Hump Day Headlines

Geoff Hobson tries his best to paint Keith Rivers, DeDe Dorsey, Andre Caldwell, Pat Sims and Eric Henderson as potential budding stars in 2008. Unfortunately, he only manages to remind me how much the Bengals are relying on inexperienced players to make a difference.

Undrafted free agent FB Tyler Whaley is the subject of a biography by Columbus Dispatch Buckeyes beat writer Ken Gordon that will be published in September.

Who Dey Revolution likes Marvin Lewis’ talk so far this year.

Cincinnati’s most overrated and underrated players according to Pete Prisco:

"Overrated: WR Chad Johnson. He has loads of ability, but he doesn’t produce as much as he should in the big games. He did not score a touchdown in four of the Bengals’ five games against playoff teams in 2007. He certainly isn’t as good as he thinks.Underrated: DT Domata Peko. He is a good inside player who plays hard all the time. If he were on a better unit, he would get more attention."

Fair enough, though it seems a bit rough to me to single out Chad’s 2007 performance. The whole passing game was out of whack, in part due to injuries on the o-line that meant Carson was often hurried, even if he didn’t take many sacks, and in part due to the team’s utter failure to find a No. 3 wideout to replace a suspended Chris Henry during the first eight games.

On the underrated side, I’m not sure that Robert Geathers doesn’t make the cut over Peko. Despite 10.5 sacks in 2006 and a big-money deal, lots of experts dinged the Bengals after the draft for not addressing the DE position in the wake of Justin Smith’s departure (and speaking of overrated players…). Um, fellas, Geathers? Antwan Odom? Oh well. Whatever.

Rashad Jeanty says that Ahmad Brooks, Darryl Blackstock or Corey Mays will get the starting SAM job over his dead body.