8-22-02, 11:05 p.m.
BY GEOFF HOBSON
GEORGETOWN, Ky. _ Five members of the Bengals' receiving corps, which could be known as "The Six-Pack," is back. And just in time.
The Bengals have never caught a 50-yard pass in Paul Brown Stadium during the regular season. They want to get a head start on it Saturday night against an aggressive Saints' defense that will give them a few chances to go where no Cincinnati passing game has gone before in the 21st century.
Last year, the Bengals were the only team in the NFL to average less than five yards per pass (4.9) and were second to last in yards per completion with 10.22.
For a variety of reasons this preseason, the longest pass to a wide receiver has been 18 yards in a category where the standard for "a big play," is 20 yards.
"I can guarantee you will see a change this week," said wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh. "Whether it be me, Chad, Danny, Dub. We'll have some plays over 20 yards in the air. It's just the defense they play. They attack us, we'll attack them. They'll blitz and if we can catch them with the right call, we just have to win."
Johnson, who caught that 18-yarder, predicted he'll catch the first 50-yarder at PBS.
"If we want to keep them honest and get them off of us, we have to
take some shots down the field, definitely," Johnson said. "They're a good defense. They're susceptible to it because they play a lot of man-to-man across the board, and we have to take advantage of it."
Saints head coach Jim Haslett is a defensive guru who studied at the knee of Bengals head coach Dick LeBeau in Pittsburgh. Last week in Miami, Haslett's club manhandled the allegedly playoff-bound Dolphins by holding running back Ricky Williams to 17 yards on eight carries while intercepting five passes.
"Defenses play pretty basic in the preseason," said quarterback Gus Frerotte. "When they blitz, people tend to get big plays. (The Saints) like to put a lot of pressure on the corners. They're going to suck up the safeties and we'll have an opportunity to do it."
For the first time this year, Frerotte will have at his disposal five of the "Six-Pack," receivers with the return of Houshmandzadeh and Danny Farmer from injury. That should liven things up, along with a Saints defense that Bengals safeties coach Darren Perry played for just two years ago.
"Anytime you play with that aggressive style just like we do, there are going to be opportunities for big plays," said Perry, who played under Haslett in Pittsburgh and New Orleans. "We just have to capitalize on them. They will play some (deep zone), too, but they do a good job of disguising their coverages. It will be a good test for our offense. Jim has been preaching down there not to give up the big play. They try to make you kick field goals."
Houshmandzadeh twisted his ankle on the opener's first series and gets his first shot with Frerotte Saturday. One of the major reasons the Bengals signed Frerotte in the offseason is his ability to get it down the field with his 7.02 career yards per attempt.
"(The Colts) defense didn't really let you go down the field," said Frerotte of last week's outing. "Plus, you really don't game plan in the preseason and we were running the ball because we were ahead. I think this will be real interesting because of how they play and we've got two guys we haven't had."
Farmer's hamstring is still sore, but not sore enough to prevent him from going down field. After last year's season in which seven of his 15 catches came in the last three games, Farmer's break-out season has been hampered by the hamstring he tweaked in the final days of the May voluntary camps.
But as he starts his third season, Farmer is emboldened by how far the Bengals' passing game has come since his rookie year and last season.
"Everyone knows what's going on," Farmer said. "Before, you had guys who really didn't know what was going on and that really hurt us. We even had veterans who didn't know what was going on and didn't take time to study and that limited us offensively."
While everyone has their eyes trained on the quarterback derby, the "Six-Pack," still has some things to decide. Receivers coach Steve Mooshagian says the only spots that are really safe are Peter Warrick and Ron Dugans in the slot on multi-receiver sets.
Other than that, Houshmandzadeh, who gets the start with Warrick against the Saints, is getting a look at both outside spots, as are Johnson and Michael Westbrook when he returns from his broken wrist.
"Every guy is going to get a shot to play at least two positions," Mooshagian said. "We need to make a determination who is one, two, three, four. This is a good opportunity for us because they've got a good secondary and do things on third down we haven't done before."
Frerotte would like to do what hasn't been done in Cincinnati since the days of Shake-and-Blake.
"Every quarterback wants to go deep," Frerotte said. "If you didn't, you wouldn't be a quarterback."
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BIG RUN:** 10-year-old Matt Chittum of Stamping Ground, Ky., had the biggest run of his life here Thursday night. The winner of the Bengal-For-A-Day contest got to run a play with the first team offense against the first-team defense. After fullback Lorenzo Neal told him, "Follow me," Chittum took the handoff from Gus Frerotte and rolled down the right side for an 80-yard touchdown run.
Cornerback Artrell Hawkins dove for Chittum at the five-yard line, but came up with just air. Chittum, who actually plays for a youth team called the Bengals, also got a helmet. It's a good thing, because defensive end Vaughn Booker took his little plastic helmet and jammed it on his head for the play.
SIMMONS IFFY: Dec. 21, 1997. That's the last time the Bengals played a game when they didn't have either right outside linebacker Takeo Spikes or middle linebacker Brian Simmons in the lineup. Both may be out Saturday. Spikes is definitely out and Simmons says his lower back soreness will have to get better in a hurry, but he says he'll be ready for the pre-season finale.
Yes, that was also the last NFL game for Boomer Esiason, who made one of his first appearances in the CBS studio Thursday night during the Rams-Chargers game.
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DORSCH IGNORES GRASS:** Kickers Neil Rackers and Travis Dorsch put on a pre-practice field goal show Thursday night in the last practice of training camp. On the last two kicks, Rackers crushed a 59-yarder and 63-yarder while Dorsch sailed the 59-yarder to
the right and barely missed the 63-yarder to the left.
Special teams coach Al Roberts, who called the competition "magnificent," sends out Rackers to kick first Saturday. Dorsch kicks first in the pre-season finale.
Saturday is Dorsch's first try on the infamous Paul Brown Stadium grass. When the Bengals picked Dorsch in the fourth-round last April, Bengals President Mike Brown blamed the troublesome sand-based field for much of Rackers' problems. In the building's two seasons, Rackers is 17-for-29 for 59 percent and 12-for-20 (60 percent) on the road. Foes are just 67 percent at PBS. Following June's Billy Graham Mission, less than half the field was replaced with sod that was thicker than what had been used before.
But Dorsch wanted none of it.
"To be honest, I'm sick of people talking about the grass," Dorsch said. "Someone has to kick there. If it's going to be me, it's going to be me. I can't worry about that. I'm trying to win a job. The grass is going to be fine. It's August. No big deal."
