Bramlet to Hamburg; Mort likes Bengals; letters

Time to catch up on the Bengals a week after the Super Bowl.

Item 1: The Bengals will assign at least four players to NFL Europe this spring.They are quarterback Casey Bramlet, tight end Jeremiah Cockheran, defensive linemen Derrick
Crawford and Greg Scott.
The allocation of four players to Europe means the Bengals can bring 84 players to training camp at Georgetown (Ky.) College this summer. The limit is 80, plus one for every player allocated to Europe.
Bramlet was the team’s emergency third quarterback but was promoted to No. 2 for the last three games, after Carson Palmer’s injury forced backup Jon Kitna to start. Bramlet is headed for the new Hamburg Sea Devils and will have his first conference call with the media on Monday.

Item 2: Earlier this week, ESPN NFL writer Chris Mortenson said the Bengals were a possible Super Bowl contender this coming season. Mortenson's dark horse to win the Super Bowl: "I'll make the case for the Bengals. Look what the Bengals did to the Patriots? Carson Palmer left early in the game (injured knee), and (Marvin) Lewis has them ready to be the dark horse of next season."

Item 3: The Bengals marketing department writes to say the team's JungleVision (in-stadium video production crew) received a national award for the "Best Music Video" among all
sports/entertainment venues in North America.
From a press release: "IDEA has awarded the Cincinnati Bengals their first Golden Matrix Award for"Best Music Video." IDEA, Information Display and Entertainment Association, just wrapped-up its 23rd Annual Conference from Houston. The Information Display and Entertainment Association is an international association of electronic display system and scoreboard operators.
"Founded in 1982, IDEA members represent teams, public facilities, manufactures andsuppliers worldwide. "The Golden Matrix Awards recognize excellence and creativity in several categories of electronic display production. In order to be eligible, entries must have been produced for
display on a system to a live audience during an event.
"`Bengals Theme'" was produced by Scott Simpson, videography by Kent Weaverand editing by R. Preston Price of the PPS Group."

Item 4:
A few reader e-mails.

Question, from Joe in Sharonville: How likely is it that the Bengals will be able to get Shaun Alexander? Would they rather have him then Rudi. Isn't (Alexander) about five years older?

Question, from Greg in Sacramento, Calif.: Do you have a good feeling that Rudi will be
signed to a long term contract? It is obvious that his agent wants more than a franchise tag
(value, $6.323 million). However there are several excellent running backs that are free agents
that would be fit well in the Bengals offense. Do you think the Bengals offense featuring a big
back is more important than Rudi's talent? Great running backs are a rare in the NFL on a
consistent basis, but long-term contract busts are very common.

Answer: Alexander, the Florence, Ky., native, will turn 28 on Aug. 30. Johnson will turn 26 on Oct. 1. Alexander will be more expensive to sign than Johnson. It's a long shot to believe the Bengals would spend even more money on Alexander than they are willing to spend on Johnson.
Alexander is going to command one of the biggest deals in free agency this year, and look for Miami to be the place he goes.
The Bengals first choice, I think, is the sign Johnson to a long-term deal but not at Alexander money. The worry for the Bengals is they don't want to imbalance the salary cap. By that, they
don't want to have significantly more money tied up on the offense than the defense. The defense still needs playmakers, especially in the front seven, and a huge Rudi Johnson contract, plus what they might have to pay to retain fellow unrestricted free agent T.J. Houshmandzadeh, would tilt the scale heavily to the offense -- where quarterback Carson Palmer and wide receiver Chad Johnson are earning big salaries.