[BFritz]

From the Bengals website, I take this to mean that Joseph will be in on normal plays, and Hall will be in on passing downs.

They've only got nine NFL starts among them with all of them belonging to Joseph. But the way Joseph, the starting right corner, got his hands on 19 balls last year and the way Hall, the presumed third corner, looked in the spring the Bengals have got to be thinking they've got one of the best young corner tandems in the NFL.

Of course, the other starter, Deltha O'Neal, absolutely must play better than last year. But with Tory James gone, the defensive backfield is now exponentially younger, faster and more physical back there with those two guys. It's hard to see the secondary getting blown up for big plays like it did against San Diego and Pittsburgh with Joseph and Hall running around. No matter how many NFL games they've played. And you know O'Neal has the potential to have double-digit picks (he's had seasons of 10 and nine in his career), and he does it in odd years, too, in '01 and '05.

Looks like an improvement, either way.