Thurman DUI steals attention from victory

Producers of ESPN2's "Cold Pizza" called me last night while I was writing in the Heinz Field press box after the Bengals 28-20 victory. They wanted me on the air Monday morning for a phone interview to discuss the angles of Carson Palmer's revenge against the Steelers and the state of the Bengals at 3-0.

I talked with host Jay Crawford at about 9:30 this morning. He asked about Palmer. I told him that Palmer said he had no thoughts of revenge against the Steelers, that Palmer, like coach Marvin Lewis, was happy about winning a road game against an excellent team, winning a second division game in two tries and coming home to play New England.

Crawford asked about the Patriots game and what the Bengals might need to worry about: I said the run defense, while strong in the first two games, had some holes punched in it at Pittsburgh, allowing 170 yards and two touchdowns, 131 yards and both scores to Willie Parker. The Bengals could expects to be run at by New England.

Then Crawford asked me about the citation given Odell Thurman this morning for driving under the influence and did I think it overshadowed the victory Sunday.

Unfortunately for the Bengals, Thurman's scrape with the law does give fresh legs to the string of offseason arrests and does detract, to some degree, from the accomplishment at Pittsburgh. Thurman becomes the sixth Bengals player arrested since the first of the year. In Ohio, a first DUI offense is called a citation, and the offender is not arrested. But the result is the same as an arrest.