Quote of the Month and Offseason Timeline

Quote from Marvin Lewis' press conference on August 20, 2008:

At the end of the day, the owner obviously has the final say so on whether or not he wants to give a guy an opportunity or not and Mike has wanted to give Chris this opportunity and asked that we do the best job we can to prepare him and get him ready to play football and if he can be a positive influence on this football team and help us to win games and be productive as a receiver and get him better as a receiver and we feel that way after the suspension is over and he has a chance to earn a spot so that's what he asked me to do and that's what we are going to do....Mike makes decisions with my input and so forth all the time but every decision made in this building is ultimately his decision..."

There it is...for everyone to read point blank.  It comes as no surprise but despite the facade when Marvin was hired that he had more control than his predecessors, it is now directly on the table.  Mr. Brown is the dictator of Bengaldom.  We've gradually come to realize this since Marvin's hire but here is the admission and clear disagreement on a huge point between Mike and Marvin.  Mike Brown is the Emperor controlling the Dark Side...sorry, that's too much credit.  The Emperor actually had some success.  Mike Brown is a puppet master to one piece of f-ing *&#$ puppet show involving multiple pairs of socks.

OFFSEASON TIMELINE:

Our offseasons have never been the greatest but can you recall a worse one than this?  Let's recap in very rough chronological order:

-We franchise tag a player who at the start of the 2007 season was a backup in Stacy Andrews agreeing to pay him nearly $8 million this season.  Andrews clearly has no interest in signing a long term deal with us. 

2005 1st round draft pick, linebacker David Pollack, confirms he will retire.

Bengals sign 4th QB Jordan Palmer only to most likely eventually have to tell Carson: "Hey dude, we cut your brother."

For whatever reason, we re-sign Antonio Chatman, a 5-8 wide receiver who very well might not make another NFL football team.

For whatever reason, we re-sign Jonathan Fanene and all of his 6 tackles from last year

Trade for defensive tackle, Shaun Rogers falls apart. To make matters worse, the Browns pick him up.

Trade for defensive tackle, Dewayne Robertson falls apart.

Chad Johnson goes on a road show, demands a trade, ridicules the organization, Marvin Lewis and Carson Palmer, all while we tolerate it and, in the process, pass up the acquisition of two additional first round picks and choose to keep the lingering pain in the ass.

Levi Jones reveals he asked for a trade.

Ahmad Brooks gets arrested for punching a woman in the face, which possibly is the hardest he's hit anyone all year.

Odell Thurman gets arrested again.  Bengals release him eliminating our 2005 2nd round draft pick.

Chris Henry gets arrested off the field.  Bengals release him.

The Bengals hear for weeks how the New Orleans Saints will likely trade over us in the 2008 NFL draft to select monster defensive tackle, Sedrick Ellis, who clearly would fill our most desparate need evidenced by our two trade attempts to fill such need, only to stand aside with their hand up their butt while the Saints indeed do this.

Despite the attempts at acquiring upgrades at the defensive tackle position, the club chooses to sign Domato Peko to a 5 year contract extension worth $29.3 million thoroughly confusing the fan base.

Despite numerous off the field troubles from personnel, the Bengals sign Maurice Purify a college free agent with legal baggage and a receiver who will likely be of little use to us but will add to our image of brilliance.

Despite numerous offseason troubles and the release of Odell Thurman and Chris Henry, the Bengals draft Jason Shirley who's appearance at training camp is delayed due to an ongoing criminal trial.

We release 2007 2nd round draft pick, Kenny Irons who tore his ACL in a preseason game last year. 

Someone ate Jeremi Johnson and then showed up to camp claiming to be our fullback.

1st round pick, Keith Rivers, is one of the last two of the top 15 picks in the 2008 NFL draft to sign with the team causing him to miss a significant portion of training camp. 

News just in.  Our backup centers suck ensuring that we don't have depth behind this position despite the fact that we might not have even surface at this position.

Virtually zero reports of talks regarding a contract extension between the Bengals and one of our most consistent, tough players and a pro bowl wide receiver not to mention a fan favorite, T.J. Houshmandzadeh who is in the last year of his contract.

The Bengals take a huge figurative dump at PBS in their preseason opener against the Detroit Lions who by last check were one of the few football teams we thought for sure were worse than us.

Chad Johnson, draft pick Pat Sims and draft pick Andre Caldwell get injured in aforementioned preseason game.

Mike Brown and Marvin Lewis disagree publicly about whether Chris Henry should be signed.

Despite numerous off the field troubles from personnel, the Bengals re-sign Chris Henry, which does the following: (1) negates the release of Chris Henry and Odell Thurman, which might have suggested that we learned our leason, (2) tells a large majority of the fan base to go f*** itself and (3) makes Marvin Lewis looks stupid.

My previous articles guessed our record to be 8-8 and maybe 9-7.  I'm changing this.  I'm not going low to 4-12 or anything. I'm going to keep it painful as it has been recently. It's going to be 7-9...the kind like last year where we don't have much of a shot all year but that will make our dipshit owner think that people are happy because with a couple more wins, we might have made the playoffs.

Comments

[A Pragmatic Bengals FAn]

"Someone ate Jeremi Johnson and then showed up to camp claiming to be our fullback."

Oh man, that's one of the best laughs I've had in a while. GREAT line.

[IgnatiusJReilly]

"Defensive Guru" Marvin Lewis has actually looked stupid most of his tenure here, especially considering the turnover generating machine of 2005 was still a bad defense, just one that got lucky- and had that year's version of Favre and Daunte Culpeper on the menu.

Hating on Mike Brown for what the national sports media thinks of us is like hating GWBush for what the Europeans think. There's plenty of actual hate fodder for both without worrying about what others think. Case in point, the drafting of Jason Shirley. Who else could they have drafted in round five to help cover for the aforementioned fiddling while New Orleans burned? What has Jason Shirley done since his arrival to further besmirch our dingy reputation? And, most importantly, who the hell cares what anyone outside the fan base thinks about us? Same goes for the even less significant signing of Purify.

After Chad's mind-numbing off-season, there's no way he should have been allowed back in camp. The Redskins'pre-draft offer, the one with two firsts in return, would have enabled us to take the 2008 first and package it with a third- the eventual Sims pick- to move up for either Ellis or Dorsey. Some hyped Mikey and Marv's stand on this as evidence of their toughness but it really showed how pathetic and inept this organization is. No way Chad should be here now, no way, no how. Yeah, it would hurt offensively, yeah, we would struggle, but, most probably, we'd be a better team for it.

Losing out on both Rogers and Robertson will prove to be a good thing the first time Rogers takes a game off - on the field- in Cleveland and Robertson's knee(s) give out. Going after them in the first place was the mistake.

Given the Chad and TJ injury situations, Chatman may end up our most experienced wideout game one. I'm not a fan of Chatman but if Favre can get him the ball 56 times when the little guy is healthy, surely Carson can do the same? Caveat, don't let him get free shots taken on him by returning punts. That's what Dede Dorsey is for.

Peko's signing, I get. Fanene's, not so much, unless they were going for the aesthetics of long-haired, Samoan symmetry.

Couple of questions: Why no interest in LeCharles Bentley, even just for a tryout, given Santucci's injury and the lack of Ghiaciuc confidence? Though, personally, I'm glad to have Henry back, why not the recently released veteran, Joe Horn, to fill a role and to help shepherd the newbies? Especially considering Horn could actually play the first four games.

Apparently, Mike Zimmer's aggressive, in your face coaching style does not include teaching fundamentals. You know, like tackling? Swarming to the ball looks so much better when the ball carrier doesn't come squirting out the other side of the swarm.

And to the offensive line, there is simply no excuse, none, zero, for letting your star QB get face-planted repeatedly in a pre-season game. That's the worst sign of 'em all...well, with the proviso that we've grown so accustomed to the raw sewage emanating from the front office, that we don't always remember to comment on it.

[KY6]

"Who are we to say, 'You shouldn't do this?' We didn't help build this organization starting in 1968."
-Willie Anderson www.bengals.com

Just remember Mike Brown built this team, so bow down to him and be greatful. Marvin will get what's coming to him.

[Paul Katz]

KY6, you have taken comedy to a whole new level.

[Faded Stripes]

Until the Bengal dunderheads realize that the game is won at the line of scrimmage, both offensively and defensively, the team will always be inept. Recent examples: (1) Two years ago, with an aging offensive line crippled by Willie and Levi's continuing leg problems, we allow Eric Stenbach to go to Cleveland of all places through free agency. (2) In that same year, we tag Justin Smith and pay him as a top five defensive end when he was clearly no better than 16-18 in the league, if that good. (3) This year, after squandering several Million on Peko, a journeyman at best, we needed desparately to trade up to assure ourselves an opportunity to draft a good defensive lineman from a class loaded with such talent. We chose to sit on the 18th spot instead, lost a lineman,and wound up with another, albeit excellent, linebacker who will make a million tackles 5 yards beyond the line of scrimmage. (4) Then we franchise a back up offensive lineman (Andrews). What's with that? (5) It is also apparent that we encouraged the line to bulk up. Now, this Jurassic line averages over 330# but appears to be stuck in the mud. All of the bulk is fat without any muscle or nimbleness. Look Out Carson!

[Who Don't]

Faded Stripes,

You are indeed correct. Not only did we let Steinbach go, we also made the errant decision to sign Willie to a long term deal. Since then, he's had numerous injury problems. Franchising Justin Smith who had a grand total of two sacks last year was also ridiculous. That combined with this year's franchise tag of Stacy Andrews, that's $16 million improperly used for two years. This money could go to re-signing TJ or heaven forbid, attracting a big time free agent.

This is the first time I've documented a timeline of the offseason but something tells me, if we would have done so for years past, it would have looked somewhat similar.