Rookie defensive end Justin Smith will make his NFL debut Sunday at home against the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens.

        Smith, whose holdout reached 51 days before he signed, took advantage of the postponed games to study and get into “football shape.”

        “It gave me an extra week to get into the playbook,” Smith said Wednesday. “I would have been ready to play last week. Now I'm really ready to play. I better produce.”

        Smith probably will play on passing downs. He'll be up against left tackle Jonathan Ogden, a four-time Pro Bowl starter.

        “He's good,” Bengals coach Dick LeBeau said of Ogden. “(Smith) will get to see what life is like in the National Football League. Justin — let's remember — he's been on the practice field for 10 days, virtually.

        “As soon as he can assimilate the defense, we hope to expand his role. That's why we drafted him.”

        SNUBBEDBengals linebacker Takeo Spikes didn't like what he heard from Ravens quarterback Elvis Grbac, who took less money to sign as an unrestricted free agent in Baltimore than he was offered by the Bengals in March.

        “He snubbed us,” Spikes said. “He pretty much basically just put it in real terms, not dress it up that they're a bunch of losers regardless of how much money.

        “Because it was more money on the table here than it was in Baltimore, so to me I take that as a slap in the face that he didn't want to come here because he felt like we weren't winners. But you've got to do what you've got to do, so it's time for us to do what we've got to do.”

        PAINTING CREW: A group of Bengals players will participate Tuesday in the annual NFL-United Way Hometown Huddle by painting the gym of the LeBlond Boys and Girls Club in Over-the-Rhine.

        The players will provide the labor, and NFL Charities has provided a $1,000 grant to cover the cost of materials.

        More than 300 NFL players nationwide are expected to participate.

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