Week 6: Cincinnati at New York Jets

It’s hard to know what to make of a NFL.com report from earlier this week that the Browns – the Bengals’ owning family and a dynasty of downright Hapsburgian flubbiness – told Coach Marvin Lewis that he “can coach in Cincinnati as long as he wants.” It might be a really passive-aggressive way of trying to get the perennially embattled Lewis to resign; the equivalent of your significant other saying, “look, if you want to break up, if you think that’s right, then, you know…do what you think is right.”

It might be a (somewhat deserved?) vote of confidence for a coach who has tried to pull together a team from a bunch of talented malcontents and inexperienced draft picks; after all, Lewis can’t really be blamed for three of the team’s most promising recent draft picks being out of the NFL due to injuries or incurable thuggery (Odell Thurman, stop punching that dude at a nightclub and take a bow).

What it inarguably is, though, is another example of the Bengals being baffling. There are a few terrific players on this roster. There is even reason for hope in the team’s recent play, most notably in much-improved defensive efforts against the Giants and Cowboys. The ultra-bummer of a flameout that looked likely early in the season probably isn’t going to happen: the team is playing hard, which is to Lewis’ credit, and generally hanging in against good teams. And yet they’re 0-5, and deserve every bit of it. Coaching this team for as long as one wants would, for most people, be pegged to how quickly a one-way ticket to Florida was available. For Lewis, it seems likely to be somewhat longer. At least long enough to see if this young roster has anything other than youth going for it.

The Jets will provide an interesting test for the Bengals. On offense, the Jets likely have too much firepower for Cincinnati’s depth-free D to handle, and RB Thomas Jones should probably shake off a season-long slump against the Bengals’ still-miserable run defense. Which makes it somewhat academic whether the Jets’ improving pass defense can hang with the Bengals air attack, which seems at long last to be rounding into form. If Cincinnati’s offensive line can give Carson Palmer and his receivers some time to work against a middling Jets pass rush and spotty secondary – and if Cincy can get anything at all from its running game – the Bengals could put up some points.

A shootout still favors the Jets, though, who just have better players on offense than the Bengals do on defense; anything but a shootout will likely mean that it’s either raining a lot or that the Bengals aren’t doing well on offense. We won’t question the Bengals’ wisdom in making this Marvin’s mess for as long as he wants it, but – even against a Jets team that has thus far shown itself mostly to be mediocre in an exciting way – it may seem like a longish time this Sunday.

JETS BY 9