The Bengals kick off their home opener at Paul Brown Stadium this evening against the Tennessee Titans. Since I am a Nashville resident and the biggest Bengals fan in the state of Tennessee I am especially hoping for a good showing from the orange & black. Some things I would like to see from the Bengals tonight:

1) Improved showing from the first team offense.

The starters on offense got off to a fairly slow start in last weeks preseason game again the Falcons, they were only on the field for a few series and were able to move the ball a bit, but drives stalled mostly due to penalties by the offensive line. They need to clean up some of those mistakes and get into more of a rhythm tonight.

2) Safety emergence:

There is still a 3 way competition going on for the starting safety spot opposite Reggie Nelson between George Iloka, Taylor Mays and rookie Shawn Williams, it will be interesting to see who steps up to create separation in this race to win the job. George Iloka appears to be ahead at this point by appearing first on the depth chart so far but all 3 have had solid play at times and there is still plenty of time for anyone to win the job.

3) Backup running back and quarterback emergence:

Behind Benjarvus Green-Ellis and Giovani Bernard there is a close battle for 1-2 backup spots between Cedric Peerman, Rex Burkhead, Bernard Scott and Dan Herron. All of the backup backs played well last week in Atlanta for the most part apart from Bernard Scott who is currently on the PUP list. Josh Johnson appears to the front runner at the moment for the backup QB position but John Skelton also played well in his Bengals debut last week. Johnson seems to have a better grasp of the system at this point but needs to work on his accuracy.