Bengals coach Marvin Lewis has been in Cincinnati long enough to know when his team might start feeling full of itself. This team has not often handled big wins well.
After a road win in Green Bay and a home win over the Steelers, Lewis didn’t want the Bengals to lose sight of the team-first mantra he’s been selling all offseaosn.
So he pulled into his bag of mental/motivational tricks and had the entire team practice in nameless, numberless jerseys all week. The team’s equipment “had to work overtime” to special order the jerseys.
“It doesn’t matter what your name and number is, it’s football and focus on what your assignments are,” Lewis said earlier in the week. “It’s just where we are right now and what we have ahead of us. It’s important as we go forward.”
Whether ploys like this make a difference is debatable. But Lewis’ message, that it’s not just about Cincy’s stars, is true.
Carson Palmer has not really played his best yet, and the team isn’t stretching the field at all. Instead, the team has shown a knack for timely drives and constant defensive pressure.
Now the young Bengals team will have to show they can beat a Browns squad that most of Cleveland probably wishes would just turn in all their jerseys for the rest of the year.
