Sports are subjective. Predicting outcomes of games, seasons and strategic decisions is a matter of probability, not certainty. And I intensely dislike stating an opinion of mine as if it is a fact.
Take the Chris Henry debacle: I happen to believe it is an unequivocal disaster, but, yes, I could be wrong. But in this case, I DO NOT CARE THAT I COULD BE WRONG. If you believe resigning him was the right thing to do - you are wrong, period. And even if he turns out to be productive during the season, you were still wrong for wanting him in the first place.
This has been discussed in previous posts, so I won't elaborate any further.
So, let's take some sides and see who is saying what on the Henry situation. To paraphrase Mike Brown himself, let's divide the media and blog world into "Redeemers" and "Non-Redeemers" to see who has fallen on the right and wrong side of this issue.
Non-Redeemers (Right)
Paul Daugherty - The Doc has a good column up and mentions all the key points, particularly that this decision is all Mike Brown's decision (not Marvin's), the decision was in the works well before we "needed" to add receivers cause of injury/poor play, and Marvin has been completely neutered.
Chick Ludwig - Nails it as usual, though I think he doesn't fully realize this was in the works a long time ago.
Mo Egger - Bless his soul, just, bless his soul.
Lance McAlister - Bless his soul too, he has a great post up - grammar and proper sentence structure be damned.
Stripe Hype - Has their own comprehensive roundup, solid work as usual.
Bengals Nation Daily - Mr. Pragmatic lives up to his name.
Redeemers (Wrong)
Alan Cutler - Being a NYC resident these days, I am not exposed to him much, so I don't know if he is usually this short-sighted. But after reading his points I feel much dumber. Of special note is his audacity to compare Henry to Josh Hamilton, a terribly flawed analogy once you think about it for more than .005 seconds. Also note he is the only person I know defending this decision except for belligerent Brown apologists who are about as literate as a donkey.
Taking No Sides (Lame)
Cincy Jungle - At first I had them in Redeemers, but that was somewhat unfair as Kirkendall is making an effort to be fair to both sides of the argument. However, since the idea of signing Henry is flawed by default, trying to weigh the costs and benefits of signing him is an exercise in futility. Also, CDS has a post up that comes out on the Non-Redeemers side. So it's a wash.
Mark Curnutte - The beat man just reports, it's up to you to decide, as expected...
That's the basic list for now. Think of this list as a good barometer of those who truly understand what is wrong with the Bengals and those who have their eyes closed. Mike Brown is in charge and we are all going to suffer for it. End of story.
Paul Daugherty is NOTHING more than a shock jock, and when it really comes down to it, a strait A**H*LE. He is the root of Chad Johnson's problems with the Cincinnati media. Chad let him into his home and his life, let him meet his Grandmother, then the guy comes back and torches him for what... so he can get a little press for his C1 story on Chad being selfish? What and F*ing jerk. The guy came from the east coast, and he certainly acts like it. He's a total A** Clown.
WHo the hell gave this guy a show on 700? I heard him interview Carson (the only time I would ever turn him on) RE: Carson's blast of Ohio state, and the whole time he's trying to goad him into making some accidental, inflammitory comment (i.e., "Man hows it going there in Georgetown, thats gotta suck huh, nothing to do there right?"). Luckily Carson is 1,000x smarter than Daugherty and easily outmanuevered his simple mind.
P.S. What do you think the tally will be when Chris Henry is pulling in 75 yard rocket launched touch down bombs?????
Posted by: KY6 | August 19, 2008 at 03:34 PM
I think KY6 is Troy Blackburn.
Posted by: Andrew Simon | August 19, 2008 at 04:12 PM
Paul Daugherty's writing on the Bengals has been consistently good for well over a decade now. His writing on the Reds? Well, that leaves much to be desired (just google search his name + Fire Joe Morgan to find out more). But he is no shock jock.
Look, we're biased towards negativity KY6 because we haven't had success in 17 years in a league built for competitive balance. We're in a weird period where supreme offensive talent plus luck can every now then make it seems like things have changed here. But they haven't. We are still run like a 3rd rate operation and it's a problem. Demand better for chrissake.
Posted by: Sleeping With Bieniemy | August 19, 2008 at 04:21 PM
KY6. I'm guessing that KY stands for Kentucky.
Posted by: Who Don't | August 19, 2008 at 04:30 PM
Gregg Easterbrock's Thoughts on Mike Brown
"What the Bengals really need is a new front office. Five of the six top names on the team's business masthead are Mike Brown, Pete Brown, Katie Blackburn (born Katie Brown), Paul Brown and Troy Blackburn, Katie's hubby. The Bengals have no professional general manager; year in and year out, it shows. Players goof off and act up without accountability, while the Browns obsess about their famously weird contracts that ban players from saying anything critical of the Browns. The last Bengals head coach who had a strong personality and a secure hand on the tiller was Sam Wyche, who took Cincinnati to Super Bowl XXIII. When franchise founder Paul Brown died in 1991, making his son Mike president, one of Mike's first acts was to fire Wyche -- by his knowledge of the sport, Wyche was bureaucratically threatening to Mike Brown. Since then, Mike Brown has brought in a succession of weak-personality coaches: Dave Shula, Bruce Coslet, Dick LeBeau and now Lewis. (LeBeau is a really tremendous defensive coordinator, but seemed unsure of himself in the head coach role.) Clearly what Mike Brown wants is a weak coach who will never talk back to the many Browns mismanaging the front office."
Posted by: Jimmy D. | August 19, 2008 at 05:18 PM
i CANT wait until you all see the error in your ways. You'll come crawling back with the other bandwagon fans when Carson starts jacking up THE LONG BALL and we are winning football games. Mike Brown seems like a great guy to me. I heard he's really misunderstood and is an outstanding human being. The Browns will lead this team back to GREATNESS.
Posted by: KY6 | August 19, 2008 at 05:23 PM
BTW, Alan Cutler is the man. He a UK guy (+) and he has it right on the Bengals many times. Cut man rules. Go CATS go Bengals.
Super Bowl '09
Posted by: KY6 | August 19, 2008 at 05:28 PM
To be honest, I want to win. A productive Henry improves our chances far beyond Maxwell, Chatman, Holt, or any of the rookies.
Judging by his mistakes last year, his offseason behavior, his failure to get the ankle looked after in a timely manner, and his punk-ass lack of effort going for that eventually intercepted ball Sunday night- the one where he bruised his delicate self, I don't trust our number one receiver as far as I can throw him. I don't trust T.J.'s hamstring, attitude, or age either, which pretty much leaves Utecht and Perry as Carson's only options til Simpson and/or Caldwell are ready.
Henry's not an axe-murderer, he's not a rapist, so far as we know, he's not a wife-beater. He's just wrong-headed, rudderless, and hugely talented. I wonder, if Mike and Marvin hadn't been so adamant and specific poo-pooing this ever happening, would everyone would have their knickers so knotted and wedged about it? Me? I've learned to interpret Mike Brown by assuming he means exactly the opposite of what he says.
We've got way bigger problems than Henry being back.
Posted by: IgnatiusJReilly | August 19, 2008 at 09:46 PM
I want to win too, and NOTHING Mike Brown has done has brought that to our franchise.
NOT
ONE
DAM
THING
So to think for even a minute, that continuing on with the same group of hoodlums that have gotten us 8-8 seasons is going to result in wins is sheer lunacy. Until there's a massive change in the front office, we're going to have crappy years and occasionally get lucky.
6 - 10 if we're lucky.
Posted by: Scott Ricketts | August 19, 2008 at 10:17 PM
KY6 + IgnatiusJReilly = Idiocracy
Why come you guys no have a tattoo?
Posted by: Sleeping With Bieniemy | August 20, 2008 at 12:29 AM
It's been said to death over the past twenty-four hours, and I'll say it again. Do I want to win? Yes.
Do I want to have the best possible players on the field at any given time? Yes.
Is Chris Henry that guy? Absolutely not. The only way he could have shown himself to be less reliable would have been to have the gun, underage girls, weed and booze WITH HIM ON THE FIELD.
This punched Marvin's ticket out of town. You can take it to the bank. Marv may not be the best guy, but he's the only guy with a winning record under Mikey Boy.
I'm sure we'll have lots of fun watching Paul Alexander or Bob Bratkowski as our head coach next year though.
Check me out here where I weigh in... http://www.bengalnationdaily.com/2008/08/and-now-for-something-completely.html
Posted by: A Pragmatic Bengals FAn | August 20, 2008 at 01:03 AM
I object to being associated with KY6. I'd like to see Mike Brown impaled on a pike and displayed on Fountain Square for all to spit on. If y'all are doing anything to try and change the situation- besides griping anonymously about him and posting meaningless cybermanifestos, please let me know. I'll bring the torches and the pitchforks.
The only way this will ever change is by hitting him in the wallet. If season ticket holders stop filling the seats, if people stop buying up Carson jerseys, if people fill up the tailgating lots on game day with signs expressing specifically their displeasure with the Brown family's stewardship of this team- and then don't go into the stadium, if people petition the city government- hey. if the US Senate has time to waste on steroids in baseball and the Patriots video spying, surely the city council can make some sort of resolution, if people stop going downtown at all on Bengal game days, maybe the city would feel the pinch. I mean, what if they held a football game and nobody showed up. Don't we have another home preseason game, where we could show His Incompetency we mean business.
Because, frankly, otherwise, we just have to make do with what we've got and we've got Chris Henry, whether Sleeping With Bieniemy approves or not.
Posted by: IgnatiusJReilly | August 20, 2008 at 02:31 PM
Apologies for lumping you in with KY6, Mr Reilly, as he is clearly not serious. I think eventually the fans do need to organize something which will force them to hire a GM...otherwise it won't happen until Mike dies (I am somewhat confident Katie will hire one, I will get into that later). We don't have much influence anyway, need a media personality lead something like this. But we are thinking about it, believe me.
Posted by: Sleeping With Bieniemy | August 20, 2008 at 05:03 PM
If this franchise had any sense, it would have hired Mike Lombardi the second he was available two years ago to be their GM. As a matter of fact, I'd wager the only reason he's in the media rather than an NFL front office at this point is because 99% of NFL teams actually HAVE GM's already.
/common sense
Posted by: A Pragmatic Bengals FAn | August 20, 2008 at 05:50 PM
MIKE BROWN FOR MAYOR... WHOSE WITH ME???
Posted by: KY6 | August 20, 2008 at 07:53 PM