Professor

News - Notes: The Honeymooner - Cincinnati Bengals

B-B-BENNIE JETS: It looks like Antonio Chatman could miss his second straight intrasquad scrimmage, set for Friday night. He tweaked his hamstring and is expected to miss about a week. Now the third receiver job is even more of a melee.

But Bennie Brazell literally ran into the middle of things by catching everything during Saturday's two practices. The Olympic hurdler had to put the thought into people's minds that one way to replace Chris Henry's downfield explosiveness for the first eight games is with sheer, uncut speed.

And the consensus is that he's just as fast as ever after his rookie year ended abruptly when he tore his posterior cruciate ligament in the back of the knee in the third preseason game. It will be recalled Brazell's only catch in the preseason was a 25-yard touchdown catch from Anthony Wright against Green Bay.

Wide receiver Skyler Green, his LSU teammate, says Brazell is even faster than in college.

"I think that's just the way it happens," Green said. "You get bigger and older."

Green, who holds the LSU record with four punt return touchdowns, actually ended up in a challenge sprint with Brazell back in the day because the other players wanted to see it.

"I think it was for about 60 yards and I actually thought I tied him," Green said. "But they said he got me at the end by a little bit."

Since Brazell was drafted in the seventh round last season, he knows no matter how well he plays people are going to see him first as an Olympic hurdler who finished eighth in the 2004 games.

"Both he and I resent that label," said receivers coach Mike Sheppard. "Bennie's biggest challenge has been to fight it because there are some guys who can run fast but can't catch when there are people around him. But he can. I see him as a football guy who happens to run track, and he's got all the toughness you want."

On Saturday morning he followed up climbing the ladder to pull away a long ball by making a sliding catch near the sideline. And on the last play of Saturday night, he made a leaping catch over the middle.

"Those are things track guys aren't supposed to do," Sheppard said.

__________________