That's not entertainment

We began with a surprising (at least to most) but somewhat satisfying win in Cleveland and followed it with a narrow loss in Denver where new quarterback Andy Dalton had a superb second half.

The home opener with San Francisco on the other hand, wasn’t good whichever way you look at it. In fact it was downright boring and as a number of pundits pointed out the final score of 13-8 (to them) belonged in baseball.

So what exactly have we learned?

Well, in all honesty, not much we didn’t know already.

We could quite easily be 3-0 but on the other hand were just one sloppy play from the Browns defense from being 0-3.

Dalton looks impressive for a rookie, he makes accurate throws but seems to have a cool head on his shoulders, if we ignore the two late picks thrown last Sunday. AJ Green looks like he’s going to be a beast of receiver, while Jermaine Gresham has continued his form from last season and the defensive line looks like being one of the best we have had for years in terms of pass rush.

When you boil it all down, the 2011 Cincinnati Bengals look like they will be pretty much as advertised. My pre-season prediction of 4-12 looks pretty accurate right now.

What I can’t understand, and what has been particularly disappointing to this point, has been the at times ultra conservative play-calling on offense.

Granted, we all know Dalton is a rookie and is learning on his feet. But how about opening up the playbook and letting him make some throws when the pressure is off, it’s not like we’ll be squandering a play-off run is it?

Former Bengal John Thornton has made the point on his blog that the Bengals are effectively playing with “house money” this season, as no-one expects them to be good.

He’s absolutely right.

We know the Bengals are going to lose a fair chunk of games this season and in any case, there are at least two teams in the division streets ahead of us.

Why not experiment? Try a few things out and dare I say it, entertain?

There is absolutely no reason we should be subjected to another snoozefest like last Sunday, when the game was there for the taking but at times it seemed we didn’t have the guts.

We’re certainly going to need some points on the board this Saturday for the game with Buffalo, which is the toughest test so far.

The Bills are our bogey side, we haven’t been able to beat them in all the years they’ve been bad (who can forget last season’s horrific second half meltdown) and this season they are flying, having just knocked off the Patriots.

Ryan Fitzpatrick, a man who three years ago got a pat on the back if he threw for more than 200 yards and no picks when in stripes, is now arguably one of the top five quarterbacks in the AFC.

Buffalo will arrive in Cincinnati full of confidence and I can’t see the Bengals ending the hoodoo this time around.

But if we must lose, can we at least make it interesting?

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