WR Perry stays determined

The Bengals did not formulate a gameplan for the New Orleans Saints, but that didn’t mean the Bengals didn’t have a plan Saturday night.

Coaches wanted to work on various parts of the offense, defense and special teams. Winning was not the objective, per se.

One of the goals was to incorporate Tab Perry more fully into the offense as the third wide receiver.

Bengals quarterbacks Carson Palmer and Doug Johnson threw nine times for Perry. Two were complete. None of Palmer’s five attempts for Perry was. Perry ended up with two receptions for 19 yards. He also ran once on an end around for nine yards.

“No,” Perry said after the game, a 27-19 Bengals loss, he wasn’t frustrated. “I just have to keep working on it. It’s only the preseason.”

Perry is being counted on to fill the role as the third receiver with Chris Henry suspended for the first eight games. Henry, allowed to practice and play in the preseason, is out for violating the NFL personal conduct policy.

There were no communication problems preventing Palmer and Perry from connecting.

“I’m still pretty new at this,” Perry said. “T.J. (Houshmandzadeh) and Chad (Johnson) both have really good timing with Carson (Palmer). They’re all on the same page, so I’ve just got to get there.”

Perry was brought into a more prominent offensive role heading into the 2006 season. There were concerns then that Henry might be suspended for various off-field transgressions. But Perry injured his hip returning a kickoff at the end of Game 2 and missed the final 14.

He missed a week to 10 days of training camp practice this year when he was sent to Nashville, Tenn., to visit the specialist who treated the hip. It has not required surgery.

“The hip injury and everything,” Perry said of what might have him behind. “And now I’m catching up.”

Most obvious was the near-miss Palmer and Perry suffered midway through the first quarter. On second-and-11 from the New Orleans 33-yard line, Palmer had Perry open on a deep slant at the goal line. The ball was out front of the receiver and fell incomplete. The Bengals would have to settle for a 51-yard Shayne Graham field goal.

“I take the heat on that,” Perry said of the near touchdown.

Palmer took the blame.

“Tab and I haven’t really had much of a chance to work with each other,” Palmer said. “He’s been kind of banged up in camp and missed some practices.

“But he’s done a great job. He’s learned, I think, three positions now on offense. I had him on a deep post and missed him. He did a great job. There’s nothing wrong with what he did. I overthrew him on that route, but I’m excited to have Tab back and have him healthy and to get some work in.”

The Bengals have two more preseason games, at Atlanta and home against Indianapolis, before opening the regular season three weeks from tonight against Baltimore on Monday night.

“We have these next three more weeks to get ready for Baltimore,” Palmer said in reference to getting his timing with Perry. “He’s an electrifying player. He’s basically a tail-back once he gets the ball in his hands. So I need to keep working with him and try to get the ball in his hands.”

Perry was expected to share some time, possibly, with wide receiver Antonio Chatman. But Chatman has missed all but a couple of practices since the start of training camp with a hamstring tweak.

Coach Marvin Lewis saw no reason for concern after the misconnections between Perry and the quarterbacks.

“Tab Perry did a good job tonight,” Lewis said. Then asked what Perry does well, the coach said, “Being in the right spots and doing what you need to do offensively.”

Perry, a sixth-round draft pick in 2005, made his name as the Bengals’ top kickoff return specialist since the late 1990s. Perry returned 64 kickoffs for a 24.4-yard average. His 94-yard kickoff return at Pittsburgh set up the decisive Cincinnati touchdown.

Perry is likely to return kickoffs again this season and possibly punts.

For now, he wants to add receiving yards to his team contribution.

“I have higher expectations on myself than anybody else does,” Perry said. “People think I’m just going to be here for eight weeks until Chris gets back. But I know what kind of receiver I am and what I’ve done in the past. I know what I can do.”