This and that

• Jason Whitlock names his 10 best and 10 worst NFL coaches of the 2008 season so far, and Marvin appears on the bad list. Whitlock blames Marvin for creating the Chad Johnson situation and for allowing Chad and T.J. Houshmandzadeh to take over the Bengals the way Randy Moss and Cris Carter once did the Vikings.

• In case you missed it, WhoDeyRevolution's Project Mayhem Task No. 3 is a complete boycott of Bengals merchandise and concessions.

As far as this Sunday, ProFootballTalk.com reports that the Eagles are getting healthy. Not good for the Bengals. You at least want Brian Westbrook to say he's banged up, as usual, right?

• Hot Stove: In Jayson Stark's Time to check the shopping lists, he has Mark Mulder as the free agent who could top the Reds' list. He says a veteran starting pitcher is what they need.

All I know is he would have to accept a lot less money than he made in 2008 ($7 million). The Reds don't need to be paying that much money for a guy who pitched less than 2 innings last season.

Also, in ESPN Insider-only content (not linked), Stark said the Reds are investigating whether there's a market for Bronson Arroyo and says Texas might be interested.

I actually could see Arroyo getting shipped to the Rangers as part of a deal to bring a catcher here.

Sounds like J.J. Hardy is available, according to Ken Rosenthal. Wouldn't mind seeing the Reds pursue him.

• Most Baseball Prospectus stuff also is for subscribers' only, but they do reveal the Reds Top 11 Prospects, with Yonder Alonso topping the list as a five-star prospect and Todd Frazier and Drew Stubbs rated as four-star prospects.

• Herb Sendek, who was a head coach at Miami University and an assistant under Rick Pitino at Kentucky, got a national letter of intent from guard Trent Lockett, who says he'll attend Arizona State and he's also expected to land Ruslan Pateev, a 7-foot, 240-pound center at Montverde Academy in Florida.

Herb's former team, by the way, had a very strong effort against a stacked UCLA team last night.

• I gave my buddy Stewart a hard time for picking Louisville to beat UC tonight. I don't see it ... Cardinals have been downright lousy the past two weeks. Check out Eric Wood if you tune into tonight's game though. Louisville's center is a Cincinnati native who attended Elder High School, and he might be the best center in the country and the first drafted. Think about whether you'd like to see the Bengals take him near the top of the second round.

• Non-local link of the day: Not sports-related, in fact. An old summer camp friend, Joel Levinson, was on Jay Leno the other night, and The New York Times wrote a feature about him last month. Give it a read, and tell me it doesn't make you think about doing the same thing Joel did and just start entering these contests.