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NFL Offseason Roadmap is a series focused on the needs of NFL teams as they begin the offseason.

Needless to say, the 2007 season for the Cincinnati Bengals was a major disappointment. That being said, Cincy finished 7-9 and has plenty of talent to make a U-turn and get back to the elite status they feel they should be at. The Bengals notoriously doesn't try to build via free agency but they need to fill in some cracks this way for a turnaround to be successful.

1. Defensive Line – The first major move was firing Chuck Bresnahan as defensive coordinator and hiring Mike Zimmer. The next big moves cannot be made until the team decides if it is going to switch to a 3-4 defense or not. If they decide to do that, there will be a ton of work to do.

It is widly speculated that the Bengals will be looking to go after a rush end in the draft. Defensive end Justin Smith may be as good as gone. Smith is a decent player but isn't worth being the second highest paid player on the team. Letting him walk would free up all kinds of money to rebuild this unit. However, re-signing him for a paycut would be beneficial, too. John Thornton could be a salary cap casulty, though the team seems to want him back.

That didn't take long. I mentioned that the Bengals were interested in Falcons defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer on Sunday, and today he's got the job. Zimmer replaces Chuck Bresnahan, who was canned earlier this month after "leading" Cincinnati's defense to another abysmal effort in 2007.

It's worth mentioning that the Bengals were plagued with injuries this season, but that doesn't excuse the previous two seasons of futility. Whatever, Zimmer's now the guy.

The 51-year-old Zimmer was available because of the Falcons' uncertainty over their next head coach. The Falcons hired Tom Dimitroff as general manager on Sunday, and are still looking for a head coach to replace Bobby Petrino, who quit after 13 games.

Zimmer has a mixed record: he was with the Cowboys for seven seasons and his defense gave up the fewest yards in the league in 2003. That said, the 2007 Falcons were atrocious in every phase of the game (except field goals, Morten Andersen is the bomb) and the defense gave up 414 points, fourth-most in the NFL.

Interestingly, the Cincinnati Enquirer's Mark Curnutte pointed out that if Zimmer got the gig, it could signal a move to the 3-4 defense. As I wrote this weekend, the 3-4 is a swell idea -- a lot of teams are going to that scheme -- but the Bengals need to get the three good linebackers they have healthy before talking about adding a fourth.

Better late than never, I guess. Chuck Bresnahan, recently fired Bengals defensive coordinator, had some advice for his successor on his way out the door:

"There were things I requested that I didn't get done," Bresnahan told The Enquirer. "We needed to level the playing field between the defense and the offense. To me, we needed to put more money into the defense, so when you start talking about the top-6 offense, we could have been a better team with a better defense and, by extension, special teams."

Okay, that's not so much advice as bellyaching, but it should serve as a warning for the next guy to get the job: the team isn't afraid to drop some coin on the offense, but the defense, not so much. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer's Mark Curnutte, of the Bengals' top 12 paid players in 2007 – those with salary cap numbers (salary and bonuses combined) of $2.5 million or more– eight were offensive players.

Richard Hunley, the linebackers coach who was also fired with Bresnahan kept it simple: let the players play, and don't worry so much about all the complex schemes.

"In football ... your brain doesn't function like it does in a classroom," Hunley said. "It's about split-second timing. You have to be at your best when the bullets are flying. You have to be sharp. Your gameplan has to be one of simplicity."

Now all the Bengals need to do is hire a defensive coordinator. First up: the Falcons' Mike Zimmer, which must instill all kinds of confidence in the fans that the front office hasn't gone completely insane.

The Bengals had to wait until 2008 to do something right when they fired defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan yesterday. It was long overdue.

However, they may not make an improvement if they are indeed targeting Panthers' secondary coach TIm Lewis:

Speculation for a replacement centers on former Steelers and Giants defensive coordinator Tim Lewis. He spent the 2007 season as secondary coach for the Carolina Panthers.

Tim Lewis joined the Steelers staff in 1995 when Marvin Lewis was Steelers linebackers coach. Tim Lewis has seven years of experience in the NFL as a coordinator.

Now, if this was 2006, you really wouldn't fault Cincinnati for going this way. Lewis was a hot head coaching candidate back then. However, his rep has taken a pounding in his final year as the New York Giants defensive coordinator (he was fired after the 2006 season) and he isn't too highly thought of as the Carolina Panthers' secondary coach this past season. If this was the Lewis of old ... this is big news. However, it is the Lewis of one of the poorer secondaries of the past year.

Tim Lewis made his name as a secondary coach and defensive coordinator with the Steelers from 1995-2003. In 1995, current Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis was the linebackers coach for the Steelers before moving on to the Baltimore Ravens the next year. The defensive coordinator for Pittsburgh in 1995 was Dick LeBeau ... who would become the Bengals head coach two years later.

LeBeau was later fired and Marvin Lewis got the Bengals gig.

The Cincinnati Bengals have fired defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan, Pro Football Talk reports.

The news comes just a few days after quarterback Carson Palmer said he thinks changes are needed on the Bengals' coaching staff. It's not known whether Palmer was referring to Bresnahan (and it's more likely that he would be interested in changes on the offensive coaching staff), but it's an indication that Palmer is far from the only one in the organization who wanted to see changes.

Bresnahan has been with the Bengals since 2004, but he never seemed like a great fit with head coach Marvin Lewis. The two had never worked together before Lewis hired him, and although Lewis got the head-coaching job in Cincinnati because of his abilities as a defensive coordinator, Bresnahan came from a different defensive background and had a different philosophy.