DaytonDailyNews.com

CINCINNATI — His message to the team was raw and without hint of retreat.

"I told all the guys the last thing we're ever gonna do here is be a joke — a punk — to somebody. We gotta come out and fight and prove we are men."

That's what Andrew Whitworth told his fellow Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday, Nov. 1, after the team's final practice for the Jacksonville Jaguars. And, sure enough, come Sunday, the mountainous offensive guard then proved he was a man of his word when he was forced to deliver his promise with a few roundhouse punches.

With that symbolic moment, the Bengals finally quit being the punks of pro football. They won their first game Sunday — after a league-leading eight straight losses — pushing aside Jacksonville 21-19 at Paul Brown Stadium.

The Bengals did a lot of things Sunday they'd failed to do in their dismal 0-8 start, yet the thing everyone will remember most is the helmetless, cueball-domed Whitworth fighting back as an equally massive Jags defensive tackle, John Henderson, tried to, as the Bengals' lineman put it, "gouge my eyeballs out" in a midfield skirmish.

The scrap left Cincinnati tackle Levi Jones a bit awestruck. "Man, that was two 340-pound guys, both of them 6-foot-7. That's a lot of beef. That's two brahma bulls going at it.

Wide receiver Chad Ocho Cinco agreed: "It was like watching the UFC."

That's a switch. For the first half of the season it's been all KFC — with the Bengals as a bunch of Sky-is-Falling Chicken Littles.

Whitworth had had enough of it when he addressed the offense:

"I said, 'There used to be a day we walked around with confidence and nobody could step on the field with us. Now I get the feeling we're starting to think teams will walk in here and walk through us. We got to let 'em know we're not lying down for anybody.'

"Ironically, I was put in the situation where I had to show what we were made of," he said after the game.

The confrontation began late in the third quarter on a Cincinnati run play when Whitworth and Henderson tangled. "He swung and hit me in the helmet and I stood up and he jacked me in the face — just a blatant punch," Whitworth said.

Jones warned the refs when they threw no flags there would be trouble on the next play and there was. Henderson "just went crazy," is how Bengals receiver T. J. Houshmandzadeh put it.

"I pushed him past the quarterback, he fell and as he went down, he grabbed my face mask and ripped my helmet off," Whitworth said. "I turned and was going back to the play and he grabs me from behind and tries to rip my eyes right outta my face.

"At that point I had to defend myself before he maybe ruined my career."

Officials penalized both players and ejected them. As Whitworth made his way to the stadium tunnel, Bengals fans cheered his spunk.

"I don't know what the league will say, but Lord, I think it was self defense," Whitworth said. "I had to fight back."

And the fact that he had fought so well — UFC style, Ocho Cinco said — prompted someone afterward to ask whether there might be "some Kimbo Slice action" down the way?

"I'm not planning to Kimbo anything," he said with a grin of the overhyped MMA fighter. "I like my face too much. And I'd get in big trouble from my woman and my momma for that."