By Mark Curnutte
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LaDainian Tomlinson

Give LaDainian Tomlinson a possible assist in helping Marvin Lewis keep his Bengals players focused on the Chargers.

Tomlinson, the San Diego running back, gave Lewis some bulletin board material Monday.

"You play for pride," Tomlinson said the day after the Chargers lost 37-8 to Denver. "You play not to get laughed at and not to be called the Cincinnati Bengals of the league."

The Chargers are 2-8, though the Bengals historically have struggled in West Coast games. The Bengals are favored to win and at least maintain a share of the AFC North division lead.

Tomlinson went on to compliment the Bengals, but the damage had been done.

"Look what they're doing now; they're 5-5 and beat the undefeated team in the Chiefs," he said. "Now there's a new team that everyone is laughing at and picking on. We could easily become that team."

Lewis informed his players of Tomlinson's comments.

"Yeah, I did see the quotes," Lewis said Wednesday in his news conference. "So did our players. Well, it's not surprising. But it is what it is. We're going to prove him wrong."

Last week, the Bengals were on the opposite end of the quote game. Wide receiver Chad Johnson guaranteed a victory over the previously undefeated Chiefs, a comment that was not warmly received in Kansas City.

Lewis wants to avoid the problems his team had three weeks ago at Arizona. Playing for a chance to even their record at 4-4, the Bengals lost 17-14 to the Cardinals.

One of the problems early in that game was crowd noise, though the announced attendance at Sun Devil Stadium was 23,531.

Bengals quarterback Jon Kitna said the offense missed a first down because it wasn't prepared for the noise.

"We didn't work the whole week, the Arizona week, on the silent count in the shotgun," Kitna said. "We're going to work on that already today in the walkthrough. You learn you cannot take anyone lightly in this league."

Sure enough, the afternoon practice Wednesday opened with the first-team offense working against piped-in crowd noise.

Player relations director Eric Ball turned up the volume on pre-recorded crowd noise when the offense approached the line.

"We've got to learn how," Lewis yelled to players.

The Bengals are 1-12 on the West Coast since 1990, and Lewis' team lost by three points at Oakland. It also lost by three at Arizona. The Bengals are 19-81 on the road since the start of the 1991 season.

"There's nothing about playing on the West Coast," Lewis said.

"We lost ground in our season in Arizona. Then we fought hard and scratched ... to get it back again. Let's not lose this time."

The Bengals have lost four in a row at San Diego. Containing Tomlinson will be a major factor. He is fifth in the NFL in rushing with 971 yards and leads the team with 57 receptions for another 342 yards.

"He's got great speed, great awareness, great feet, has fumbled the football quite a bit this year, so we've got to get after him," Lewis said of Tomlinson.

Actually, Tomlinson has fumbled once this season in 237 touches and one time in every 90.5 touches in his three-year career. And eight fumbles came in his rookie season, 2001.

"This is a big football game," Lewis said. "If we don't want to be those same old Bengals, we better go win this one."

E-mail mcurnutte@enquirer.com