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Dispatch

8/13/06

BENGALS
Wright ready to step in, start mixing it up
Backup gets start with Palmer out

Sunday, August 13, 2006

Bill Rabinowitz
THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH

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GEORGETOWN, Ky. — Anthony Wright isn’t the quarterback Cincinnati Bengals fans crave to see tonight in the preseason opener in Paul Brown Stadium against the Washington Redskins.
They want Carson Palmer. But that won’t happen. Palmer and his surgically reconstructed left knee won’t play until at least the Bengals’ next home preseason game, Aug. 28.
Though tonight’s game loses the marquee value it would have had with Palmer, Wright’s performance isn’t just window dressing.
Wright could well be Cincinnati’s starter for the season opener at Kansas City. The Bengals remain optimistic that Palmer will be ready by then, but at this point it’s just conjecture. Even Palmer says as much.
"I felt I was going to play Sept. 10 on Jan. 10," Palmer said Friday after the final training-camp practice. "I’m going to keep that goal in mind. I expect to play. Whether it happens or not is still up in the air."
Wright needs to establish himself as a viable backup, starting tonight.
"I’m just happy to have shown them that I could start," Wright said. "I need to go out there and play well and start forming a chemistry with those guys."
Wright has been a starter before with Dallas and Baltimore. In neither place did he have the supporting cast he does in Cincinnati.
"There are some good weapons, guys who are explosive and can make things happen," Wright said. "I was just talking with Carson earlier that with the guys we have, it’s a lot easier to go 80 yards than it is with a lot of other teams. We can go 80 in five plays. Some places it might take 12."
Right tackle Willie Anderson said it’s important for Wright to play within himself and not try to prove too much.
"He’s a leader," Anderson said. "Guys immediately were attracted to him because you could tell his spirit and competitiveness."
Coach Marvin Lewis indicated that Wright and the starters would play most or all of the first quarter. Doug Johnson will quarterback the second team, and undrafted rookie Erik Meyer will play after that.
Lewis said he wants crisp play with no turnovers or careless penalties.
"There’s going to be a jittery giddiness to us because we haven’t played guys with different-colored helmets on yet," he said. "Hopefully, our young guys will be able to handle that stepped-up intensity."
This will be the first game in Paul Brown Stadium since the playoff loss to Pittsburgh. Palmer’s injury and the off-field misadventures by several players have clouded the optimism the 2005 team generated. The Bengals are eager to rekindle that excitement.
NBC will televise the game, and recent Hall of Fame inductee John Madden was at practice Friday.
Palmer said Madden told him the Bengals-Denver Broncos Monday Night Football game he worked in Cincinnati in 2004 was as electric a crowd as he’d ever seen.
"I said, ‘Get ready, it’s going to be the same atmosphere,’ " Palmer said. "It’s going to feel like a playoff game ... that’s just the way Bengals fans are."
brabinowitz@dispatch.com