham remains far ahead of the pack. In fact, there’s been remarkably little movement at the top of the board over the last month, though it’s worth noting that LSU WR Brandon LaFell continues to slide down, while SoCal safety Taylor Mays has crept (barely) into double-digits and a tie for fourth place.

Assembled with the help of fansided’s mock draft database, I went through drafts updated in February for this update. The results:

By position, wide receiver leads with 49 nods (-8 versus the previous Big Board). After that, it’s 25 for TE (-1); 11 S (no change); 3 DT (-2); 5 DE (+3); 1 RB (-1); 1 LB (–); and 1 QB (–).

Previous Big Boards:

January: 1/1 / 1/27

Mike Brown’s Rescue Shelter is still looking for wayward souls in need of a good home. Say, wasn’t that Terrell Owens we just saw wandering alone on the side of the highway?

*The Rescue Shelter Network was not affiliated with this post. Kudos to them for their work though.