I hate to urinate all over everyone’s Kumbayah parade, but can anyone find the depth chart and name one quality offensive lineman on the roster? Excluding one’s that haven’t signed contracts? Carson is Carson after all, but he can’t block for himself.

Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown has been rightly vilified over his “GM” bonus, a stipend he receives at the end of the season for duties performed as general manager. The bonus, which had paid anywhere from $1.2 million to $1.9 million a season over the last decade was the subject of two articles by Kimball Perry, a reporter with The Cincinnati Enquirer. One article can be found here.

I don’t begrudge Mike Brown and his want of making cash. Getting cash, and more of it, isn’t a bad thing. Other people may feel differently, but I don’t go to work in the morning to do my dutiful obligation of providing leather desk chairs for the folks at the IRS.

But most GMs are fired after 4-12 seasons, like the Bengals were in 1999, they don’t receive $1,237,000 for their effort. Most owners feel some type of empathy for the town doling out cash to keep his team in business, as Hamilton County has for the Bengals.

I don’t begrudge anyone making a profit, but the only reason Brown is in business is his disaster of a stadium deal, birthright, the league around him, and a fat television contract guaranteeing even the most puerile business mind a chance of making black. Brown’s proven it year after year by crushing Cincinnati’s heart while the value of his franchise grew, despite on-field performance.

Brown will eventually come out of the shadows for an interview, most likely around training camp. When he does, someone should stick a microphone in his face and ask him why he deserved to be rewarded for his effort. He can drop the “owner” card and say he can dole out cash however he wants, that’s fine, but he’s doing it in a publicly financed stadium, a reminder that hits Hamilton County residents every time they go to McDonalds, the grocery store or buy some rag at his team store. It’s their tax dollars maintaining his office on the shores of the river. Hopefully this point is made before the county starts buying up 10,000 tickets a game by week five next year.

His reasoning for providing bonuses for a position that technically doesn’t exist should be a real hoot.

He got a sweetheart deal, no begrudging him that either, but some responsibility taken would be a refreshing change. When you act like a lout with the public’s money, don’t cry to the press about the contract you signed.

It may not be through court testimony, but over the years more will be revealed of Mike Brown’s finances and his banana republic of a football franchise. It won’t be pretty.

The Bengals accomplished what they normally set out to do on draft day - dredge up enough hope for the striped masses to sell a few jerseys and keep the suckers drunk until September.

It reads great on paper, but that would make this draft no different than any draft since 1991. Andre Smith looks great, until you take into account his suspension prior to the biggest game of his career, his family, agent problems and the worst combine showing in history. Still, the normally workout-warrior centric Bengals took a flier on someone for their skills on the field, which is indefinitely redundant for a slew of reasons.

They always take fliers. There is always a Dennis Weathersby or a Jason Shirley or a guy most teams won’t draft. Organizations historically pick these type of players when they have to, when you search for value because you don’t know what value is. When you don’t have the scouting network necessary to cultivate good picks, you take the inevitable players that drop. It reads great on paper, but these players have a wretched history of never panning out.

Smith fits this bill. The Bengals had their hearts on the guy, even though he would have dropped out of the top 15 if they passed. As usual, Cincinnati is left competing with itself for a player no one else sees as worth the trouble.

Rey Maualuga fits the bill. Looks great on paper, big hitter and finally, that Ray Lewis-type Marvin Lewis has waited half a decade for, that middle linebacker leader who will take this defense by the nose. Or will he? Maualuga had a terribly mixed history at USC. A battery incident, which he has apparently made up for, but a slew of red flags for a defender expected to play at the highest levels in the NFL.

SI’s featured the three USC linebackers as part of its draft package this week. Maualuga was nearly benched and demoted to second string at one point this season. Pete Carroll open dismissed his performance against Oregon State as dreadful.

Maualuga and Smith have all the talent in the world, but take into account the type of coaches it took to cultivate it. Carroll is the college coach of the moment and the ultimate motivator. Nick Saban is the game’s biggest ball-breaker. They still couldn’t get 100-percent of them all the time, even with NFL millions dangling in front of their eyes. What makes you think Marvin Lewis can, especially after the inevitable paycheck comes?

Forgive my refrain from celebrating or pre-ordering my No. 58 jersey. Yes, this could turn out to be a highly touted class, but that is always the case. Reality and potential seldom realize on the shores of the Ohio River.

Until Mike Brown hires a scouting department, I’ll save my compliments and ewws and ahhs for some other team’s draft class. In my opinion, New England and Cleveland judged this draft the best - they traded down multiple times -thereby stating to the world their judgment on a weak crop.

Until Cincinnati gives me cause to feel otherwise, that’s how their class of 2009 sits - a weak crop.

The Cincinnati Bengals lost their leading receiver the last two seasons. T.J. Houshmandzadeh signed a contract today with the Seattle Seahawks.

StripeHype had the following to say:

And so, T.J. Houshmandzadeh is a Seahawk.

Good riddance.

For the last two years, Houshmandzadeh had been an ever-increasing pain in the side of the Cincinnati organization, disgruntled over his pay, refusing to attend offseason workouts, enjoying convenient hammy injuries whenever he didn’t feel like practicing or playing and spending more time auditioning for his future career as an NFL Network talking head than he did getting his timing down with Carson Palmer.

Bitter? Me? Nah. Houshmandzadeh did great things on the field for years for Cincy, and nothing I say can take that away from him. But his departure is perhaps for the best. If you don’t want to be here — and Housh’s behavior over the last two offseasons made it plain that he didn’t — then having the Bengals’ offer topped by Seattle is a blessing in disguise.

A sure sign of the failure of your organization is the inability to get the most out of your best players. It’s happened to the Bengals in spades.

Losing Houshmandzadeh hurts the Bengals in numerous ways. Ben Utecht, the pressure is on. Jerome Simpson or Andre Caldwell have to step up, or do you call those two fails and draft Crabtree? Wait we need a running back and Mike Brown needs someone to sell jerseys and get at least some interest in season tickets, Beanie Wells? This team couldn’t fix all its needs with 10 first round picks.

Cincinnati Bengals T.J. Houshmandzadeh is currently deciding between three teams - according to C. Trent Rosecrans (who has just one initial for a first name?), the Bengals are offering the best contract. Who would have figured. Now, if we can just get Carson Palmer to handle the draft …

As the Cincinnati Bengals woo the New York Giants’ third-string running back, Kansas City took an enormous, yet very predictable, step in trading for Matt Cassel from New England.

No word on how those “efforts” to keep T.J. Houshmandzadeh are going. Wouldn’t surprise me if the only person being told they are trying to re-sign Houshmandzadeh is Carson Palmer.

So says John Clayton of ESPN, who states that Cincinnati Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer is on the phone constantly with free agent receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh as he prepares to enter free agency Friday. Clayton reports the Bengals are making the biggest push to keep him in town. One has to wonder how much contention there is between Palmer and management on keeping Houshmandzadeh. The team spent a lot of draft picks and burned a lot of fan goodwill in the receiver game last year.

Right now speculation has Houshmandzadeh’s main suitors as the New York Giants, Seattle Seahawks, Philadelphia Eagles and the before mentioned Bengals.

Of course, if they wanted to keep him, they could have just franchised tagged him. Why work on a deal now, when the organization has had two years to do so? Shadow games to make fans think management is making an effort?