As this season slowly fell apart after only 6 games, the pain was blunted by looking at the comparably shitty performances from St. Louis and Detroit. Though both the Lions and Rams started the season with lower expectations, so their winless start shouldn't have come as such a big surprise, both teams recently made big moves to show their team that they will do whatever it takes to win. The Lions finally put on their common-sense hats and fired team President Matt Millen (touching tribute video found here) and the Rams fired Scott Linehan and promoted ex-Saints coach Jim Haslett (though based on his tenure in NO, this might not be the smartest long term move). The Rams went out and beat the Redskins at FedEx last week and the Lions, well the Lions took an intentional safety.
But for the first time in a long time, each franchise seems to have a much clearer plan for success than the "gotta keep working" mantra of Marvin Lewis. The Lions made a trade this week (moving Roy Williams to Dallas for a 1st, 3rd and 6th round pick in 2009 and a 7th rounder in 2010) that was universilly praised.
As suffering Bengals fans, WDR has to ask: What are the Bengals going to do to turn things around?
Before the season, the Redskins offered a 1st and 2nd rounder in 2009 for Chad Johnson, which WDR said the Bengals should take. The Bengals turned it down and are paying Chad Johnson base salaries of $3 million (for 2008), $4.5 million (2009), $5 million (2010) and $6 million (2011), plus bonuses. This season Chad has 216 yards and 1 TD. Do you think Bengals fans would take the 1st and 2nd round picks now? And I wonder if Owner/GM Extraordinaire Mike Brown had Chad Johnson in the mix to trade to Dallas. Do you really think Jerry Jones would have rather had Roy Williams over Chad?
And as WDR has opined repeatedly in the past, firing Marvin and Brat is not going to catapult the Bengals into the Super Bowl. Mikey will either install another yes-man, or put in someone with actual coaching talent (like Marvin) and then just slowly take the life out of his now soulless body until he is nothing more than a chuckle and excuse.
Change has to start at the top. Hey Mikey - I have a 3 point plan for turning the Bengals around.
1. Hire a GM and other football guys.
2. Give them a pot of money.
3. Get the fuck out of the way.
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