Bengals Monday Headlines: Pacman & Gresham injury updates, 2-day roster exemption for Benson

Adam Jones tweaked his hamstring during his electrifying 63-yard punt return of the Seahawks game. But, he claims that the injury isn’t severe, that his hamstring only “grabbed” and didn’t get pulled. Pacman is fired up to play his former team, the Tennessee Titans, next week and doesn’t want to miss it due to injury:

"On his long punt return:“I made the first cut and it kind of grabbed me again (his hamstring injury). I think I’ll be good by Wednesday as long as I get treatment.”On if he thinks he’ll be ready:“Oh, I’m not missing that one in Tennessee, so I’ll do whatever I have to do to be healthy.”On if that is his excuse for letting Seattle punter Jon Ryan push him out of bounds:“Well, yeah. That is the excuse [laughter]. Because he wouldn’t have caught me if that didn’t happen, I can promise you that. I was not tired. My teammates were like, ‘Were you tired’ and I said, ‘No. I pulled my leg back when my hamstring grabbed me.’”On how good it felt to get back on the field:“It felt good. I’m kind of disappointed in myself because I should have took the ball to the house [on the punt return]. Could I have pushed it? Maybe. Would it have been the smart thing? No. I just didn’t want to pull it. If I had pulled it I could be out six weeks. Now that it’s a little sprain I’ll be back next week.”"

Gresham also tweaked his hamstring, but this injury occurred in practice on Friday. He was listed as probable for last Sunday’s game, but he wasn’t comfortable with his hamstring during the pregame and decided not to play. Backup tight end Donald Lee played well in his absence, catching all 3 of his targets for 44 yards and several 3rd down conversions. Marvin Lewis had this to day on Gresham’s pregame scratch:

"Marvin Lewis on the health status of TE Jermaine Gresham: “Yeah, Jermaine got a little tweak on Friday and just went out there today and felt like every time he tried to open up he felt it a little bit. He wasn’t comfortable with it. It’s hard to get a guy out there who’s not comfortable. He was going to have to be pushing and shoving on big Red (Bryant) today, so we wanted to make sure he was able to do that.”"

The Bengals were granted a 2-day roster exemption as Cedric Benson is re-instated onto the team. Benson was suspended by Roger Goodell for 1 game due to his offseason arrest. During his suspension, the Bengals activated Pacman Jones off the Physically-Unable-To-Perform List. Now, they will have to release a player on Wednesday.

• My gut-feeling on candidates to be cut: TE Colin Cochart, CB Morgan Trent, S Robert Sands, S Jeromy Miles.