Bengals display new looks

Cincinnati hounded Vinny Testaverde in a 26-3 thrashing of the Cowboys.
CINCINNATI (AP) -- From their ultra-mod orange duds to their old-fashioned game plan, the Cincinnati Bengals sure looked a whole lot different.
The team they beat might be ready for some big changes, too.
Carson Palmer 'dinked' and dunked and connected perfectly on his only long pass, a 76-yard touchdown strike to Matt Schobel that set up Cincinnati's 26-3 victory Sunday over the Dallas Cowboys.
Playing in orange jerseys for the first time in their history, the Bengals (3-5) finally got the look that has eluded them. They won with solid special teams, a firm defense and an offense that needed only one grand moment to win.
Essentially, they looked like a team that Marvin Lewis would coach.
"Oh, yeah," said Palmer, who spent most of the game handing off and dumping off. "Coach Lewis is going to be fired up for a couple of weeks with the way our defense went out and shut them down."
Cowboys coach Bill Parcells is fired up, too, but for much different reasons.
Playoff hopes dimmed
Four losses in five games have left the Cowboys (3-5) with little hope of making the playoffs for a second straight season. Instead, they look more like a team in disarray.
Vinny Testaverde, who turns 41 next Saturday, threw three interceptions and lost a fumble. The Cowboys couldn't even dent the NFL's worst run defense -- Eddie George managed only 23 yards on eight carries.
The Bengals hadn't stifled an opponent so easily since a 38-3 win over expansion Houston on Nov. 3, 2002 -- one of their two wins that season.
"I don't know where we go from here, if anywhere," Parcells said. "I really don't have much to say, except we were poorly prepared, we played poorly, we were inefficient and we were just awful."
Testaverde has thrown six interceptions in the last three games, partly a function of his injury-ravaged receiving corps. Keyshawn Johnson is the only experienced receiver at his disposal.
It showed. It may not have mattered.
"Injuries? Nobody cares about that," said Testaverde, who was 18-of-30 for 207 yards. "The guys that line up have to perform at a high level."
Ponders lineup changes
Shortly after the game ended, owner Jerry Jones already was pondering lineup changes.
"Vinny's been a real surprise of our season so far," Jones said. "He had been our most positive surprise for us going into this game. Now we may have to look at what our other possibilities are as to any personnel changes. I won't speak to that right now."
While the Cowboys had trouble doing anything right, the Bengals finally got it right.
Cincinnati has relied way too much on Palmer in the season's first half, forcing him to try to lead fourth-quarter comebacks -- too much to ask of a novice quarterback.
Played mistake-free
This time, they got a win by asking him to do the minimum. He played mistake-free, completing 21-of-32 for 212 yards without a sack or interception. More than half of his completions went to running backs or tight ends; nine of them went for 5 yards or less.
Instead of throwing deep, the game plan called for him to be patient and dump off.
"It's extremely difficult," said Palmer, who had a 2-yard touchdown run in the closing minutes. "The fans want to see you go deep, and you want to go deep, get the ball to Chad [Johnson] and see him do something funny."
Nothing funny about this one -- with the possible exception of those jerseys.