Bad News for Non-Pot Smoking Bengals Fans: Jerome Simpson's House Might be a Marijuana Distribution Center

This sign, in Jerome Simpson's front yard, gave him away.

If you're a Bengals player reading this right now, we have great news: you're probably going to get drug tested in the next 30 minutes and you can thank Jerome Simpson and Anthony Collins.

Simpson

The two Bengals teammates are being investigated by Kentucky and California authorities after 2.5 pounds of high-grade marijuana was delivered from Northern California to Simpson's Northern Kentucky home.

You can read all about how police got involved here, but if you're lazy, we'll break it down into two sentences.

Authorities tracked the California marijuana shipment to Simpson's house where his girlfriend, Aleen Smith, signed for it. Police tracking the package then searched Simpson's home where they found six more pounds of marijuana, some packaging material and scales for weighing the pot.

"The house was setup as a potential distribution network," one investigator said.

Now, its not clear if Simpson was running an international drug cartel out of his house, but lets just say that 2.5 pounds of pot delivered to your house when you already have six pounds there is a good start for running one.

Simpson's house had more pot than the set of Half-Baked

Now, although Simpson's house had more marijuana than the set of Half-Baked, police didn't arrest anyone after four hours of interviews Tuesday, which in itself is interesting.

Eight pounds of pot and no one gets arrested? We'll let this one play out, but our best bet is that at least one of the three (Simpson, Collins or Simpson's girlfriend) involved here will eventually get busted.

Simpson closed his Twitter account (@Rome089) early Wednesday with one last tweet that read, "Keep the faith." Also, his personal web page no longer exists.

So there's that.

There are two pieces of good news here though:

1. Even if Simpson gets arrested, he's still won't be the worst NFL player turned criminal named Simpson (O.J. obviously wins that)

2. Simpson only had 8.5 pounds of pot in his house, its not like he had 213 pounds in a van, like a certain former Dallas Cowboys offensive lineman.

Finally, we here at INSIC would like to point out one odd coincidence: the marijuana shipped to Simpson's house came from Eureka, Calif., a town with a population of exactly 27,191.

So we asked ourselves, "Does Simpson, who is from North Carolina, know anyone from Eureka, Calif.?"

The answer is yes. Bengal middle linebacker Rey Maualuga has some ties to Eureka, he graduated from high school there in 2005. Coincidence? You tell us.

NFL Week 2 Bengals-Broncos: INSIC Makes a Pick and Puts Out a Power Ranking

F Brandon Stokley Photo by the Cincinnati Enquirer

Hottest twins ever?

Every Friday for the rest of the NFL season, we're going to post INSIC's quick picks and power rankings. Unless of course Nick at Night starts showing reruns of Sister, Sister on Fridays.

If that happens, this blog has no future because everyone here will dance around naked and eat pudding while watching the highly entertaining twin duo of Tia and Tamara Mowry. Tia and Tamara are the hottest twins of all-time not named Mary Kate and Ashley Olsen.

Anyway, a few quick facts about the power rankings:

1. Because we're a Cincinnati blog, we'll be devising the rankings under the pretense that the Bengals are the best team in the NFL (which shouldn't be difficult because they are).

2. We'll only be ranking 12 teams.

Why only 12 you ask?

First Glen Rice, who's next?

A. because we're lazy and B. because that's how many teams make the playoffs. Teams number 13 thru 32 will have one thing in common on Jan. 2: they'll all be free to go try and have a one-night stand with Sarah Palin because their season will be over.

3. To clarify further, these rankings are basically playoff projections, so the 12 teams we rank will include six teams from the AFC and six teams from the NFC.

AFC

1. New England (1-0): If Carson Palmer threw for 517 yards in a game and Ochocinco only had 14 of them, Chad would have gone to the Paul Brown Stadium parking lot and set Carson's car on fire. Ocho didn't do this to Brady, which means one of two things: Ocho didn't have any matches or he respects Brady...

2. Baltimore (1-0): No, the Ravens didn't take the Steelers into a Milledgeville, Georgia bar bathroom, but they definitely took advantage of them.

3. San Diego (1-0): Charger kicker Nate Kaeding tore his ACL on the opening kickoff Sunday. The only injury we can think of that's worse: your hair catching on fire while you try and blow out your birthday candles... and the hair we're talking about isn't on your head.

4. Houston (1-0): Beating the Colts without Peyton Manning is like having hot sex with a Kardashian... Rob Kardashian. Its nothing to brag about, as a matter of fact, you probably shouldn't tell anyone.

5. Buffalo (1-0): Bills quarterback Ryan Fitzpatrick went to Harvard, which means for fun, he likes to do calculus, herd cats and learn foreign languages.

6. Cincinnati (1-0): Mike Brown's diabolical plan of being mediocre for 20 years and then waiting until 2011 to surprise attack every team in the NFL is starting to take shape.

NFC

Are you a Packers fan? If so, this could be you every Sunday.

1. Green Bay (1-0): If you're an alcoholic and you're a Packers fan, here's an easy game to play this season: take a shot every time Green Bay scores.

2. Philadelphia (1-0): The Eagles beat the Rams Sunday, but their strategy of injuring the other team's three best players probably isn't going to work every week (They injured Sam Bradford, Steven Jackson and Danny Amendola). Andy Reid better think of something new for Sunday night's game with Atlanta.

3. New Orleans (0-1): The Saints might be the best 0-1 team in NFL history. However, going forward, Sean Payton may want to let Drew Brees' mole make all goal line calls.

4. San Francisco (1-0): The 49ers are shaping up to be the date rape drug of the NFL this season, just when you think they have no chance to win/get laid, you wake up six hours/four months later and wonder how they won the division/got you in bed.

5. Chicago (1-0): The Bears had the most impressive win in the NFL Sunday, which is amazing because outside the National Geographic channel, the words 'Bears' and 'impressive' are never used in the same sentence.

6. Atlanta (0-1): Instead of writing anything about the Falcons, we're just going to show you this commercial because its funny and if you're a Falcons fan, you didn't have anything to laugh about last Sunday:



WEEK 2 PICKS

How many cute kittens died so that we could make our  week 

one picks?

To make our week one picks, we threw 16 cats off a 12-story roof, if they lived, we picked the home team, if they didn't, we picked the away team. Unfortunately, we picked the away team a few times, which means not all the cats lived, but don't fret: Sprinkes, Ted and Tiny Nick didn't die in vain, we went 3-0 in those picks.

However, due to complaints by the police, the SPCA and our neighbors who are looking for their missing cats, we decided to change strategies this week. We're just going to pick the team that doesn't suck.

Week 1 Picks:
Straight-up: 10-6
SU Overall: 10-6
Against the Spread: 10-6
ATS Overall: 10-6
Exact picks: 1 (We picked Detroit 27-20 over Tampa, Detroit beat Tampa 27-20)

Week 2 picks:
Cincinnati 20-17 over Denver
Detriot 34-17 over Kansas City
Buffalo 31-20 over Oakland
Tampa Bay 20-13 over Minnesota
New Orleans 34-31 over Chicago
Baltimore 27-17 over Tennessee
Cleveland 24-17 over Indianapolis
Jets 30-13 over Jacksonville
Pittsburgh 34-10 over Seattle
Washington 27-13 over Arizona
Green Bay 35-21 over Carolina
Dallas 24-20 over San Francisco
New England 31-27 over San Diego
Houston 27-20 over Miami
Atlanta 35-31 over Philadelphia
Giants 28-20 over St. Louis

INSIC's Seven Question/Six Answer 2011 Cincinnati Bengals Preview

Should you bust out the bag now or wait until week two?

Here at INSIC, we've realized three things in the past month:

Number one: drunk babies have longer attention spans than people on the internet.

We realize that if something on the internet takes you more than five minutes to read, you're probably not going to read it. That's why we're going to keep this preview relatively short (it will be 67 paragraphs shorter than anything you've ever read on Grantland.com)

Number two: We're trying so hard to keep this preview short, we're not even going to finish this list.

Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to 2011 Bengals preview.

Did Ben Savage's career peak with Boy Meets World?

No Bengals preview can start without talking about Carson Palmer. That would be like starting a Ben Savage conversation and not talking about "Boys Meets World".

So lets talk about Carson Palmer.

You can do some risky things in life -- having an unprotected one-night stand with someone who has AIDS comes to mind -- but Carson Palmer one-upped even that.

Palmer got into a $45 million game of chicken with the stingiest owner in professional sports.

Bad idea.

The odds of Palmer winning this standoff with Mike Brown are about the same as Hanson and 50 Cent touring together next summer.

Thanks to Palmer's poorly planned power play, Carson is now in retirement and the Bengals had to pick up Andy Dalton in the second round of the 2011 NFL draft.

Once the lockout ended and it became clear that Dalton would be the Bengals starter this season, we here at INSIC did something that we've never done before: research.

If you get bored easily, have A.D.D or are putting off sex with your girlfriend until you've finished reading this preview, you may want to stop reading now.

The first two paragraphs were a complete lie to get you to read this, this preview isn't going to be short at all. It's going to be twice as long as anything you've ever read at Grantland and three times as long as anything we've ever written. It will rival the dictionary in length.

On that note, lets start the real preview, which isn't a preview at all, but actually a seven question quiz that's going to convince Bengals fans that Cincinnati can win this season.

Q1: Since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, how many quarterbacks picked in the second round of the NFL draft have been the opening day starter for their team?

Bengals fans will be bonging Captain this season.

A: ZERO. Now this is based on INSIC research, which is done after bonging three bottles of Captain Morgan and taking shots of grapefruit flavored vodka, but we're fairly confident it's accurate.

This means Andy Dalton is doing something that's never been done before. He is the first second round pick to be his team's opening day starter.

Since 2000, there's been several second round draftees that started for their teams during their rookie year -- Brian Brohm, Tavaris Jackson, John Beck, Quincy Carter and Jimmy Clausen are all on the list -- but none of them have ever started the opening game.

This means Andy Dalton is the man. Also, now that Jeff Garcia is no longer playing, Dalton is now the only red-headed starting QB in the league.

Q2: What's the most wins a second round QB has ever had in his rookie season?

A: The answer is five wins (Tony Banks-1996, Charlie Batch-1998).

Q3: Is Andy Dalton going to obliterate this record?

A: Probably. Dalton is walking into an ideal situation (its not acutally an ideal situation, but its as ideal as a situation like this gets). He has a strong running game behind him, so he won't be forced to take over games. Batch was in a similar situation with the Lions (Barry Sanders at RB). Batch went 5-7 in 12 starts and four of those seven losses were by one score. Is Cedric Benson Barry Sanders? No. But the Bengals 2011 defense should be a lot better than the Lions 1998 D was, so it evens out.

Will Andy Dalton ever be on the SI cover?

Q4: Talk about Boomer Esiason. He's the best Bengal ever. If you can use a Boomer Esiason fact to convince me that Andy Dalton is going to be awesome, then I'll believe you that Andy Dalton is going to be awesome.

A: Nothing beats a good Boomer Esiason fact - except being laid by a J-woww lookalike in a Paul Brown Stadium bathroom - but we digress. Esiason was a second round pick in 1984 and guess what? Esiason started four games for the Bengals.

Boomer is one of 21 second round draft picks since 1970 that have started at least one game in their rookie season. Guess what else? Boomer went 3-1 as a starter, which gives him the record for best winning percentage by a second round draft pick in his rookie season. If Dalton ties Boomer's record, that means the Bengals go 12-4 this year.

Q5: Everyone is saying that Dalton will be a liability this season, but seriously, can he suck more than Carson Palmer did last year?

Carson Palmer single-handedly cost the Bengals several games last season. The Bengals lost eight of their 12 games last year by one score. However, Carson Palmer didn't suck-suck, he just kind of sucked. He threw more pick-6's then Antonio Cromartie has children, but in his defense, he did have to put up with Ocho and T.O.

Q6: What's your prediction for 2011?

A: 7-9

Q7: WTF, 7-9, no way, please explain.

A: The Bengals lucked out with the easiest opening seven games ever. Lets take a look real quick:

9/11 @Browns: Cleveland has won exactly one season opener since 1999. Advantage Bengals.

9/18 @Broncos: If there's one AFC team that could outsuck everyone this year, its Denver. Advantage Bengals.

Can the Carrot Top Cannon get the Bengals off to a quick start?

9/25 San Fran: When experts talk about the worst teams in the NFL this year, the 49ers are usually in the conversation. Advantage Bengals.

10/2 Buffalo: Everyone in Cincinnati witnessed the shit show that was the 2008 Bengals season. Ryan Fitzpatrick engineered that. He is now QB for the Bills. Advantage Bengals.

10/9 @Jaguars: Jacksonville CUT their starting QB five days before the season opener. In terms of winning games, that doesn't usually work out to well for you. Advantage Bengals.

10/16 @Colts: If Kerry Collins is the Colts QB in this game, bet your first child's second child on the Bengals. No Manning. Advantage Bengals.

With an early schedule
easier than Deena, the
Bengals could top out
at 9-7 this year.

10/30 @Seahawks: On the national scene, the Seahawks are the Bengals of the NFC, everyone's predicting them to be horrible and by Oct. 30, people might be calling this the Suck Bowl. As any Bengals fans knows, the Bengals are undefeated in Suck Bowls. Advantage Bengals.

These opening seven games are easier than a drunk Deena, if the Bengals can go 5-2 or 6-1 in this stretch, Dalton's confidence will shoot up faster than the BAC of a college freshman at their first frat party. If this happens, then anything is possible.

We think they'll go 4-3 in this stretch and then 3-6 the rest of the way.

This post is probably still too short for Grantland, isn't it?

Week One Picks: 
Green Bay 28-21 over New Orleans
Cincinnati 20-19 over Cleveland
Atlanta 24-17 over Chicago
Kansas City 20-17 over Buffalo
Philadelphia 21-20 over St. Louis
Detroit 27-20 over Tampa Bay
Tennessee 17-13 over Jacksonville
Pittsburgh 21-13 over Baltimore
Houston 31-17 over Indianapolis
NY Giants 20-14 over Washington
San Diego 35-24 over Minnesota
Seattle 24-16 over San Francisco
Arizona 24-10 over Carolina
NY Jets 20-17 over Dallas
New England 35-20 over Miami
Oakland 17-14 over Denver

Ochocinco Traded to Patriots for Two Future Drafts Picks and Magic Beans

In only one practice, Ochocinco already has a better relationship with
Tom Brady then he ever had with Carson Palmer. Boston Herald Photo

If you're a  new Bengals fan or a fan under the age of seven, you may not remember this, but back in 2008, the Washington Redskins really wanted Ochocinco.

The Redskins wanted Ocho so badly in fact, that they were willing to give up two first round draft picks, the cure to cancer, a solid 24 carat gold Koala Bear statue (worth over $4 billion), Miley Cyrus' virginity and 93 percent ownership in the team.

The Redskins offered Miley's virginity for Ocho in
2008, but the Bengals turned it down. 

Of course, if you're an old Bengals fan or a fan over the age of seven, you know what happened: Mike Brown vetoed the deal.

Mike Brown loves vetoing deals.

He's vetoed more deals than the last 23 Presidents of the United States combined.

If the Colts offered Mike Brown, Peyton Manning and Reggie Wayne for Morgan Trent and the Bengals water boy, Brown would laugh at the offer for 30 minutes, explain to everyone that Trent and the water boy are under contract with the team and then veto the deal. And then he would take a crap in a Paul Brown Stadium bathroom and ask a Hamilton County official to wipe. 

Anyway, back to Ocho.

Ocho was officially traded to the Patriots on Friday for two draft picks, only they weren't first round draft picks, they were fifth and sixth round draft picks. And they're not even for the same year. The fifth round pick is for 2012 while the sixth round pick is for 2013.

The Bengals only have one and a half scouts, so the last thing they need to be doing is trading anyone for draft picks.

Usually, the Bengals don't let their fans down until at least week three of the regular season, this year it looks like they're trying to break new ground.

Despite What Bleacher Report and 50 Percent of Twitter Think: Bengals Roy Williams is Not Engagement Ring Mailing, Lawsuit Filing Roy Williams

More surprising: that Bleacher Report got the headline wrong or that they spelled Cincinnati right?

Sometimes cases of mistaken identity are awesome, like the time a super hot drunk girl at the bar thought I was her boyfriend. That ended well for everyone, except the boyfriend.

Other times, cases of mistaken identity are bad for everyone, like the time someone decided to put John Travolta and Nicolas Cage in the same movie and then they switched faces and then everyone got confused, except no one was confused because the movie actually kind of made sense and the movie was kind of good and both their careers were peaking, but then one of them made Battlefield Earth. And then the one that didn't make Battlefield Earth one upped (or one-downed) the one who did by making National Treasure 2 and beating up his girlfriend in New Orleans.

If you didn't follow that last paragraph, you shouldn't have, I was trying to lose you, kind of like Bill Simmons completely lost me four sentences into his last column.

Anyway, back to mistaken identity. Sometimes, mistaken identity isn't good or bad, it's just funny. Like the case of Bengals safety Roy Williams.

If you're still drunk from July 4th, you may have missed today's news involving Cowboys wide receiver Roy Williams.

Williams, who should probably be at least third in line to be ABC's next Bachelor,  mailed his girlfriend a $76,000 engagement ring in February along with a proposal on tape. Yes, he proposed on tape and yes, he mailed it.

For all of you single guys out there, everything in that last paragraph is a probably a bad idea, except for the $76.000 ring, but if you're going to mail it, you might as well clip off your big toe nail, fashion it into a ring and propose with that.

Lets make the rest of this story short.

Cowboys WR Roy Williams' proposal was turned down by Brooke Daniels, his then girlfriend. Daniels then did the diligent thing and decided to keep the ring. Girls love bright shiny things, Daniels is a girl, keeping the ring only made sense. Williams then filed suit in Texas state court  because he wants the ring back. Yes, he sued his girlfriend that he just proposed to five months ago. Click here to read the whole story.

Roy Williams almost married Miss Texas, but then he proposed through the mail
and she said no, something that any girl not named Amy Winehouse would do. To be fair
to Winehouse, she would say no too, unless the envelope was full of meth. 

This is where the fun begins. Bleacher Report, along with everyone on Twitter, thought that Cowboys WR Roy Williams was Bengals Safety Roy Williams (@RoyWilliams31 on Twitter).

Here's a small sample of what Bengals safety Roy Williams (not "I mailed a $76,000 engagement ring  to my girlfriend and then sued her" Roy Williams) had to endure today:

Not only does Roy need to wake up, but the next tweeter says the Bengals safety doesn't have any swag. That's a given though, no one on the Bengals has swag.

Are women easy to please? I'd say the next tweeter is, she thinks the mail proposal was romantic. Trust me it wasn't, it's about as romantic as having a candlelight dinner in your bathroom with the toilet seat serving as the dinner table.

This next tweeter did not follow rule number one of calling people retarded, which is, if they can spell retarded, they're probably not retarded. Based on his tweets tonight, Roy Williams can spell retarded because he in fact is not retarded. 

To read all the torture that Williams suffered through last night, check out his Twitter page. 

2011 NFL Draft Preview: Its Not Earth Day, but Look for Bengals to go Green

Finally, its here, the INSIC Mock Draft that's not actually a Mock Draft because we're only going to tell you who the Bengals are going to pick.

Forget Mel Kiper, Mike Mayock, Don Banks or Todd 'really gay' McShay, if you want to know who the Bengals are going to draft tonight, grab a glass of the cheapest whiskey you can find and read on. If you don't like whiskey, then you're obviously not a Bengals fan. As everyone knows, thanks to 20 years of suckiness, all Bengals fans are alcoholics who love whiskey... and vodka and gin and tequila and anything else that blacks out memories of Bengal Sundays. 

If you really want to know if you're a Bengals fan, then ask yourself these two questions: am I an alcoholic? Do I love whiskey... and gin and vodka and tequila? If you did not answer "Yes" to these questions, you are not a Bengals fan. 

Anyway, lets move on. 

Most experts like to point at a teams 'needs' when they're trying to figure out who a certain team is going to draft. We like to point at naked pictures of women, because basically with the Bengals, pointing at team 'needs' does nothing for you, there's a 90 percent chance the pick will be a bust -- and we're not talking about a Hall-of-Fame bust in Canton. 

Before we tell you who the Bengals are going to blow their first round pick on this year, lets look at their current situation: 

Carson Palmer is confused about where he'll be playing next year. 

First, lets be clear about something: the Bengals have a quarterback under contract. His name is Carson Palmer. Carson Palmer has taken the Bengals to the playoffs two more times in the past 20 years then the 10 starting quarterbacks that came before him (free used heroin needles if you can name all 10 starting quarterbacks since 1992 and Boomer doesn't count). 

So technically, the Bengals don't need a QB. If they draft one tonight with pick No. 4, it means Marvin Lewis is wearing the pants in the draft room, but we all know he's not, Mike Brown is. i.e. Marvin knows Carson would rather set his genitals on fire than play for the Bengals, Mike Brown doesn't care. Brown would play Palmer even if his genitals were on fire. 

If the Bengals do draft a QB, look for it to happen in the second round or possibly later in the first round if they trade down. 

You don't think Mike Brown is awesome? Well think again.
Not every second round draft pick gets a Chuck E. Cheese
gift certificate as a signing bonus. Ray Maualuga did in 2009. 

Now lets talk about defense. The Bengals defense sucked in 2010. And by suck, we mean watching them was more painful then having all of your teeth knocked out by a drunk donkey who kicks you in the mouth with its hind legs. Drunk donkeys are dangerous, which is why you should never give donkey's alcohol. 

Drunk donkey's aside, there is a point here: if the Bengals draft a defensive player, no one at INSIC will be mad. 

Someone at ESPN horribly screwed up this graphic, the words "Bengals" and "Draft Party"
should never be in the same sentence. Unless of course, that sentence is "I drank a lot of
DRAFT beer at a PARTY and then blacked out because I'm an alcoholic BENGALS fan."

So who will the Bengals pick? 

Rumor has it that a certain University of Georgia receiver has been praying every night that he doesn't get drafted by the Bengals, his name: A.J. Green. Well A.J., god works in mysterious ways, sometimes condoms rip, sometimes they don't. For A.J. Green, the condom will rip tonight, the Bengals will draft him. 

If you're on Twitter, feel free to send your condolences his way after the Bengals pick him tonight. 

Out at Second! Mike Leake Caught Stealing (From Downtown Cincinnati Macy's)

"Who's going to be at the ballpark tonight?" Probably not Mike Leake because he's in jail. 

We understand that you might not believe the next sentence you read, but we're going to write it anyway.

Did Pac Man Jones frame Mike Leake?
INSIC asks the tough questions. 

A Cincinnati pro sports player was arrested today for doing something criminal and it WASN'T a Bengal. Seriously, it wasn't a Bengal. It was Reds pitcher Mike Leake (and no it wasn't Pac-Man Jones trying to frame Leake by wearing a Mike Leake jersey. Jesus, that wouldn't even work, they're not even the same color.)

Anyway, here's the arrest report.  

Apparently Leake decided to pull a Winona Ryder when he tried to walk out of Macy's with some clothing that he didn't exactly pay for.  The second year pitcher grabbed six American Rag t-shirts off the rack (street value: $59.88), tore off the security tags and then proceeded to walk out of the store. In most states, including Ohio, this is known as stealing.

Since stealing is illegal, police were forced to arrest Leake. At 2:32 p.m. today, the pitcher was booked into the Hamilton County Justice Center. At 3:20 p.m., he was already tweeting about the incident, he wants to know who will be at the ballpark tonight. Lets all agree that there's a 95 percent chance Leake won't be.

Mike Leake's mugshot.

Somewhere, Peter Warrick is smiling (if Peter Warrick references aren't your thing, lets just say he used to play for the Bengals and he too once stole from Macy's).

Also, Macy's hasn't announced it, but if the wheels are turning in the PR Department, the store will be handing out $59.88 gift cards to the first 1,000 fans at tonights game.

Oh and in case you're wondering, Leake's salary this year is $425,000. Meaning he could have bought the six shirts, then bought six prostitutes to put the shirts on, then bought each prostitute their own 8-ball of coke and then still had money left for the penicillin he'd have to buy to cure the STD's the hookers give him.