For someone who professed to not be a Bengals fan, their 17-31 post season loss to the Steelers has hit me far harder than I ever thought possible.

I’m probably going to sound weird here, but for a couple weeks afterward I could barely think about it. I didn’t visit my usual sports sites or even this site, I was that depressed.

I know all season long I’ve been saying that the Bengals wouldn’t make it to the Super Bowl. I wasn’t saying this for the same reason that JANET was - namely that the defense wasn’t good enough yet, or for the same reason that Niko was - that the team was cursed by the malicious ghost of Paul Brown. I didn’t think the Bengals would make it to the Super Bowl because I truly didn’t believe in them. Yeah, in the clap your hands and believe in faeries sort of way. I told you this would get fruity.

It took their loss to the Steelers, their horrible, agonizing loss, to show me how much I believe in this damn team. That’s why I have this crushing sense of agony. I genuinely think that the Bengals could have beaten the Steelers if Palmer had’t had gotten hurt. I really believe, and having the season end the way it did is absolutely devastating.

It’s official: I’ve become a Bengals fan.

So where was I, again? Oh yeah, the game. Gee, how could I forget.

I’m still incredibly pissed off. It’s only now after a few days that I can at least form coherent sentences about what I witnessed on Sunday. Truthfully though, I’m not all that angry that Cincinnati lost the game.

I’ll let all of you in on a little secret…I was happy the Bengals lost against Kansas City. I didn’t want to play the Steelers in the first round of the Playoffs. I would much rather the Patriots had to deal with them on Wild Card Weekend.

Because I was scared of Pittsburgh? Yeah, as if. I didn’t want that game because I knew how it would be in the end. Two fierce division rivals, one up and coming and the other clinging desperately to their hold at the top. It was going to be an ugly, awful, grudge match of a football game, and I didn’t expect it to end well for either team.

Well, I was half right.

No, I’m not pissed about losing the game. What I’m angry about is…Akili Smith. I’m enraged regarding David Klingler. I’m mad because finally, after fifteen years, our Can’t Miss-quarterback finally didn’t. And now…what?

Oh, I know. It was an accident. This is football. It’s a dangerous game. The things just happen. Kimo von “I-was-blocked-into-Palmer-I-would-never-do-that-to-another-player-it-was-a-complete-accident-gosh-I’m-real-sorry-about-what-happened-

OH-GOLLY-GEE-I-DON’T-KNOW-HOW-MY-ARM-GOT-
WRAPPED-AROUND-HIS-
LEG-LIKE-THAT-JUST-LIKE-
I-WAS-TACKLING-HIM-IT-
MUST-HAVE-BEEN-THE-WIND-
YOU-KNOW-IT-SURE-WAS-
BLOWING-LIKE-CRAZY-AT-
THE-STADIUM-THAT-DAY”-

Oelhoffen is completely innocent.

For the past few months I’ve been saying that the Bengals were a year away. Next year if the defense came along as it should, and David Pollack’s beginning emergence as the stud defender we thought he could be is evidence of that, then Cincinnati would be a legitimate Super Bowl contender. Next year was going to be the year that the Bengals became a very real threat to win it all. And now?

Now, assuming everything goes well in rehab, Cincinnati might make the 2008 Playoffs. The best we had to hope for was that the tears to Palmer’s ACL and MCL were clean to make the repair easier. Yes, you read that right. All of Bengaldom was waiting for word that Palmer’s ligament system was completely torn apart, and that was the best news we could get. Apparently the surgery has gone well, so thank goodness for small favors.

Palmer won’t be 100% for next year. The best case is that the season after next Palmer has fully recovered and the Bengals have a chance to make the Playoffs. Worst case is that he can never take another snap in the NFL again. After fifteen years, our second-year starter, leader of the team, and valid 2005 NFL MVP choice could never play football again.

Am I being a little over the top with my melodrama? Perhaps. After fifteen years however, I think we’re all allowed to let the dramaqueen inside us all scream a little bit.

So what are we left with? Oh, that’s right! Assuming we sign him, we’ve got Jon Kitna! He’s one of the best backups in the league! After all, I totally didn’t see him running around the backfield for ten seconds like a complete idiot looking for someone to throw the ball to TWICE causing me to yell at my television as I was eating dinner off of a TV tray, “YOU’VE GOT TO THROW THE BALL JON!” did I?No, I couldn’t have. That must have been some other quarterback. That probably happened after I turned the game off with roughly six-plus minutes left in the fourth quarter to wash dishes, seven seconds after Kitna threw his second interception on the day (Two seconds saying “Damnit, Kitna” + two seconds to shake my head in disbelief + one second to set my fork down + one second to pick up the remote + one second to press the Power button. And yes, I timed it.).

At least my ice cream was good.

Sunday I’m assisting my wife in taking down all of the Christmas decorations, finally, including disassembling the tree and packing up all of the ornaments. In the background I have on football, stealing glances over fake evergreen limbs and pausing for a play every time I set an ornament on the floor for my wife to wrap in tissue paper or put back in its box. I, of course, had already taking special care to properly package all of my Hallmark Star Trek and Star Wars ornaments, which my wife would banish to the back of the tree if she could (”Wouldn’t they look so much better on the other side, Sweetie?”).

“What time do the Bengals come on?” she asks.

“4:30,” I reply.

I have already invoked “I’M BUSY” the line that I only save for very special occasions when my manhood requires that I be in front of the television watching an important sporting event. Every year I unwrap it like a piece of fine crystal for the last Saturday of Ohio State’s football season when they play Michigan. She usually goes shopping that day.Today however, I’m staring at the pile of Christmas cheer strewn about the living room. There’s no way all of this will be boxed up and put back in the garage by 4:30. My couch is filled with a snow white male and female teddy bear, each with our first Christmas year of “2002″ stamped on their paws, a Snoopy in a Santa hat, and various other wreathes and such. The coffee table, or as I like to refer to it, “footrest,” is filled with candles, small boxes, knick knacks, and then more candles. 4:30 is two hours from now. There’s no way this is all put away by then.

It didn’t necessarily have to be this way, you know. We could have put all this up yesterday, but that was my wife’s Day Off. My wife never takes a Day Off, despite my council that she should relax for an evening now and then. She is always dusting, vacuuming, ironing, organizing, or some other project she knows about that I would rather put off because, well, I’m a man. I wasn’t about to suggest that we put away the Christmas horde on Saturday because the decree of a Day Off had already gone out, and she deserved it, so I decided to take one for the team.

So instead on Saturday I played video games, watched the Playoffs, and went to Wal-Mart to buy a candy thermometer so I could make some vanilla ice cream in my new ice cream maker that my wife bought me for Christmas. She, on the other hand, watched Mona Lisa Smile which she had checked out from the library the other day. She also picked up De-Lovely, and we watched it Saturday night after I had broiled some steaks for dinner.

I had seen the previews for De-Lovely and thought that it might be a good movie for she and I to watch together. I’ve seen some Cole Porter musicals, and although it was a love story of sorts, it couldn’t be that bad. Plus, it had Ashley Judd in it, and she gets naked in every movie she’s in, so they’ll be a little something for every gender.

Ashley Judd however, couldn’t have picked a worse time to develop a higher moral standing.

Here’s a tip from me to you: Don’t see De-Lovely. I’ll save you the trouble by summarizing the entire film right now: Kevin Kline plays Cole Porter who would rather sleep with men then Linda Porter, his wife, played by Ashley Judd. The movie is totally unbelievable and impossible to take seriously for that simple fact alone. Let’s face it, if you could have the option between any man and Ashley Judd, who would you pick? Exactly.

Ladies, you’ll hate this movie as well. Trust me, my wife didn’t like it, and she dragged me to see Phantom of the Opera: The Movie when it was only open at select cities. How Lexington, Kentucky, got to be a “select city” I’ll never know, but my wife loved it, so you know she likes chick flicks, girls. Trust me, stay away from De-Lovely because is De-Sucks.Brief Aside #1: Men, you actually may be able to survive watching Phantom of the Opera: The Movie with your girlfriend/wife. Here’s how I did it: Stare at and think dirty thoughts about the woman playing the lead, Christine. Holy bloody hell is she hot. Although, those of you who don’t find slender girls attractive may want to concentrate on something else.

Brief Aside #2: After the movie was over, the audience of Phantom of the Opera: The Movie, mainly composed of middle aged women and a couple husbands/boyfriends like myself who in our minds had just watched the money shot with Christine, applauded. They actually clapped at the end of the film. Can someone please explain to me exactly why? Who the hell are they clapping for? There’s no one on stage who’s going to take a bow. What, did they want to congratulate the teenager in the booth? “Way to turn that projector on, son! And the way you had it pointed at the screen centered perfectly like it was? Top notch!”So where was I? Ah yes, Sunday.

There was a third DVD that my wife picked up, a BBC production of Jane Eyre. We had both read the novel in a literature class we took in college, so I thought maybe I could suffer through it as well. Looking at the back when she brought it home however, I noticed something. Namely, the running time: 306 minutes. It wasn’t a movie, it was a damned miniseries! I hate the British!So as we are starting to put away the Christmas decorations that Sunday morn, Jane Eyre is sitting on top of the DVD stack on the coffee table. “The DVDs have to go back today. She’s going to want to watch it,” I thought to myself. “But I’ve already invoked I’M BUSY! There’s no way she’d try and watch that thing when she knows the Bengals first Playoff game in fifteen years is coming on, right?”

I’m panicking. I sat through De-Lovely despite its de-suckitude, but there is no way in hell I’m missing the Bengals game for pretentious British tripe. That’s why we have a second television in the computer room after all, so I can watch football and Battlestar Galactica while she watches figure skating and Numb3rs.I’m pumped up and ready to go down with the ship on this one. “We’re watching the Bengals because I’m the man of the house and I said so! Bengals now! Bengals forever, HONEY!“Jane Eyre never left its case at anytime on Sunday.

…

Ok, Jane Eyre never left its case because my wife never mentioned watching it, knowing that I wanted to watch the Bengals game. Here’s a helpful hint to all of you other men out there: You are not the man of the house. Well, you are, only because you have a penis as opposed to a vagina, but you are not in charge. Your job is to kill spiders and other assorted bugs, take out the garbage, replace the kitchen faucet (as I did Sunday morning), and mow the grass. And then there’s that whole love/companionship/security thing, but that’s besides the fact.

To be continued…

Let’s do this, Bengals fans.

L. Johnson: 26 carries, 201 yards, 7.7 yds/rush, 3 TDsThe Steelers are playing at our house and they’re still three point favorites. Why do I have a feeling this is going to be a very short Playoff run?Damnit Bengals, prove me wrong. Please!