Officially, Akili Smith is being given the chance to catch his breath. That was the euphemism Dick LeBeau employed Monday in announcing the benching of the Cincinnati Bengals' starting quarterback, and a gentler phrase would be hard to find.

        To say a demoted quarterback is just catching his breath conveys the message that his time on the sideline is temporary; that his failures are fleeting; that his future is firm. It suggests confidence rather than concern.

        This is the right message for the Bengals to be sending. That doesn't mean, necessarily, that this is the right conclusion to reach.

        Privately, the Bengals have to be worried that Smith may be another high draft choice headed for the scrap heap. They have to be wondering whether, upon catching his breath, he will catch on to pro football. His problems have been so profound that even the Bengals' official Web site observes, “There is alarm in the organization.”

        Smith's body of work conjures the worst of David Klingler and casts Jeff Blake as a misunderstood genius. Akili Smith has arm strength aplenty but demonstrates all the command of a substitute teacher on a spring Friday.
       

Hard decision looms

        He looks lost out there — inconsistent, indecisive, inaccurate, rattled — and the numbers are more alarming than the anecdotal evidence. In 14 NFL starts, Smith has completed seven touchdown drives. He has not thrown a touchdown pass in 27 quarters. His raw talent remains unrefined.

        “The position the Bengals are in is they have to draw a line somewhere and say, "This experiment's over' or "We're just going to stay with it forever,'” draft analyst Jerry Jones said Tuesday. “It's an awfully tough line to draw. There's a lot of money involved.”

        Having paid Smith a $10.8 million bonus as part of a pact that could be worth $55 million, the Bengals are reluctant to abandon hope in his eventual epiphany. They want to blame his difficulties on the inexperience of his receivers and the inadequacies of his offensive line. They want to believe Smith is in a passing phase and will emerge from it as a passing phenomenon.

        “I still think that his future's bright,” said Jim Lippincott, the Bengals' director of pro/college personnel. “And I think he's the long-term answer. I think it's a shame he won't be playing Sunday.”

        How widely Lippincott's faith is shared will become plain as the season proceeds. If Smith's breath-catching amounts to a one-week sabbatical, and he returns to the job rejuvenated, his benching will seem shrewd shock therapy. If he returns to the job later and/or unimproved, the Bengals will have a decision to make.
       

Sooner? Or later?
        Though it is unlikely the Bengals would forsake Smith this soon, his development problems could force the team to use yet another draft choice to fortify the quarterback position.

        “If I'm Mike Brown, I think you draft a quarterback, but I don't think you draft one high,” Jerry Jones said. “The guys I'm thinking about would not be first-rounders. But when I got to round three, I'd take (Florida State's) Chris Weinke or (Oklahoma's) Josh Heupel.”

        Lippincott, coincidentally, was en route to Oklahoma on Tuesday evening as part of a scouting expedition. How soon he revisits the Sooners may depend on Smith's progress.

        E-mail: tsullivan@enquirer.com.

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