After the Bengals’ most recent game, a victory that featuring ongoing problems in the long-snapping function, coach Marvin Lewis publicly supported the man who has been spinning the ball to the holder and punter since 2000.
“I think it is a little bit mental, and I’m glad we were able to come through it in the end again today,” Lewis said Sunday regarding Brad St. Louis. “We’re working hard with him and just trying to help him to deal with it. We’ve got confidence in him.”
Correction: They had confidence in him.
The team has announced the Brad St. Louis, who entered the league as a seventh-round pick of the Bengals in 2000, has been cut.
Taking over the duties will be Clark Harris, a 2007 seventh-round pick of the Packers who spent the last four games of the 2008 season on the Texans’ active roster. Harris was recently released from Houston’s practice squad.
The Bengals had tried out a quartet of long snappers last week after St. Louis struggled against the Browns, but the Bengals decided not to make a move. On Sunday, Lewis downplayed the notion that it meant the end was nigh for the nine-year veteran.
“Yeah, last week we looked at some other guys, but that’s just what you do, you look at some other guys,” Lewis said. “You go with what you know and what you expect.”
Between Sunday and today, Lewis changed his mind. The fact that the Bengals host the team with which Harris spent most of the past two years might have been a factor, since Cincy can now grill him about tendencies and strategies.
