... pre-season games. At least half of the players will never see action in a real honest-to-goodness game, the regulars are exhausted from training camp, and the play-calling is usually fairly vanilla.

But there are things you can watch for in a pre-season game that will help determine how a team will look in the regular season. Just make sure you throw out the score.

Overall, the Cincinnati Bengals didn't play badly in their first outing, a 17-7 loss at New Orleans. There were no glaring mistakes and the team did not appear to be over-matched.

But like all games, there were some good points and some bad points.

 

The Good

Nobody wanted to see Carson Palmer limp off the field in a protec...

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