It began with a whimper, not a roar, last Saturday morning. Incumbent Jon Kitna and challenger Gus Frerotte winged passes upfield to little fanfare accompanying a heated competition that could require three months to settle.

Certainly the battle for the starting quarterback job with the Cincinnati Bengals is neither the sexiest such duel that will take place this spring and summer (no one can top the combination of Steve Spurrier, four candidates and the scrutiny inherent to the nation's capital), nor the most compelling (Doug Flutie versus Drew Brees in San Diego is top-shelf stuff).

	Jon Kitna threw 12 touchdowns and 22 interceptions last season.

But it might be the most evenly contested and, given the perception the Bengals are but one consistent quarterback removed from respectability, arguably the most entertaining.

The Kitna-Frerotte duel is hardly the equivalent of matching dead-eye gunslingers in the middle of Main Street, 50 paces apart, at high noon. The contestants in Cincinnati are journeymen by definition, but this year potential starters by design, and one will have the opportunity to try to shepherd the downtrodden Bengals to the playoffs for the first time since 1990.

The notion is not so far-fetched as some observers might imagine. Amid the degree of derision that deservedly accompanies a franchise that has not experienced so much as a break-even season since 1996, Cincinnati has quietly constructed a pretty good roster, but one still shy of a rather significant puzzle piece. And now Kitna and Frerotte are vying for the right to fill the hole.

For onetime Pro Bowl performer Frerotte, it represents a chance to quiet the whispers that he became overly content the past few seasons to simply pick up a paycheck, having served as caddy to Denver starter Brian Griese. For Kitna, it is yet the latest shot at redemption, a chance to prove he is not the turnover-prone passer he has been the past three seasons.

And for the Cincinnati franchise, one of the few remaining mom-and-pop operations in the NFL, it's a shot to crawl down off the bull's-eye. The Bengals have made themselves a pretty inviting target at times recently. But in a fairly stealthy manner, they have developed some depth and now feature a few players who probably would be viewed as Pro Bowl-caliber were they playing in a different NFL precinct.

"When I looked (at the roster) on paper, it looked like a pretty good team, better than it gets credit for being," said Frerotte, who signed a one-year contract with a signing bonus of $500,000 and base salary of $1 million. "Then when you get on the field with some of these guys, you realize how good they really are. There really is good talent here. This is a team that could sneak up on some people."

But only if it gets consistent play from the quarterback position.

Around the league, there are a number of quarterback competitions worth watching over the spring and summer. Spurrier likely will choose between former Florida starters Shane Matthews and Danny Wuerffel to lead him into his debut NFL campaign, as first-rounder Patrick Ramsey learns the ropes. Mike McMahon, who finished the season as the starter in Detroit, must hold off first-round choice Joey Harrington. Brees and Flutie will wage an intriguing battle with the Chargers, another team that is approaching postseason-caliber status.

Chris Chandler will push Jim Miller in Chicago, and Shaun King could make a strong run at Brad Johnson's starting spot in Tampa Bay. The Ravens have declared third-year pro Chris Redman the starter, but Jeff Blake could make things interesting. And in Houston, top overall draft choice David Carr figures to start sometime early in the season.

In only a few of those places, though, can the quarterback have as significant an impact as the winner of the competition in Cincinnati.

	“	I came here because it was important for me to prove to myself that I was still good enough to be the starter. Nothing is going to be handed to me. I expect that Jon (Kitna) and me are going to go at it pretty good. We're going to make each other better and, because of that, this team should be better. ”
		— Gus Frerotte, Bengals quarterback

Offensive right tackle Willie Anderson is one of the NFL's best players at his position. Tailback Corey Dillon is a three-time Pro Bowl player and a human battering ram who has rushed for more than 1,000 yards in each of his five seasons. The wide receiver corps is deep. Linebacker Takeo Spikes and defensive end Justin Smith are emerging stars.

Unless they get better play at quarterback, though, the Bengals will watch the playoffs on TV for another season. A focus on fixing that one critical position, though, is what could make the Cincinnati quarterback competition fairly compelling.

Said one AFC personnel director: "I don't want to (portray) Cincinnati as some kind of sleeping giant or anything, you know? But they have some players there. It's easy to take shots at them, and everyone does. Privately, though, people in the league know there is a lot of talent on that team. If they can get some quarterbacking ... who knows?"

It might appear unfair to lump so much culpability on one position but, the fact is, the Bengals in 2001 tended to sink or swim based on the performance at quarterback. In the games he won, Kitna threw seven touchdown passes and only four interceptions. In his losses, he threw 18 interception and just five touchdown passes.

Almost as significant, Kitna did not throw the ball up the field, as evidenced by a paltry 5.54 yards per attempt. Cincinnati has not had a quarterback above six yards per pass since Jeff Blake in 1999. And Blake in '94 was the last Bengals passer to throw for seven yards or more per attempt. Notable is that Frerotte's career average is 7.02 yards per pass.

At the same time, Frerotte is still recovering from offseason shoulder surgery, a procedure in which a tendon was taken from his elbow and grafted into his shoulder. He threw well enough Saturday to show that his rehabilitation is on pace, but he took it easy the rest of the weekend.

Signed to a four-year contract last spring, only after Frerotte rejected a similar deal, Kitna has bristled a bit at the prospect of having to scratch and claw to regain his starting spot. "The grass is not always greener," he noted after Frerotte signed last week. "I don't think it's the best thing for the team. There's confusion now as to who the starter is, and that is not what you want."

Those sentiments aside, most Cincinnati veterans privately acknowledge the competition will eventually be good for the team, and there are three months to sort out the confusion. In a league where the quarterback position has been devalued a bit, the Bengals don't need a Pro Bowl performance from their starter in 2002, probably just a passable one.

This is a team good enough that the quarterback doesn't necessarily have to win games, but not to the point yet where it can overcome a quarterback losing a contest on his own. Mere competence at the position could be enough to catapult the Bengals from the kind of ignominy they have suffered the past decade.

"I came here," Frerotte said, "because it was important for me to prove to myself that I was still good enough to be the starter. Nothing is going to be handed to me. I expect that Jon and me are going to go at it pretty good. We're going to make each other better and, because of that, this team should be better."

Len Pasquarelli is a senior writer for ESPN.com.