Bengals Get Steamrolled By The Colts

Maybe I'm too pessimistic, but this one felt over when Carson Palmer was hit by Dwight Freeney in the first quarter. When Indy recovered his fumble, I kind of figured Cincinnati was in for a long day. Lots to think about with this one, so I'm going to rock the bullet points this go round:

The offensive line was horrendous, but I'm not sure what you can do when 3/5 of the line is filled with second string players. If Willie Anderson misses significant time we're screwed, unless Levi Jones and Rich Braham return. If Willie is out then I think the Bengals might be able to muddle through by returning Levi to left tackle and sliding Whitworth to right tackle. Which brings me to ...
Levi Jones not playing. He was active. He was in uniform. But he didn't play. Last year against the Colts Levi shut Dwight Freeney down completely, and it would have been nice to have that last night. He said that he was ready to go, but that the coaches wanted him to get back in the swing of things before playing. It's hard to point to one mistake last night, but I think Levi not playing was definitely one of the bigger screw ups.
I can't criticize too much because I thought running the ball would be a good idea, but in hindsight the Bengals should have stuck to their strength. Which is passing. Not so much running.
I also don't want to criticize the defensive coaching too much because the execution was pathetic, but really the playcalling was pretty suspect. I get that they wanted to keep everything in front of them, but once they saw Peyton Manning taking 10 yards over the middle over and over you'd think an adjustment would be made. But the Bengals never seem to make adjustments to anything. Think about it, how often do they come out and dominate the third quarter? That's a once in a blue moon kind of thing with this team.

I've been pretty thoroughly disgusted with this team just twice this year, once against New England, and then again last night. Losing is one thing, but getting embarrassed the way the Bengals were last night is another.

I still think this might be a playoff team, but what good will that do? Does anyone see this team getting past the second round, at best?