Sportsfrog.com

Hey, I was up at 4:00 am this Monday morning as usual to get the usual national take and local look posts up, and have had a computer issue that cost me two hours worth of work. I apologize for not having the usual bevy of morning after posts up, but you cannot understand my irritation right now for having lost that work on top of a short night’s sleep. Add in the Bengals things, and this is not exactly a red letter morning. At any rate, all I can re-create here is my thoughts, ntyc:

—As bad as that gut punch loss to Denver was to start the year for Cincy, at least in the cold light of day you could shrug your shoulders as a fan and move on. Fluke is as fluke does. The loss in Oakland yesterday hard on the heels of the completely unlooked for Steelers loss in Kansas City was a different kind of punch. A bit lower on the body than the gut type of punch.

Two thing happened:

1. Cincinnati made all manner of ridiculously stupid unforced errors, including red zone turnovers, a missed field goal, red zone blown blocking assignments, red zone weird play calls. If you could make a mistake in the red zone, Cincy made it. So instead of comfortably being up at least two scores on Oakland late, they left Oakland in it and gave them a chance. Stupid on every level. Every part of that team, from coaches to the last active player on the roster had a hand in that.

2. Oakland finally benched Jamarcus Russell. Don’t get me wrong, their offense still isn’t good. But with Gradkowski in there, they are no longer without hope. Check out some of the quotes from the Raiders this morning (earlier I had linked and commented on same, but…). I have never seen a bigger indictment of a quarterback, ever, than what those quotes mean for Jamarcus Russell. He’s done.

So the Bengals literally fumble away a chance at what would have been, in effect, a 2 1/2 game lead with six to play. That made the loss in Oakland almost unbearably painful as a fan. Such a lost opportunity gagged away.

—Pittsburgh. Hard to lay a finger on exactly what is amiss for the Steelers at the moment, but you can start with their woeful special teams kick coverage. To start the game on the road against the Chiefs with yet another kickoff return for a touchdown by the opponent was inexcuseable. It immediately gave the Chiefs life and the hope that they could play with the Steelers yesterday, and they did. Add in a series of mistakes on offense and defensive breakdowns late, and Pittsburgh, like Cincinnati after them with Oakland, gave KC a chance late. Big mistake. Last thing you want to do is give a team that is down and out a chance for life late in games. Hell, that’s the last thing you want to do in any game, actually. So there’s that. At any rate, into overtime, Roethlisberger gets his bell rung, KC springs Chris Chambers across the middle, and all of a sudden the Steelers are 6-4. That looked, for all the world, like an emotional letdown game for the Steelers, understandable given the physical game against Cincy a week before, but something that you would have expected Mike Tomlin and his coaches to guard against. Now they head into Baltimore for what is an extraordinarily crucial game next Sunday night.

—Speaking of Baltimore, at least their loss was to a good team. Course, it was to the team that Baltimore fans hold in the highest of contempt and anger, and it was their seventh loss in a row to them. So that blows for Ravens fans. Add in that, for large measure, Baltimore outplayed Indy yet still found a way to lose late adds to the pain in the Charm City this morning. Joe Flacco, putting the brakes on the plaudits tossed his way early in the year, failed to get his team into the end zone all day, and down two late with the ball inside the 20 and at least a field goal in hand, threw as bad a pick as you could ever want to see in the red zone. Jay Cutler passes included. Manning kills some clock, Harbaugh makes an awful decision on a challenge AFTER he had called a timeout, costing Baltimore a second precious timeout when he inevitably lost the challenge, and finally, with 19 seconds to go, Ed Reed bizarrely laterals a ball to no one on the Raven 40 for a Colts recovery costing Baltimore two last desperate passes. And, given what happend in KC and Oakland, Baltimore cost themselves a chance to climb back into the AFC North race and the Wild Card. At 5-5, with home games against what should be a hyper-focused Steelers team at home next Sunday night and then at Green Bay on Monday night two weeks from now, Baltimore has massive make-the-playoffs issues.

—Cleveland. Browns fans wake up this morning perhaps glad that their team is so awful. Because it spares them the national pointing and laughing over how awful their latest loss was. 24-3 lead early over Detroit, lead drifts away, but Cleveland fights back from 31-29 down to take a 37-31 lead late. Lions are reduced to a hail mary, and for reasons that no one can understand, one of the Browns defensive backs spends the time the pass is in the air interfering with Calvin Johnson so thoroughly that the pass interference has to be called. Detroit ball at the one, and thanks to a horrible Eric Mangini timeout, an injured Matt Stafford returns to the field to throw his fifth touchdown pass of the day and Detroit wins 38-37.

That was as across-the-board awful a day for the AFC North as I can remember seeing in my years of following the Bengals and the division (the Central before it was the North). If misery loves company, there is a love-in underway this morning in Cincinnati, Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Baltimore, because those are four miserable fanbases this morning for a variety of reasons.

Again, sorry I don’t have the usual national take or local look links and commentary ready to go. Some things are out of my control. Like the Bengals’ need to shoot themselves in the foot.