Bengals Hall Gets DUI... On Purpose?

By John Breech/Staff

One week after Leon Hall's DUI arrest, the truth about the incident is slowly beginning to trickle out. According to anonymous sources in the Bengals locker room, Hall was beginning to feel the pressure of not having a criminal record.

One Bengals player, who chose to remain anonymous, tells it like this, "First we sign Cedric [Benson] and then there's a rumor that we're going to sign Tank [Johnson, who the Bengals did sign two days after Hall's arrest] and a lot of minds in this locker room started wandering," said the nameless player. "Leon was freaking out, the prevailing thought in the locker room was that if you didn't have a criminal record, you were going to get cut from the team."

The source gave as many details as he could surrounding Hall's arrest, "Apparently, Leon called Stripes [Chris Henry's locker room nickname because he's always wearing jail stripes] in a panic and said something like 'Chris, I got a baby on the way, I can't lose my job, if there is one person on this team that can get me arrested, it's you.'"

At that point, the source said Henry was more then happy to oblige, "Apparently Chris was inviting over Sycamore High School's freshman girls soccer team to his house. Henry promised Hall that there would be whiskey, some goldfish crackers, a game of strip Uno and plenty of people arrested, he also assured him that there would be nothing legal about what they were doing, so Leon jumped on board."

Then, around 2 a.m., Hall, who is known as a reasonably good guy in the locker room, left the party when Chris got a little too crazy, "I'm not sure what exactly happened, but I heard that Henry was trying to get a game of duck, duck, touch Chris going," says the source. "Leon's a good guy, so he got the hell out of there." The source also indicated that Hall knew he was in trouble when Henry tried to convince him that the legal age of consent in Ohio is six.

However, Hall left the party frustrated, as he still wasn't under arrest, so he called Benson, a veteran of riding in the back of police cars. Benson allegedly had a short conversation with Hall that supposedly went something like this:

CB: "Leon, stop panicking yo, are you drunk?"
LH: "Yea,"
CB: "Are you driving?"
LH:"Yea,"
CB: "Are you black,"
LH: "Yea,"
CB: "Is it past midnight?"
LH: "Yea,"
CB: "Your as good as arrested homey."

Clermont County police released this statement: It's not just Leon Hall, Deltha O'Neal was arrested for DUI here two and a half years ago. We believe that Bengal player DUI's in Clermont County is starting to become an epidemic, therefore we are putting together a "Bengals DUI taskforce" whose sole purpose will be to arrest Bengals players or big black men that look like Bengals players after 11 p.m. We think this taskforce has the potential to cut County crime in half by the end of next week.

A Bengals fan at Hall's arraignment wondered aloud, "If they're playing drunk as often as they're driving drunk, that would sure explain a lot."

(The image at the top of the page is a game day photo of Leon Hall. It is the only photo I could find from a 2008 game where Hall is making anything resembling a play on the ball. Alright, I won't insult your intelligence, the photo is from an imaginary interception Hall had against the Pittsburgh Steelers in a game of Madden 09, it was provided by monsterconsole.com)


Coming tomorrow: Have Cincinnati Sports fans already given up on 2009? Its Never Sunny In Cincinnati (INSIC) will answer this question. Hint: Tomorrow's post will include Sean Miller, Miami Hockey, Tank Johnson and the fact that Fox Sports Ohio turned off the Reds game last night in the bottom of the 9th with the Reds up 7-6 and Milwaukee at the plate.