The Bengals' young wide receivers, maligned most of last season for being out of sync with quarterback Jon Kitna, made an impressive showing in minicamp over the weekend.

        Take it from none other than Kitna, who pointed out their mistakes in running pass routes and reading defenses throughout 2001.

        “Just going out, lining up, the splits are right, the depth is right, that kind of stuff,” Kitna said Monday, after the last scheduled minicamp session. “We weren't really there until the latter part of the season last year. So that's very encouraging. You could just tell guys came back with a different focus.”

        With veteran Darnay Scott sitting out because of a sore shin he broke two years ago, the core of the Bengals' receiving corps is young — but experienced. There are third-year pros Peter Warrick, Ron Dugans and Danny Farmer and second-year players Chad Johnson and T.J. Houshmandzadeh.

        The Bengals were ranked No.23 in passing last season and had only 12 touchdown receptions, including just nine in the first 14 games.

        “What happened, we started out 2-0, then we sputtered,” Houshmandzadeh said. “Expectations were we should keep this going all year, but we didn't. The blame had to fall somewhere. It went to the receivers.”

        Just about everything in the pass offense was new last year. First-year coordinator Bob Bratkowski installed a new scheme. Kitna was in his first year. Johnson and Houshmandzadeh were rookies.

        “Now, as a group, the receivers and the quarterback, we know him, he knows us, and we all know the offense,” Johnson said. “Now it's just play catch. Period.”

        Quarterback Gus Frerotte, who signed Wednesday and is competing with Kitna for the starting job, said he liked what he saw from the receivers.

        Bratkowski's pass offense is more complicated than the West Coast offense Frerotte played in last season for the Broncos. In Denver, receivers ran the same route, regardless of blitzes or defensive adjustments. In Cincinnati, the receivers have to adjust their routes — known as “hot reads” — depending on what the defense does.

        “I didn't see too many mental errors, as you would see in young guys,” Frerotte said of the receivers' performance this weekend. “They knew the offense. They've still got to work on sight adjustments. We all have a lot of work to do.”

        Kitna endured the growing pains last year. Like coach Dick LeBeau, he said the pass offense is “light years” of where it was last season.

        “Last year, we couldn't even use hard counts,” Kitna said of quarterback verbal signals designed to draw the defense offside, “until the end of training camp. We were in those full time this weekend, and we only jumped once as an offensive unit.”

        Kitna and Frerotte will stay in Cincinnati for the 14 voluntary veteran workouts that begin today. They'll be working with the receivers.

        “Our focus the rest of the time we're here is that anything less than perfection is unacceptable,” Kitna said. “We shouldn't have any down days in the second year in the system. We should never have days under 50 percent. We should be 60, 70, up to 80 percent.”

        The Bengals averaged 193 yards a game passing last season. They averaged 375 in the last two games, victories over Pittsburgh and Tennessee.

        “We were very productive in the last two games,” LeBeau said. “That is our goal, to establish that as our base now and perform on that level as long as we're together. There was much less what-iffing (at minicamp) and just timing and running the routes. Our passing game looked pretty good.”

        Farmer and Warrick said the receivers want to prove that the end of 2001 was not a fluke.

        “The little things,” Warrick said. “Being a professional is about being consistent and paying attention to detail. If I'm supposed to run a 12-yard route, run 12, not 10.”

Bengals WRs make big strides at minicamp Notes: Frerotte has a good first impression

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