Aside from the usual crop of free agents, there are a number of current Bengals who may not be wearing orange-and-black come next fall. Here’s a rundown of players on the bubble.

Chris Perry. A first-round pick in 2004, Perry has appeared in just 35 games in five seasons. At the beginning of the 2008 season, the Bengals cut Rudi Johnson and handed Perry the starting job. He responded by gaining just 253 rushing yards in six starts, and was benched for Bears castoff Cedric Benson. By season’s end, he would be outrushed by not just Benson, but No. 2 QB Ryan Fitzpatrick as well. Already, sources are saying that Perry is a goner. It says here those sources are right.

Eric Henderson. Despite a standout performance at Georgia Tech, Henderson went undrafted in 2006 due to injury concerns which have, indeed, dogged him into the pros. After spending all of ‘06 on the practice squad transitioning to linebacker, he suffered a season-ending wrist injury during the 2007 preseason. With the change in defensive coordinators after 2007, Henderson was sent back to defensive end. He began 2008 on the practice squad, was called up to the active roster October 24 due to injuries at DE, and lasted 11 whole days before suffering a season-ending neck injury. Overall, Henderson has appeared in just two games in three seasons.

Chris Henry. Bengals owner Mike Brown brought Henry back last summer against the wishes of head coach Marvin Lewis. For his troubles, Brown got 12 games, 19 catches, 220 yards and 2 TDs out of Henry. At the end of the season, Henry promised to stay out of trouble. Asked about his status, Lewis would say only that Henry was under contract. Given Brown’s support for the troubled Henry, he’s likely to return, but at the same time it seems clear that there remain no love lost between Henry and Lewis. If Henry fouls up again, he’s unlikely to find a friend in either the head coach or the owner.

Dexter Jackson. The one-time Super Bowl MVP will turn 32 next September, and hasn’t played a complete season since 2003. In three years with Cincinnati, he’s missed 19 games, including 13 in 2008. Prior to the season, it was a toss-up as to whether he or 2007 seventh-round pick Chinedum Ndukwe would win the starting strong safety job, but Ndukwe hurt his foot in camp and missed all of preseason as well as the first game, handing the competition to Jackson. When Jackson got hurt in week 2, Ndukwe returned to man the SS spot, and kept the job when Jackson came back in the seventh game (Dexter was switched to FS). If the Bengals succeed in signing Chris Crocker, Jackson is unlikely to return.

Chad Johnson. There’s no danger that Ocho Cinco will be released, but he could be traded if the Bengals decide in favor of a youth movement at wide receiver. It says here that such a trade is unlikely. Last year, Mike Brown refused to deal Chad even for one definite and one possible first-round pick — and with his down, injured season in 2008, Johnson’s value has only declined.

Levi Jones. An elite LT back during the 2005 playoff run, Jones has spent the last three seasons falling apart before fans’ dismayed eyes. Jones has missed 15 games over the last three seasons, largely due to various knee injuries. His attitude has also gone downhill. In 2007, he accused the team’s training staff of screwing up his rehab in spring camps, and spent training camp complaining that he had unfairly lost his job (temporarily, to Andrew Whitworth) due to injury. When the Bengals put him back in in week 3 against Kansas City, he got abused for 3 sacks by Jared Allen before being benched. In the ‘08 offseason, he requested and was denied a trade. Being in the middle of a six-year, $40 million extension he signed in 2006 may be all that saves Jones from the axe, as Brown is always reluctant to take that kind of a loss on a player.

Reggie Kelly. The veteran tight end turns 32 next month, and while he had an average year receiving in 2008, Kelly is known primarily as a blocking TE. However, Cincinnati’s running game was dead for most of the year and Kelly was responsible for the biggest blown blitz pickup of the season, allowing the hit that took out Carson Palmer’s elbow. He goes into 2009 in the final year of a three-year, $9 million deal that Palmer had to talk both Kelly and the front office into. Between Ben Utecht, younger journeyman Nate Lawrie and project Matt Sherry, a sixth-round pick last year, Kelly could get caught in a numbers/money crunch at the TE position.

Kenny Watson. Backup RB Watson has been with Cincinnati for six seasons and will turn 31 in March. He rushed for more than 700 yards in 2007, but was dinged up in 2008 and had just 13 carries for 55 yards in 10 games. With the Bengals chasing Benson as their new “bell-cow” back, and undrafted rookie James Johnson showing some flash in the final four games — 9 carries for 29 yards, and 6 catches for 47, after getting the call from the practice squad — Watson could get his ticket punched if the Bengals, as expected, take a running back at some point in next April’s draft.

Cincinnati Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis and his staff will coach the North team in the Under Armor Senior Bowl on January 24.

Jacksonville head coach Jack Del Rio and his staff will helm the South team.

This marks the third time Lewis has coached in the Senior Bowl. Last time around, in 2004, his North team lost 28-10. The job gives Lewis and the rest of the Bengals’ coaches a chance to get up close and personal with some prospective draft picks. Bengals punter Kyle Larson was signed after playing for the ‘04 North squad. And two players from the ‘04 South team, CB Keiwan Ratliff (now with the Colts) and S Madieu Williams (now a Viking) were drafted by Cincinnati in the second round of the 2004 draft.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Cincyjungle.com hosts a Bengals blogger roundtable discussing the just-concluded season, some off-season predictions, and a few wild guesses about what happens come next fall. Good stuff from everyone. Check it out.

Former Bengals Pro Bowl right tackle Willie Anderson got the first playoff victory of his 13-year NFL career Saturday when the Baltimore Ravens rolled over the Miami Dolphins 27-9. Now, Big Willie and the Ravens travel to Tennessee to challenge the AFC’s top seed, the Titans. Baltimore and Tennessee met in week 5 of the regular season. The Ravens led 10-3 going into the fourth quarter of that game, but ended up losing by a field goal.

Ex-Bengals safety Madieu Williams wasn’t as lucky, as his Vikings fell to the Eagles 28-14. Madieu had four tackles in the game, giving him a grand total of 46 tackles, 2 interceptions, and three passes defensed in nine regular season and one playoff games. Final verdict: a free agent last March, Williams signed a six-year, $33 million deal with Minnesota, then promptly got hurt (again) and missed nearly half the season. Meanwhile, when injuries hit the Bengals’ safety corps, Cincinnati plucked Chris Crocker off the street, who in eight games delivered 34 tackles, 1.5 sacks, a pick and two passes defensed. Crocker also demonstrated a nasty streak, something that had been lacking from Williams’ play ever since a shoulder injury that wiped out most of his sophomore season. All told, Madieu wasn’t missed in 2007.

The final member of our dearly departed in the playoffs, Carolina LB Landon Johnson, was off last weekend. The Panthers host the Arizona Cardinals next Saturday.

It’s slow time in Bengaldom. Cincinnati is out of the playoffs. Coaches and players have departed for hearth and home. Free agency and the draft are still months away, and speculation on either is hindered by the many undeclared juniors in the draft class, and the knowledge that lots of potential free agents will be re-signed prior to March 1.

So, what’s a Bengals fan to do with his time on playoff weekend? WDR suggests rooting for Joey Porter and the Dolphins. Kirk says all that need be said about that idea (and passes along some Brian Orapko vids, too.) No, if you’re looking for someone to back in the playoffs this year, my vote has to go to the Baltimore Ravens. Why? Two words:

Willie Anderson.

Yeah, I know. Willie stuck it to his old mates back in week 1, hanging out of the Ravens sideline with their defensive coaches and basically giving away the Bengals’ offensive store. But as it turned out, the Bengals were going nowhere fast in 2008, making Anderson’s treachery immaterial. And really, who can blame the guy? After 12 mostly awful years with the Bengals, in which he does nothing but deliver Pro-Bowl-caliber play while being a force for good in a fractious locker room, he’s unceremoniously dumped by management after he balks at their attempt to nickle-and-dime him.

I’ve had good and bad words about Willie over the years. At times, he took his self-appointed role as locker room spokesman a bit too far, crossing the line from “Big Willie” to “Big Mouth Willie.” And I thought the front office’s decision to extend him over Eric Steinbach back in 2006 a poor one. But no Bengals fan has any cause to complain about Willie’s play. Healthy or hurt, he was out there. In 12 seasons, he missed 11 games, nine of which came in 2007. This season, against the predictions of Bengals doctors and trainers who pronounced him finished, Anderson appeared in 14 regular-season games, starting 11, for Baltimore.

With all due respect to WDR, if you want an “in your face!” to Mike Brown and The Family, I can’t think of a better one than Willie winning a ring with another AFC North club, while the Bengals’ own right tackle spot (sadly) lies in ruins because of bad calls by the front office.

Go Ravens.

When draft time rolls around, you can usually find my flag planted firmly in camp defensive tackle, a position that the Bengals have largely ignored in the defensively challenged Mike Brown era. During his father’s tenure, the Bengals routinely spent top picks on DTs. In the 24 years from 1968 through 1991, Cincinnati used eight top-three selections — three firsts, two seconds, and three thirds — on defensive tackles, an average of one pick every three years. Over the following 17 drafts, the team used two, count ‘em, two picks on DTs, a first-rounder in 1994 for Dan Wilkinson, and a third round selection last April on Pat Sims. Needless to say, I believe that the perennial neglect of the DT spot is a major reason the Bengals’ defense has finished in the bottom half of the league in 15 out of the last 17 years.

But for a change, DT strikes me as at least okay going into 2009. The Bengals found something of a gem in the fourth round of the 2006 draft when they chose DT Domata Peko, who signed a $30.3 million extension last June. Peko is solid if unspectacular and proved a good match with Sims this past season. If fifth-round project Jason Shirley pans out (and yes, that’s a big “if”), the Bengals will be further set in the middle of the line. All of which is a good thing, as 2009 looks to be a weak year for defensive tackles in the draft.

So between that and the twin big-money deals already handed out to defensive ends Robert Geathers ($32.5 million in 2007) and Antwan Odom ($29.5 million in 2008), I’ve largely dismissed defensive line as an option for the Bengals in the first round. There was no DT worth the sixth overall, and with something on the order of $70 million invested in DE between Geathers, Odom and Jonathan Fanene, who also signed a contract extension last year, it was almost impossible to see the Bengals dedicating even more money and cap space to the position, despite a meager 17 sacks last season.

But as mock draft season cranks up, I’m starting to see more top fives that shake out like Lou’s over at Draft King, another one of my favorite mock draft sites. Lou, like Todd McShay, sends a QB to Kansas City at 3, and as a result, Texas defensive end Brian Orakpo remains on the board at six.

That’s hard to pass up. Very hard. In fact, Lou thinks Cincy pulls the trigger. Over at The Football Expert, Michael Abromowitz doesn’t. After careful consideration (OK, after about 0.3 seconds thought) I have to side with Lou: if Orakpo is there at six, the Bengals should run, not walk, to the phone. Winner of the Bronco Nagurski Trophy, Orakpo can rush the passer or drop into coverage, and could play OLB as well as DE. In other words, Orakpo is an excellent fit for the “joker” role that Georgia DE David Pollack was drafted to fill back in 2005. And as such he would give an emerging Bengals defense exactly what it needs: a scary playmaker capable of scrambling the best-laid plans of opposing offensive co-ordinators.

The obvious objection to this line of thought is that the Bengals’ offensive line is simply too much of a disaster zone to consider going in any other direction with the first pick. However, the situation at tackle may not be as dire as once thought thanks to the ability shown by 2008 fourth-round pick Anthony Collins, who had he stayed in school could have been a first-round pick this year. Moreover, like last year, this year’s draft is strong with offensive line prospects, and in contrast to many other positions the Bengals have done well when when plucking linemen out of the second (see Steinbach, Eric and Whitworth, Andrew). Orakpo in the first, followed by some combination of center and tackle in the second and third rounds, sounds like a tasty draft to me.

Continuing in my series of predictions that are bound to be wrong, here’s a first run at the top six picks in the April 2009 draft.

1. Detroit Lions: QB Matthew Stafford, Georgia. Obviously, at 0-16 the Lions could go just about any direction here and improve. The best course of action would be to trade this booby prize away for more picks with which to rebuild. Then again, like the Bengals, the Lions usually screw up the draft anyhow, so more picks only means more disappointment. And in any event, no one wants the first overall any more.

2. St. Louis Rams: OT Michael Oher, Ole Miss. Oher’s stock appears to be slipping a bit of late, while Alabama’s Andre Smith’s is rising, but I’ll stick with the pre-draft-hype-machine pick here. St. Louis has needed to bolster the o-line forever, and by all reports coveted OT Jake Long, who went first overall to the Dolphins, last year.

3. Kansas City Chiefs: DE Brian Orakpo, Texas. Kansas City paid dearly for letting Jared Allen go, managing just 10 sacks all year. OSU’s Chris Wells could also be an option if RB Larry Johnson successfully talks his way off the team.

4. Seattle Seahawks: OT Andre Smith, Alabama. BPA and a safe pick for a new head coach. WR Michael Crabtree is a possibility here if he changes his mind and comes out, but I’m betting the Seahawks look to free agency to bulk up the receiving corps.

5. Cleveland Browns: RB Chris Wells, Ohio State. Jamal Lewis is done and the Browns have a pretty good offensive line to block for Wells. “Beanie” will be a still-raw Brady Quinn’s best friend.

6. Cincinnati Bengals: At this point, Bengals fans are both frustrated and relieved. Frustrated because the top two OTs are off the board. Relieved because so is Wells. If Crabtree comes out and is still available, a nightmare remains possible. But with Chad Johnson apparently chastened, T.J. Houshmandzadeh a franchise tag candidate, and two high picks spent on wide receivers last year (second-rounder Jerome Simpson and third-round selection Andre Caldwell,) wideout looks unlikely to me. Cincinnati could reach somewhat for Virginia OT Eugene Monroe. The team has a history of reaching for tackles in the draft (see Jones, Levi). But if the first five picks fall out as I have them here, I think the position that Marvin Lewis loves best comes to the fore. And so with the sixth pick in the 2009 NFL Draft, the Cincinnati Bengals select linebacker James Laurinaitis, Ohio State.

Why Laurinaitis and not USC’s Rey Maualuga or (my personal preference) Wake Forest up-and-comer Aaron Curry? Two words: Mike Brown. The Bengals haven’t taken an offensive player in the first round since 2004 (Chris Perry) and if Wells is still on the board at six I fear the worst, even if they do give Cedric Benson big bucks. But Brown and the Bengals traditionally love Ohio State players, and that will give Lewis a wedge with which to lobby for Laurinaitis. The pick will probably be seen as a reach, but Laurinaitis still gives the Bengals a presence inside they haven’t had since Odell Thurman in 2005.

Now that I have established my complete ineptitude with predictions (see previous entry), here’s my take on which Bengals free agents will be back, and which won’t.

Unrestricted Free Agents:

• RT Stacy Andrews - re-signed to low-money deal, spends 2009 on PUP/IR.
• RB Cedric Benson - Bengals bite the bullet, give him starter-caliber RB deal prior to March 1.
• LB/DE Darryl Blackstock - Bengals want him back, but don’t get him.
• S Chris Crocker - turns 29 in March, won’t draw heavy interest, will be back.
• QB Ryan Fitzpatrick - gained too much experience in ‘08 to throw away. Re-signed.
• CB Jamar Fletcher - may hang around as camp fodder but gone by September 2009.
• C Eric Ghiaciuc - so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodnight!
• K Shayne Graham - will want more than the Bengals are willing to pay for a kicker. So long, Shayne, and thanks for all the field goals.
• WR T.J. Houshmandzadeh - T.J., this is my friend Fran Tag. Tag, meet T.J.
• DL John Thornton - could return as a backup.

Restricted Free Agents:

• S John Busing - will be re-signed as offseason/camp fodder, cut next August, but re-signed due to injuries in the secondary by November.
• RB DeDe Dorsey - another failed experiment. Gone.
• WR/KR Glenn Holt - drops vs. KC were last straw. Gone.
• LB Rashad Jeanty - will be tendered. Could draw some interest.
• LB Brandon Johnson - will be tendered and re-signed.
• LB Corey Mays - will be tendered and re-signed.

Not, of course, that I need all that much help. But in the interest of maintaining accountability around this blog (I know, when there’s no accountability in the Bengals organization, why should I bother? I guess I’m just a glutton for punishment.) here’s a look back at my howler of a season prediction. You know, the one in which I said the Bengals would go 10-6. And make the playoffs. As the AFC North champs.

Insert one of those old Warner Bros. cartoon scenes, where the main character (me) momentarily morphs into a jackass while the “hee-haw! hee-haw!” sfx play, here.

In my defense, this was written to meet an early August deadline. When I filed it, the Bengals had yet to play a preseason game. Had I written this after our alarming preseason, I would have scaled my projection back to seven or eight wins. But even then, I wouldn’t have been close.

So, what happened? Let’s run through my August foolishness:

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