Officials with professional sports teams are fond of informing us that "perception is reality." Of course, if you've knocked around the world just a little bit, you know that simply isn't true. Perception is perception, reality is reality and the two aren't co-extensive.
Of the two, reality is primary; reality is total and perception is aspectual. One who relies on perception as a guide to reality will often be lost in illusion, while a full sense of reality is indispensable for accurate perception.
How do you know that the stick that appears to be bent in water really isn't bent? Because you also know, in some sense, that light is refracted in water, so the light from the submerged part of the stick changes direction and the stick appears bent, though you know it isn't.
The Bengals make a nice example of the relationship between perception and reality. The reality is that the Bengals have been awful for years. The reality is they brought Dan Wilkinson to training camp as the first overall pick in 1994, he played all 16 games with 14 starts and just wasn't very good. The reality is they took Ki-Jana Carter with the first overall pick in 1995, brought him to camp early and he tore up his left knee on his third carry of the exhibition season, ruining his career. The reality is they've botched two first-round quarterbacks, David Klingler and Akili Smith.
Naturally, these realities have fostered corresponding perceptions, which through the years have reduced the Bengals to the profaned status of negotiating ploy on the free agent market, not to mention laughingstock on the highlight shows. Understandably, new head coach Marvin Lewis is concerned to change not just reality but also perception, for "perception is reality" in the secondary sense of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Because the money NFL teams can pay players is equalized, players won't touch the Bengals so long as the team appears to be a rag-tag operation. Because you can't win without good players, the Bengals will be unable to change reality without changing that perception.
As usual, the Bengals went to last weekend's college player draft with so many needs they couldn't possibly have filled them all. They needed to upgrade their defense, they needed to improve their talent in the receiver slots and they needed to find some people they could trust with the interior positions of the offensive line. Those are realities on this football team.
With their first pick, though, the Bengals went about addressing perception. In itself, the drafting of Southern Cal quarterback Carson Palmer means nothing at the moment. He's probably two years from playing quarterback for the Bengals, and no hint is to be found that other teams clamored for the chance to take him.
But the selection -- and, especially, the signing two days before the draft -- might be invaluable with respect to the Bengals' image. In publicity terms, the affair projects glitz and glam. The Bengals end up with the Heisman Trophy winner, the highest-rated available player by many projections, a quarterback and the top overall draft pick, and they signed him before they were on the clock. Unaccustomed to such competence, Bengals fans love the way this turned out, even those of us who campaigned to prioritize the defense.
With the selection and signing, we learned two lessons that had been forecast by reported player testimony about the new Bengals' aura and their signings of four defensive free agents.
First, Lewis clearly is calling the shots. Any remaining skepticism on that count would be foolish. If Mike Brown were still running the show, the Bengals might have drafted Palmer and might even have signed him before camp, but Brown would never have been concerned to sign Palmer early and send a message to the rest of the NFL that Cincinnati intends to walk with a purpose.
Second, that purpose is going to involve the accumulation of the best players available, regardless of need. As a draft strategy, that purpose served the Bengals well this year because they're deficient in so many areas that the best available player was bound to fill a need. But it also served the Bengals well when the rest of the league left them with choices that had been projected as first-rounders but were available into the fourth round.
One can look at this year's draft and confidently predict that the Bengals have turned over 10 percent of their active roster, maybe adding at least two new starters for this season. But one should add a disclaimer: Injuries are a concern.
Eric Steinbach, a guard from Iowa, was supposed to go in the middle of the first round and still sat there when the Bengals picked in the second round. Pro Football Weekly, Mel Kiper, ESPN.com, CNNSI.com and Sports Illustrated's Paul Zimmerman (Dr. Z) all predicted Steinbach, an All-American, as a first-round pick. But no NFL team took him that high. Injuries limited him to 11 games combined in 2000 and 2001, and that's a concern.
Tennessee wide receiver Kelley Washington would have been gone in the first round if NFL teams took their cues from Pro Football Weekly, ESPN.com or CNNSI.com. Kiper listed Washington as the 22nd best player in the draft but didn't tag him as a first-round choice. Knee injuries and a spinal fusion surgery last season limited him to four games. The Bengals took him in the third round. Though Washington's height (6'2") is bound to create coverage problems for opposing defenses, injury is a concern.
The Bengals' fourth-round pick, Oregon State cornerback Dennis Weathersby, looked like a first-rounder on many boards before he went home to Duarte, Calif., over the Easter holiday and took a bullet in a drive-by shooting. The bullet shot through his back, out his front and into his left elbow. Thankfully, he sustained no organ or muscle damage and needed no surgery. But he reportedly lost a dangerous amount of blood and still is on IVs, hoping the Bengals aren't expecting him at their next minicamp.
This draft could go boom or bust for the Bengals. We could be watching them line up in two years with four starters from this draft, or we could wind up lamenting that injuries and another high pick gone bad at quarterback did in Lewis' first season. We'll hope for the first, hope against the second and figure on something in between.
The Bengals didn't use their first pick on the player who could have been the most helpful the most quickly, Kansas State cornerback and return man Terence Newman. Anyone who follows the Big 12 at all knows Newman as the best player on one of the country's best football teams, a difference-maker in a premium collegiate conference. The Dallas Cowboys, who live in Big 12 territory, were glad to take him with the fifth pick.
As it turns out, the Bengals entered the draft with interests besides the improvement of their defense and special teams at the top of their agenda -- they sought to change perception. Let's hope this draft also changes reality.
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