I recently moved to the Cincinnati area and have witnessed firsthand how important a team is to a city and how serious the people in a city are about their team. The performance of a team can dictate the atmosphere of a whole city. Your team wins, and it seems that everyone you face on the street is smiling and warm. If your team starts to hit a rough patch, those same faces turn to frowns.
   
We all remember the years of the "Bungles" during the ‘90s when Cincinnati’s football team was basically the NFL's whipping boy, and every year it would have a top-five pick but each pick seemed to be a bust, from Peter Warrick to Ki-Jana Carter to Akili Smith.
   
Recently this trend has started to change; the Bengals now have some marquee players such as Carson Palmer, Chad Johnson, and T.J. Houshmandzadeh and a head coach with a good track record of success in Marvin Lewis. In Lewis' first year at the helm, the Bengals went a respectable 8-8 and almost made the playoffs. The next year, Palmer was finally handed the reins as the starting quarterback and again they went 8-8.
   
Finally the breakthrough arrived in 2005, they went 11-5, won the AFC North and hosted their first playoff game in more than a decade. But the Bengals’ moment of glory would be short-lived. During their Wild Card playoff game against division foe Pittsburgh, Cincinnati’s football fortunes turned on one play that will be embedded in Bengals’ fans’ minds for years to come. Pittsburgh’s Kimo Von Oelhoffen inadvertently hit Carson Palmer in the knee after Palmer had completed a pass to Chris Henry, sending the star quarterback to the locker room, not to return. The Bengals would battle valiantly but would eventually come up short.
  
Since that day things have gone downhill for the Bengals due to legal trouble and substance abuse. Linebacker Odell Thurman would be suspended for the entire 2006 season after violating the substance abuse policy and then was involved in a drunken driving incident. Henry, cornerback Jonathan Joseph, and defensive lineman Frosty Rucker were arrested during the 2006 season as well, and the Bengals’ total tally would reach nine players by the end of the season.
   
Now because of these public indiscretions many seem to view the current-day Bengals as criminals -- selfish and undisciplined. As a team, this judgment may be true after some of the events that have unfolded this year. Lewis basically called out his entire team after
it was embarrassed by the Patriots at home earlier this season on Monday night. According to reporters standing outside the locker room he accused his team of being selfish and told anyone that didn't want to play team football not to show up for their next practice.
   
It also seems that many of the players are not on the same page. During that same Monday game, Johnson got into Palmer's face after Palmer threw a interception during the final minutes of the first half.
   
The centerpiece for the Bengals’ arrogance and flamboyant attitude would be Johnson. The talented wide receiver is notorious for his gold teeth, extravagant touchdown celebrations, and trash talking. It now seems that the city of Cincinnati seemed to covet these actions because the team was winning and his seemingly selfish behavior was instead viewed as fun but not over the line. Now that the team is losing and Johnson has
been underperforming the fans have grown tired of his antics to the point that many fans would not mind seeing their most famous player in decades get traded away.
   
The reason the Bengals have been underperforming is their inconsistent play and unbalanced team. On paper, the Bengals are stacked on offense, but the defense has been paper thin, causing the Bengals to have to find the end zone on nearly every possession to win most of their games. The Bengals have tried the grassroots approach by trying to develop young players and compensate for their talent weaknesses with their defensive schemes, but this approach has been a huge failure. The Bengals have been consistently one of the lowest-rated defensives in almost every facet of the game.
   
Mike Brown, the owner of the team, is also notorious for being very stingy when it comes to signing players. The result has been that the Bengals have been secondary players in the free agency market and have done very little to help their ailing defense.
   
So where do the Bengals go now? Many fans in the area are hoping that Lewis gets fired because it is believed that he has lost control of his team. When Lewis was hired, many hoped that he would be able to turn the Bengals’ defensive into the stout defense he had in Baltimore, but that has never materialized. Lewis has been with the team four years now, and he has brought some success to the team. But it seems that a change may help the Bengals finally live up to some of the hype that has surrounded them two years ago.
   
It may be that the Bengals are a victim of their own success. Perhaps they bought into their own hype, and now it seems that Lewis may not be able to contain some of the egos on the team. It seems with the success that Lewis has brought to this team that some players have developed big heads and Lewis may not be able to contain these individuals. So it seems that a coaching change might help bring this team back down to earth.
 
Another necessity would be to open up the pockets a little bit because the defense needs help, desperately. The best way to improve a defense is through free agency. In the offseason the Bengals should try to be aggressive instead of the passive, non-existent role they normally take on. The Bengals' pass rush is weak, their rush defense is terrible and every week they seem to make opposing quarterbacks, whether it is Tom Brady or J.P. Losman,  look like Joe Montana.
   
The Bengals also need to stop impersonating a team and actually play as a team. This team seems to be lacking a leader who can rally this team together. There is no question that the talent is there but no one really seems to be stepping up. Palmer should to be the natural answer and he has in the past made attempts, but I still do not think he is the team leader that he should be.
   
As with any team that has talent there is a clock that is ticking and the Bengals need to take advantage of the offensive firepower they have right now or they will become a team full of talent that never accomplished anything and a strong case of what-ifs.