FanHouse Bob Bratkowski

FanHouse colleague Ryan Wilson stated that the Bengals are giving up on the season by shutting down quarterback Carson Palmer for the season. I think that is a great idea.

The Cincinnati Bengals are 0-7 and still have the Steelers, Eagles, Redskins, Ravens, Colts and Jaguars remaining on the schedule. Needless to say, this season looks like it has already been lost. Heck, fans are hoping they go 0-16 just to prove a point to owner Mike Brown.

There is no need for Palmer to try to play at any point this season. Lose the battle and win the war. Get your elbow fixed and ready to roll for the 2009 season. In sports, there is no honor in being stupid. Take the time to research the surgery, get the proper advice and information, and then do what you have to do to be ready for '09.

As for the Bengals organization, you'd be best served to use the rest of this season as a big job audition. Just like the consultants did in Office Space, have everyone re-apply for their job and weed out the weak.

Bengals fans hate a lot of people right now and pretty much everyone associated with the organization in on that list. The guy with the most heat after owner Mike Brown may surprise you: Offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski.

Fans see the offense as unimaginative, predictable and have long questioned the play calling. He came to Cincy in 2001 and has lasted through coaching changes. Just a few years ago, Bratkowski helmed one of the NFL's best offenses.

Fans have wanted his head over the past couple of seasons and that has affected how he feels about the job:

"Oh, it's no fun at all," Bratkowski said. "But it's my job and, just like everybody else, we keep going forward. You have to have a short memory, and you have to go forward. That's what we do. You have very little time to sit around and feel sorry for yourself or pout because the next (game) comes up real fast."

Now when a coach anyone says "it's my job", they usually wish they were somewhere else. Offensive coordinators rarely says stuff like that because it isn't like they are right in the media's crossfires. They spend the week in film rooms, meetings and practice and don't have time to see outside the forest.

Maybe this has something to do with why NFL coaches don't hate Chad Johnson as much as Terrell Owens: Johnson means well, and when pressed, he usually caves to his employer's demands. That's not necessarily a bad thing, particularly when there's no indication that the people who pay his salary aren't treating him unfairly.

By now, the story is familiar to most of us: Johnson used the offseason to try to get out of Cincinnati, the Bengals -- specifically, head coach Marvin Lewis -- told him it wasn't happening, no matter how much bellyaching he did, and when the team threatened to fine Johnson for missing mandatory workouts, he magically changed his attitude.

And now, some six months after he started the "Anywhere but Cincy in '08" campaign, Mr. Ocho Cinco comes bearing an olive branch.

Disgruntled Cincinnati Bengals wide receiver Chad Johnson participated, for the first time this off-season, in a full team practice.

Maybe that means Johnson is starting to accept the fact that he signed a contract with the Bengals and he's going to have to abide by it. Or maybe it means nothing at all. After all, the only thing Johnson would say to reporters afterward is "Vote for Obama."

Ordinarily I'd say picking up the endorsement of a high-profile athlete in what might be the most important swing state would have to be a major coup for Barack Obama. But considering how many Cincinnati fans Johnson has alienated recently, John McCain might be pleased to hear this news.

So how did Johnson look on the field? "He's rusty," offensive coordinator Bob Bratkowski said of Johnson. "I told him he looked rusty. Nobody likes to hear that. He's going against guys who have been out here for 14, 16 practices, you know. You're going to look that way."

The going away from the run story has kind of had legs this week, and there was an article today in the Columbus Dispatch about all the criticism that Bob Bratkowski has taken this season.

Brat is quoted saying "No offense taken" in regards to the comments made by a few players following the Falcons loss. Bratkowski has some puzzling logic though to explain the lack of runs last Sunday:

The Bengals ran only 18 times out of 56 snaps against a defense they believed they could manhandle.

Bratkowski said the lopsided ratio is misleading. He said the Bengals faced 10 third-down calls and 13 in the two-minute offense, in which the running game had to be abandoned.

"So when you boil it down, it was somewhere around 36-37 first- and second-down snaps," Bratkowski said. "In those snaps, we were 50-50 run-pass."

I get what he's saying here, but I think it's important to realize that the reason the Bengals were in a lot of those third and long situations was because of the playcalling.

In my opinion a lot of the problem simply boils down to the fact that the Bengals pass an awful lot on first down, while running the ball on second. An incomplete pass is often followed by a run (with the defense expecting the run) that only gains a few yards. And when it's second and 10 any run of five yards or less is going to put the team in a third and long situation. It seems to me that the running game is about two things mostly, one being to chew up clock and keep your defense off the field, and the other to produce third and short situations. The Bengals have really struggled in the time of possession battle and with third and longs, so I do think fans have a point when they question Bratkowski's playcalling, to a certain extent.

I don't see the Bengals running the ball too much this weekend against the Ravens, so if they lose I could see this issue getting bigger next week.

More: Bratkowski shrugs off criticism of play calls - Columbus Dispatch

Most of the post game media reaction has centered on the Bengals going away from the running game after the first quarter, which I think is fair. This isn't the first game this year that the Bengals inexplicably abandoned the run, and the Bengals coaching staff should probably be asking themselves why that is.

Many fans are calling for offensive co-ordinator Bob Bratkowski's head, which I think is unfair. We're only a year removed from the Bengals having one of the top offenses in the NFL, and while Brat has made some odd decisions this year I think the blame for things can be laid more at the feet of the injuries the Bengals have suffered than the playcalling.

But back to yesterday, and the lack of running. The Bengals were absolutely destroyed in the time of possession battle. The Falcons had the ball for 37:08, leaving just 22:52 for the Bengals. Running the ball isn't just about setting up short distances on second and third down, it's also about keeping the ball out of the hands of the opposition's offense. That's something the Bengals could have used yesterday, a day where the Bengals D was absolutely useless when it came to shutting down Michael Vick.

The players agree:

"A lot of games we lose is for that reason," Johnson said of the Bengals' offensive scheme that featured more passing and less running as the game developed. "You line up and play football. Its real simple. We make it real complicated.

"We should have beaten this team like the other teams we lost to. I don't know what to say. Whenever my number is called, I'm going to play hard, for four quarters, 60 minutes. Today, I only played for one quarter."

He's absolutely right. It's easy to get caught up in the explosiveness of the Bengals passing game, but at some point the team is going to have to start establishing the run to win football games.

More: Bengals air some complaints about abandoning the run - Cincinnati Enquirer