10 odds and ends on March 1

Item 1: Brian Simmons' release.

It makes sense from a financial sense. No one will say, but knowing how club vice president Katie Blackburn likes to manage the salary cap, I'd guess the Bengals already have absorbed the entire hit for Simmons' $4.9 million signing bonus from 2002. So the move is more than likely worth the full $3.4 million savings.

But he's a lot to lose. Even though he was hurt with the neck strain and missed five games last season, he was around. Coach Marvin Lewis said Simmons added a "sense of calm." That assessment is accurate. Brian always was even. He competed hard, and the fire to win burned inside him. He was an honest man when talking through reporters to the team's fans. He was thoughtful, and what he might have lacked in Takeo Spikes' soundbite ability, Brian always made up for with substance. He was not always easy to quote because he answers were long. But you walked away from his locker having learned something.

Since coming back from a serious right knee injury suffered in the 2000 opener, Simmons played a lot of football for the Bengals. He played in 79 of a possible 80 games with 78 starts. There's something valuable about a guy who's always there and has the ability to play every Sunday. That attribute is why the Bengals can't really be criticized for trying to bring back defensive end Justin Smith. Just always plays and plays hard on every down.

I know Simmons will be picked up somewhere else. I always was struck, too, by his sense of the passing years. He always knew his time was coming, and he accepted it. He didn't fight it, as much as he simply made the most of the time he had to play.

He'll land somewhere else. Here's hoping he gets another chance to make a playoff run.

Item 2: Free agency.

The Bengals will not be big spenders outside of their own locker room. Look for them to use the salary cap space, as I wrote in the Enquirer this morning, to try to re-sign their own unrestricted free agents -- primarily steady veterans the likes of tight end Reggie Kelly, safety Kevin Kaesviharn and third-down back Kenny Watson, whom is invaluable because of Chris Perry's iffy status.

Item 3: The draft.

Coming through combine leftovers, and with Simmons' release, push linebacker higher on the list of needs. The first two Cincinnati picks, Nos. 18 and 49, could be anywhere on defense, with the possible exception of end, where it tagged Smith and extended Robert Geathers for six years.

Item 4: Odell Thurman.

I'm sure the Bengals are doing everything they can to help the linebacker, who is in alcohol rehab. Odell is a personable young guy, not to make excuses for his poor choices. He has a spark in his personality that translates to the field. He makes big plays. He has a big personality.

Lewis spoke eloquently at the combine about the need and priority to help Thurman the man, not the football player.

But if Lewis and the Bengals can help Odell the man, wow, they could get back one excellent football player.

Item 5: The blog.

The blog is a brave new world for an old-timer like me, who has worked in daily newspapers, well, every day since I was graduated from Miami University in 1984.

Readers won't find everything in this blog that they do on the rest of the Enquirer's Web site. For example, one reader wanted a Simmons' entry/comment. OK, it's up there. But I had a full story this morning in the newspaper, and we posted the news as soon as it was announced Wednesday afternoon, with additional information (salary, contract years remaining, perspective) not provided by the Bengals.

Item 6: Silence is golden rule and Marvin Lewis.

I want my readers to know how much I respect my job. In criticizing Lewis for shutting down his assistants at the combine, I understand that move is his choice. At the same time, then, he criticizes responsible media for trying to read tea leaves and figure it out ourselves.

I like Lewis. I respect his talent. He's extremely bright. But I've told him I won't kiss his butt. I enjoy our professional relationship, which, by definition, is awkward. I like studying his methods and trying to anticipate his next move. A friend from the Baltimore Sun told me, when Lewis was a candidate for the job here, to sharpen my extrapolation skills. My buddy said Lewis likes to work in riddles. I've found that to be true.

He's competitive, and like many other NFL coaches, he views the release of information as hurting his competitive edge. OK. My point in writing that his assistants weren't talking is to let readers know why they weren't being quoted in the newspaper. And, yes, it's frustrating from my perspective.

Item 7: It's not the Cold War, but ...

The job of covering an NFL team is complicated by competing against team employees on team-owned Web sites that are increasingly fed information by the teams themselves. The league controls its own popular Web site and has its own television network. It's banking, I'd say, on viewers/readers not giving a damn or even being aware of the value of getting information from independent sources.

I don't have a journalism degree (English and geography), but in the five journalism classes I took at Miami, I do remember hearing that a "journalist" could not cover his or her employer. That's PR. Or, as a professor once said -- making a Cold War reference later echoed by one of my former Enquirer deputy sports editors -- "it's Tass." (Humor me: Here's an example of fun you can have by writing with a dictionary close by. Tass is an acronym, in Russian, for Telegrafnoe Agentstvo Sovetskogo Soyuza, the Telegraph Agency of the Soviet Union. It was the government agency charged with gathering and distributing (read: controlling) news.

Item 8: So riddle me this.

Lewis' tighter-than-normal secrecy this offseason suggests, too me, that though he could go 8-8 or 9-7 every year and make his boss, Mike Brown, happy, the coach is pushing himself and applying additional pressure internally to get his team back into the playoffs. To his credit, Lewis is not pleased with 8-8 or 9-7. He wants to win 10 games every year.

This team is his. Simmons' release leaves just nine players left from the 2002 team Lewis inherited. There are just two on defense, Smith and Kaesviharn. On offense, the holdovers are Willie Anderson, T.J. Houshmandzadeh, Chad Johnson, Rudi Johnson, Levi Jones, Brad St. Louis and Tony Stewart.

Item 9: Linebackers

The cupboard is bare. Lewis and his regime have not done well in drafting linebackers. You can't help injuries, and we all wish David Pollack well in his possible return to football and, more important, in his quest to have a full and healthy life. But there were questions that he was a reach. Thurman's problems have been well documents. Khalid Abdullah in playing in Canada. Caleb Miller has struggled with injuries and has proven to not be an every-down linebacker. Landon Johnson is steady and productive but not a big playmaker. Ahmad Brooks might have been forced upon Lewis by Mike Brown.

Lewis can't swing and miss this year when picking a linebacker.

Item 10: Lyric of the day

The song "Simple Twist of Fate" from Bob Dylan's great "Blood on the Tracks" record is going through my head these days. Maybe it's leftover from the nerve endings-exposed experience of seeing my parents' headstones side by side for the first time.

"People tell me it's a sin
To know and feel too much within."

My apologies: To write great as an adjective modifying "Blood on the Tracks" is a redundancy.