BENGALS, JAGUARS COACHES WILL WORK THE SENIOR BOWL

Thanks in large part to uncertainty surrounding the coaching staffs in Cleveland, Detroit, St. Louis, Seattle, and Kansas City, the Cincinnati Bengals will handle one of the two Senior Bowl squads -- specifically, the North team. The team announced the assignment on Monday. “Coaching in the Senior Bowl was very valuable to us in 2004, and we are excited to once again have this opportunity,” coach Marvin Lewis said. “The top talent is always going to be at this game, and there’s nothing like the evaluation you can get from actually coaching these players in practice and game situations.” It’s a great advantage for the Bengals, who have only a handful of full-time scouts, and who typically press their assistant coaches into service in the months before the draft. The South squad will be coached by Jack Del Rio and the rest of the Jaguars’ staff. (It’s unknown whether Del Rio will bring along a tree stump and/or an ax.) The irony is that both teams have a reputation for ignoring character issues when selecting players. If they do it this year, they won’t be able to say that they didn’t have several days of extensive access to the players in question.