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Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco gets acquainted with Jets cornerback Darrelle Revis during Thursday's game.
Updated: 3 p.m.
EAST RUTHERFORD, N.J. - The Bengals get a breather over the weekend in the wake of the Thursday night loss to the Jets, 26-10, but there looks like there is going to be some kind of activity on the roster. Head coach Marvin Lewis confirmed in his Friday news conference that the Bengals are looking to upgrade at kicker after rookie Aaron Pettrey missed a 27-yarder that would have tied the game at 10.
Don't be surprised if the Bengals at least make an inquiry about bringing in veteran kicker Kris Brown, cut by the Chargers on Saturday. They have apparently moved off of former Steelers kicker Jeff Reed after two bids to bring him into town.
In his two games since taking over for the injured Mike Nugent, Pettrey has been good from 19 and 28 yards and wide left from 43 and 27.
"We need to be better in that phase, no question," Lewis said. "We've been working on it internally all the way along. It continues to hurt us."
Pettrey made a 28-yarder later to cut the lead to 17-10 Thursday, but he only got the ensuing kickoff to the Jets 11 and Brad Smith took it on the dead run for the game-breaking 89-yard kick return.
In his NFL debut Sunday, Pettrey made a 19-yarder and yanked a 43-yarder left when he said he didn't play the wind correctly.
"No wind," Pettrey said. "I just didn't bring my leg around."
Brown is another former Steeler, but he only spent his first three seasons there before becoming the only kicker the Texans had before they signed Neil Rackers in free agency this past offseason. Brown, with a career percentage of 77, kicked for the Chargers this season when Nate Kaeding was hurt and hit four of five field goals, the longest from 36 yards.
T.O. KOd: It happened again. For the third straight game, Jets Pro Bowl cornerback Darrelle Revis held down Bengals wide receiver Terrell Owens. This time he allowed Owens just a season-low 17 yards in tying a season-low with three catches. All of that just 48 hours after he called Revis an average cornerback.
"Nobody said anything when he called me a slouch," Owens said. "I've played this game enough to gain my respect and you guys want to make it a big deal because I called him average. I said what I said to kind of fire our team up."
Owens did admit later in his postgame news conference that Revis "is pretty good."
Owens tipped his hat to the Jets secondary on Palmer's second interception of the game, his second straight game with an end-zone interception. Cornerback Antonio Cromartie cut in front of Owens with 5:18 left in the first half on a ball snapped from the Jets 28 that Palmer said was "a poor pass." Palmer said he saw Owens running past the secondary, but it was underthrown as Owens ended up surrounded by three DBs: Revis, Cromartie and safety Jim Leonhard.
"Despite me calling him an average corner, real talk, the guy is pretty good," Owens said. "If we had a route to hold (Cromartie) on the back side, that would have been an opportunity for a jump ball for myself. I had Revis on the outside, Leonhard on the inside. It could have been a jump ball, but Chad (Ochocinco) ran a drive route, so the other corner let him go. The linebackers picked him up and Cromartie dropped off and played center field. Good play."
OFFENSIVE WOES: With their secondary hurting, the Bengals needed a big game from their offense. But except for the first half last week, the offense has done nothing since scoring 32 points in Atlanta on Oct. 24. Thursday it was game, set, match early as the Jets held the Bengals to season lows in total yards (163), passing yards (135) and rush yards (46). The Ocho pretty much had his way with Cromartie (four catches for 41 yards), but that was all in the first half.
"I wish I had got a few more opportunities because it's so rare to get those one-on-ones," The Ocho said.
Palmer indicated the Jets changed up their coverages in the red zone in the second half and when the Jets had the lead. Palmer said in the red zone the Jets stopped blitzing and dropped eight men in coverage with three rushing.
"It was tough to fit it in there," said Palmer after three red-zone trips netted one TD, one field goal and a missed field goal.
Left tackle Andrew Whitworth had an ice pack around his right knee after the game. He hurt it in the first half, but didn't miss a snap.
BIG AUDIENCE: The game on NFL Network was watched by an average of 7.1 million viewers (not including over-the-air stations in Cincinnati and New York) to rank as the most-watched Thanksgiving game in the five seasons of *Thursday Night Football, *the NFL said Friday. It was also the third-most watched game in the five years of the NFL Network broadcasts behind Dallas-New Orleans on Dec. 19, 2009 (10.5 million) and Green Bay-Dallas on Nov. 29, 2007 (10.1 million.)
