Bengals Stand on Sideline with Hand Up Butt

Are you kidding me?  Curnutte and Hobson are fooling no one.  My 58 year old father wrote an e-mail to Curnutte today informing him that he's fooling no one and calling him for what he is...a megaphone for Mike Brown's propaganda. 

Dustin Dow's question was a great, pressing question that needed to be asked and highlights the important issue that's often plagued us in the past:  Would winning 3 games in a row camoflauge obvious areas of need allowing management to justify that no changes need to be made?  When Hobson and Curnutte simultaneously come out with similar reports suggesting just that, as Comrade Buck highlights, it is not a coincidence.  It looks like winning the last three games may have just done that...allow Bengals management to stay the current course.  My only wonder is if the Bengals are simply looking for a justification to make no changes or they really are that naive.  My guess is the former. 

While I believe that Marvin needs to hit the road, let's put that aside.  What possible justification is there for Bob Bratkowski to remain?  Curnutte highlights that "Bob Bratkowski is not likely to take a fall, even though the Bengals scored a league-worst 204 points, because his offense didn't have Palmer for 12 games."  A league worst 204 points?  This is worse than the 0-16 Detroit Lions.  Even if we didn't have Palmer for 12 games, we had him for 4 games and guess what our record was then?  0-4.  In addition, we went 7-9 last year and even won 4 out of our last 6 (far after we were eliminated from playoff contention) just to get to that point.  Bratkowski has overseen the steady demise of an offensive machine three years ago to the league's lowest scoring NFL offense.  Keeping Bratkowski aboard would remind fans of one thing..."We don't care."  This is why I , personally, finally shed one of my douche bag tendencies and cancelled my season tickets.  Our team doesn't care...and until it shows signs of it caring, I will not be a season ticket holder or spend any money on tickets or merchandise.  I'm fully expecting to divorce the Bengals and be a fan of another team in a couple of seasons.

Other teams are quickly moving to get a jump on necessary changes.  The Browns have fired their head coach, their GM and have requested permission to interview New England Patriots' VP of Player Personnel, Scott Pioli for their GM opening.  The New York Jets, who went 9-7 and have had two winning seasons out of the last three, even fired their head coach Eric Mangini.  The Detroit Lions fired Rod Marinelli and have received permission to interview one of the most promising young coaching candidates in Steve Spagnuolo.  And what are the Bengals doing?  Sitting on the couch with their hands up their butt and conditioning its fans through Curnutte and Hobson that no changes will be made. 

Comments

[K. Phelps]

No matter what it is not cool to switch allegiences. Thats fair weather which is more pathetic than the bengals season

[Capt. Steve-O]

that's not a fair assessment Comrade K.Phelps. If it would finally come down to that, Comrade Who Dey NYC would not be switching allegiances on a whim or being fairweather, ie - he jumped on the bandwagon in 2005 and bailed out in 2006 or whatever. This goes much further than that.
An act such as that would be the inevitable(?) result of 2 decades of systematic failure. 2 decades of inept, callous, greedy, incompetent, stubborn failure in its most vile form, which does not give a flying fuck about the loyalties of its long suffering fan base.
Look at the other organizations that were mentioned above: The Lions, God-awful and trying to do something about it. They might not be successful, but goddamnit they're trying. Miami? The results speak for themselves. Cleveland is not tolerating this. The list goes on and on, except in Cincinnati. Where losing is so culturaly ingrained it is mixed in with the field chalk. I compare Mikey Boy with Nero, slowly fiddling away while the city around him burns.

The thought of actively following another team has crossed my mind plenty of times. Call it being fair weather or whatever the fuck you want, but I call it a potentially woeful resignation to the fact that my football lifeblood has been slowly drained for nearly 2 decades. However, as much as I root for the Giants, I just can't put my heart and soul into it as I do each Sunday watching the Bengals. Yes, I'm a Type 1A Douchebag, but "I is what I is".

Fuck. I hate you Mike Brown. I really do.

Best Regards,
Capt. Steve-O, Commanding Officer of the USS Who Douche, slowly sinking since 1991.

[Who Dey NYC]

Thanks for getting the old back Capt. Steve-O...my thoughts exactly. This next week and the week that free agency begins to me are among the most frustrating to be a Bengals fan. Not only are Pittsburgh and Baltimore in the playoffs but Cleveland is making all kinds of changes, which clearly shows that they care. Even Detroit and Oakland are making changes. As for the Bengals...hand up butt. It is early but those two articles from parasites, Hobson and Curnutte, are scary and depressing.

The only other thought I would add is that I'm probably all talk. I'd like to think I could divorce the Bengals but I wouldn't be surprised if I couldn't. I am potentially a battered wife.

[Deric]

Here are some numbers I think some of you may find interesting... In Mikeys 18 years running this team, the Bengals are 37-107 (.257) in the first 8 games. They are 64-79-1 (.448) in the last 8 games. Meaning they win more games after the season is already in the tank. Meaning more optimism for the start of the following season. They have started the year 1-7 or worse 7 out of 18 years under Mike Brown. As for Marvin Lewis, the team is 18-30 to start the year, 28-19-1 to end it. What I found most interesting is Marvins first half-season win percentage (-2005) is .300 Just thought some of you would find this interesting. Found all this on profootballreference.com

[Chili Dog]

would the bengals please consider that cleveland, washington and kansas city all suck?

what we should be looking at is going for a field goal in the waning moments of a game when you need two touchdowns.

marvin lewis is a TERRIBLE in-game coach. he plays to lose by as little as possible instead of taking risks in order to actually WIN.

if there are no big changes in this team, from the TOP DOWN, then this team is doomed to repeat this season next year.

[Scott Ricketts]

Same shit different day.

Fuck me running.

[Nick]

First, I want to say I have been a Bengals Fan ever since I first moved to Cincy back in 1988. As I have grown with the team, ever year my hate towards Mike Brown gets bigger and bigger. I have never seen such failure and lack of effort to make things better. Shit, the little kids that go to the games have more passion than Brown does. All he cares about is the money he makes every year from the die hard fans. I would love to have a meeting with that old fat fuck and give him a few choke slams till he sell the team to someone that cares. If we didnt have a credit crush right now, i would be lobbying every bank to lend me money to buy the team from him. The team is bad because of him, he gives them not direction, character or heart. This is FUCKIN CINCINNATI, WE ARE FOOTBALL!!!! MIKE BROWN MUST GO!!!!

[RedZeppelin]

Excellent post. I couldn't agree more about switching allegiances. If your team at least makes an honest effort you stick with them no matter what. But as you said the Bengals just aren't trying.

[Comrade Robert]

Wow why all the nattering nabobs of negativity? I mean next season Carson comes back along w/ Odell and Pollack and Rivers and everything will be fine.
Ok I'll but down the hooch now.

Seriously I think the next step is to go after Troy, Katie and her drunk brother Paul Brown Jr. If PBJ follows the path of his drunk uncle Pete and becomes Sr VP Player Personnel we're screwed for another generation.
If Mikey is not capable of public humiliation and embarrassment let's see how he likes it when his children are put front and center to take the darts and arrows. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Mikey's lovely wife Nancy can go to Krogers and no one knows who she is. Make it so Katie; whose face is known is embarrassed to show her face anywhere in public. As Katie told the Honorary Comrades in Dallas "You don't know how hard it is to run a pro football team!" Well Katie based on performance neither do you.

As fans we have held up our end of the bargain many times over. Can the Brown family say the same thing?

[PAl]

As a business owner, I would love it that no matter how big of a fuck up that I am and how shitty the product that I make is, I would still be guaranteed millions of dollars. My heart goes out to Katie and all that pressure she is under. Katis, just keep remembering that "stressed spelled backwards is desserts", if I remember your quote correctly. Your words of wisdom have gotten me through these rough economic times in my business but then again, I don't have all that pressure of running an NFL team.

[Daniel Venrick AKA the Danimal]

I can't stand Baghdad Hob. I think we need to beat unbiased reporting into his big ugly head somehow. He is a yes man for the Brown family, someone who will always give us articles that will make our tired and weary fanbase complacent. My suggestion is to hang him off of a scaffolding by his dick and balls, beat him like a pinata until his head explodes and then sodomize him with the ball bat we just beat him with(I watch way too many GWAR videos.) Who I'd like to hear do some fair and balanced reporting for our team is our radio crew(whose names I can never remember because I stop watching/listening to Bengal games every November, with the exception of 2005, yet I'm still bleeding Black and Orange)One of the guys calling the game on the radio during the week 6 game came out and said flat out that our offense SUCKED(which it did and still does, thanks a lot Brat). I'm about to send Baghdad Hob an angry e-mail. let's see if he posts it on our bourgeois affiliate www.cincinnatibengals.com. Viva LA Revolucion. Down With Brown. SB or Bust. It may get me banned from the boards at our bourgeois affiliate, but I don't give a shit. Most of those guys don't yet realize they're douchebags. I have just sent Hob my e-mail. Here's what I wrote, in full.

Dear Mr Hobson,
When are you gonna grow a set of stones and tell us like it really is instead of being Mike Brown's yes man and make your fan base complacent by putting on a positive spin on a season in which there is almost nothing positive to be taken out of it?

You're not fooling your fan base anymore. Most of us, myself included, see through the false hope, and are frustrated year in and year out. I demand to Mike Brown that some serious changes need to be made within the organization. I don't agree with what was said about no free agents worth looking at. I think Albert Haynesworth is definitely worth looking at. I just hope you have the stones to actually tell us that, and I also hope Mikey B will open his pocketbook just a little bit so that the Albert Haynesworths and the other prime free agents actually want to come to Cincinnati, and that The Brown family will do everything that it takes to give us a winning franchise. As a lifelong Bengals and Reds fan, I am really pissed off about the fact that our last meaningful playoff game in either sport was in 1990. I'm not threatening you. I'm just challenging you to get your head out of your ass and give it to us like it is, not report on false hopes and make your fan base complacent. Down With Brown. I doubt you'll reply to this, but by writing this to you, I feel a little better.

Sincerely
Dan V in Findlay, OH

[BMN]

The Dead Cat Bounce is real and the numbers prove it.

Mikey's record when the Bengals are in the playoffs (once), still have a shot at the playoffs, or have a shot at finishing .500?: 73-153-1 (.325)

The Bengals' record when they have nothing to play for/ have been mathematically eliminated?: 28-35 (.444)

And the aforementioned first half/second half breakdown is even worse!

How *anyone* could be fooled by a late season winning streak against three teams that failed to produce winning seasons after all of this history boggles the imagination. This Bengals team remains awful and don't let any sheople journalist tell you otherwise.

[suprchrge]

I'm detecting a lot of meritorious anger in here! This sort of passion needs to endure through the offseason. Can the Browns really ignore this criticism month after month, year after year? They need to be heckled in public - they deserve it. All of them.

WDR needs to organize some sort of demonstration in Cincinnati that would attract a large number of fans and garner media attention. There needs to be an empty podium, through which the fans demand Mike Brown, or one of his minions, speak and explain themselves and commit to winning a Superbowl. A simple invitation - "Mike, all we ask is that you come to this podium today and tell the entire fan base, in public, that you are committed to winning the superbowl and will do everything in your power to achieve it; that you are sorry for the 18 years of anguish you have occasioned onto the fans; and that you would like to move forward in a positive fashion."

I'm sure the fat bastard won't show.

[Capt. Steve-O]

agreed. now that the season (well, our season at least) is over, we cannot let the fire of the Revolution die down. Even when people are getting caught up in the hoopla of March Madness and another losing Reds season, we cannot slack off on our crusade against MFB and his wretched family.

Viva la Revoluccion. 24/7, 365, bitches.

[leaningtowerofpizza]

I don't understand why people think that Hobson, an employee of the Bengals, would provide an objective perspective? Can we stop being shocked by his loyalty to the guy who signs his paychecks?

[Chad P.]

I have pretty much decided that after 32 years as a Bengals fan, that I am going to offer up my allegiance to another organization, I just don't know how to do it. Here are my only guidelines:

No AFC North teams
No teams who have won a super bowl within the past 5 seasons
Teams must have made the playoffs twice this decade

That doesnt eliminate many teams. So now...

How do I decide this? I reside in Chicago, but really am not open to liking the Bears. They are a half-way successful version of the Bengals. Any ideas?

[suprchrge]

I have found that the easiest way to root for another team is to draft a few key players (at least two to play each week) from the actual team onto your fantasy team - it provides real incentive to cheer with fervor. Either that, or simply choose a team on which to bet money on a weekly basis; eventually, loyalty will come to fruition. For example, one might draft Ronnie Brown and Chad Pennington, or Kurt Warner and Larry Fitzgerald, and/or place 50 bucks on the mysterious Texas to win every week! In the meantime, you can cheer for these clowns and curse Mike Brown straight to hell.

[Chad P.]

After a discussion with some friends here in Chicago, I think I am going to go with either Houston, or whoever drafts Pat White in the spring. Being a WVU Alumnus, this will give me a chance to start anew until Mike Brown meets his untimely demise.

[Daniel Venrick AKA the Danimal]

If Marvin gets fired...Shanahan is available. But I wouldn't count on Mikey B to hire a proven winner...especially one with the track record of Shanny. Truth is when/if Marvin gets fired/resigns...oh god no... I'm contemplating suicide or at least putting myself in an unfortunate situation at the thought of Brat becoming head coach.