Who Wants to Become Our Next Tenured Offensive Coordinator?

Remember potential candidates: on field performance does not factor into your job security.  White hair is a plus though! (take that, youthful, hungry, up and coming prospects)

I am so unqualified to discuss who the Bengals should hire as their next offensive coordinator that someone should take the keyboard away from me right now.  But no one is here to do it so I will keep writing and we will all be dumber because of it.  

Joe Reedy proposes a nice list of candidates that I will limit myself to selecting from instead of simply considering "Everyone On Earth", even though "Everyone On Earth" is technically qualified to be the OC of the Bengals if the past is any guide.  From Joe Reedy's list, there's only one candidate in my mind that makes sense.  Norm Chow.  Why?

1. He has a history with Carson Palmer so the franchise player might ease up a little on his attempts at mutiny (note:  this is a reason for Mike Brown to hire him.  I, as a lover of chaos and destruction, am anxious to see the Carson thing morph into a giant conflagration that engulfs the entire franchise so I can watch it BURN)
2. He's, you know, good.  I know this because the greatest blog in the interwebs, EDSBS, tells me so (yes, that link is a post about Gary Crowton, who we'll call the "Bratwurst" of college football, but just read the short post til you get to the punchline.  Then read everything else on the site because it's awesome and deserves your full attention).

There's that little wrinkle of him just accepting a job at Utah or some other whitewash of a school located in a barren wasteland, but that's easily solved by offering him like, one order of Montgomery Inn Ribs and 3 Miller Lite vortex bottles (smooth pour!).  But seriously, we all complain about how transparent our offense became under Brat.  Then what better candidate to hire than Norm Chow, whose name just oozes with misdirection.  White?  Asian?  Both?  Neither?  I don't know.  And neither do you.

Make it happen Mike Brown.

Comments

[Wyatt]

Dude, it's Jim Zorn.

1. Brat gets fired only after Zorn does.
2. Zorn got removed from playcalling duties while HC in Washington and replaced by a guy who called BINGO. MIKE BROWN LOVES BINGO!
3. Mike knows the sheep who buy tickets will see it as the Bengals sticking it to the Ravens, even though the Ravens already fired him and even though the Ravens are the only AFCN team the Bengals can beat consistently (and that includes the Browns).

[kotw65]

Marvin has now said a few times that "They do not know who they are" "They do not have an identity" "They have been all over the place" "The good teams do things over and over"

Well, after 8 years this admission is a slap in the face to all bengal fans. He came here and promised change and all we have is 8 years and Who are we?

This is pathetic and truly shows that while he was given certain changes within the organization none of them pertained to personnel or organizational restructuring.

He has failed and put his tail between his legs to come back for more. MFB has failed yet still defiantly protects his way of conducting business. Now, we finally have a figure head on the block but other than that it is still the same organization.

Until there is a definitive plan for success put together by football professionals and adhered to by MFB to build a mindset to win and scouting to place players within it, we are still fucked....

I hate to say it but the steelers are the steelers and whether a coach or player if you do not bring your best you will be gone. They have a system and you are either in it or out.

They won the super bowl in 08, went 9-7 in 09, and fired the O-line coach, special teams coach, and Ken Anderson QB coach "retired" Now they are back in the superbowl.

This is a mindset that prevails because it is successful and they are not afraid to implement it as needed.

Norm Chow, Sheppard, whoever, until there are changes at the top it will still be a place to Lose, Collect a check, and wish you did not play here....

[TheCarlPickensClause]

Wyatt --

I agree that it'll be Zorn. My question to you is: is that a bad hire? I don't think it is, and that's not me yelling "BAHHHHH, more tickets, BAHHHH!". Former NFL QB and Head Coach (though unsuccessful as HC), Flacco had a career statistical year under Zorn last year and he was fired because they thought he was being "insubordinate" while wanting to have more say in the offensive play calls. Couple that with Flacco coming out saying he was very angry that Zorn got the axe and Ravens fans displeased with Cam Cameron because of this and the way their offense was late in the year and I don't know that Zorn is a bad idea.

Chow would be interesting. He's creative, but it would be a move predicated on appeasing Carson than anything else. He's got a pretty good track record, but he's also got a track record of bouncing around to numerous places and not getting along with other coaches or players. I've seen his work up close, living on the West Coast.

[Wyatt]

Pickens,

Not saying it's a bad pick by any means, just giving Mikey's reasoning for it. And I don't think everyone who like the pick is a sheep, just that the sheep will like it (kinda like "all squares are rectangles but not all rectangles are squares").

All I'll say about Norm Chow is this - wasn't he Vince Young's quarterback coach at Tennessee at some point?

[TheCarlPickensClause]

Wyatt --

I hear ya. And Chow was the Titans Offensive Coordinator at one point, I believe. So, yes, he coached Vince Young before he ran off to UCLA.

[Sly Vramavomovich]

RON PRINCE FOR OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR PAAAAWWWWWWLLLLLLLLLL

[kotw65]

Senior Bowl or Bust. This is where we get an up close look at all the players we can draft to play for many years in the NFL without producing wins just being in the game. Who Fucking Dey....

[Wyatt]

Uh, kotw65? Senior Bowl was last weekend, buddy.

And Pickens? I wanted to expound more earlier, but I was still at work and a co-worker was talking to me, so I lost my train of thought. My biggest reservation about Zorn is that he won't allow Carson (prohibitively assuming Carson is the starting QB next season) to run the no-huddle and thus, call his own plays. I'm concerned that a guy who lost his playcalling duties to a BINGO CALLER might not actually be an upgrade over Bob Bratkowski.

/knows a button-pushing chimpanzee would be a better playcaller than Brat.
//still concerned with Zorn's play calling abilities.

[blesterov]

Couple of thoughts:

1) Chow could be a good fit here from his history with Carson. Marvin went after him a couple of seasons ago, but if I remember correctly MFB blocked it. Vince Young is almost as dumb as Jamarcus Russell, and is why he is out in TN. Dumb QB's never do well in the NFL unless their name ends in Bradshaw. So Chow is not the reason Young did not do well- his scheme my have been too advanced for the mentally challenged.

2) Zorn sucked in DC. Actually I take that back, his entire offensive personnel sucked so it was very difficult to tell if he was actually good or not. One thing is for sure, he knows how to use a talented TE in the offense and is willing to attack a cover 2.

3) I really get a sense that Marvin is calling the shots on this one. His statement about not having an identity is key. Kotw65, I know you called him out on this, but you have to remember that Marvin has never been able to hire and fire anyone on his staff w/out MFB's approval. Which is why we were stuck with Brat for all these years. I really believe that if Marvin could have, he would have fired Brat years ago. Marvin is a coach that really wants an identity (most good teams do), he has it now with the defense. He just needs it with the offense.

4) I have a feeling Marvin is looking to bring in a ball buster with an aggressive attitude to light a fire under their asses to help reforge an offensive id- something we have been lacking since the 80's. Zorn sort of fits that mold, I don't know about Chow.

5) Other guys I would like are Brian Billick (ok HC, but was a real good OC before), the Titans present OC (he may leave depending on what happens with their new HC), and Brian Kelly would be a wet dream (but this is not going to happen).

[Mayor Cheow]

The idea of Norm Chow as OC just begs to be taken seriously, because he's like a cross between Norm MacDonald and Chairman Meow.

Btw, Bratkowski was much better when he played himself in the cult classic,
*A Clockwork Orange-and-Black-Offense*

Brat was also pretty good when he played a rockstar named "Reggie Wanker" in another cult film, *Get Crazy*, alongside such company as:

Lou Reed (formerly of the Velvet Underground), and also

Lee Ving (of the seminal L.A.-punk band FEAR, who is the best live band ever, and who you can tell really appreciates their audience, and maybe even beer --- unlike the Bengals front office, who barely pretends)

On another note, I am also compiling a list of possible candidates, to fill the Bengals OC position, in the wake of the departure of Bob Bratkowski, who was forced to abdicate. So far I have:

1. Mayor McCheese

2. Fruit Pie the Magician

3. Anyone else Offensive as Brat was
as Coordinator

4. Captain Crunch
(because you just know he's got a great head
of white hair under that captain hat,
which is part of a complete breakfast)

5. Eddie Deezen
(or not; because he might be too smart,
even though he's probably at least as
offensive)

6. Any of the guys from the movie,
"Strange Wilderness", who seem to have a lot in common with Brat and/or Mike Brown, when it comes to ineptness-with-blissful-enthusiasm, and/or being the polar opposite of one's patriarch.

*This is not an exhaustive list by any means

[Kevin Jones]

Word at PFT is Jay Gruden.

[Rich]

Sort of ironic that an arena football guy would come to work for a team that won't buy an indoor practice facility, isn't it?

I wonder if it would be better to have a guy with some NFL experience as your OC. They always talk about how long it takes players to get used to the speed and power of the NFL. I wonder if it would be the same for coaches.

[Major Payne]

Would this be the first time a guy has been plucked out of arena ball to take a spot as high as coordinator in the NFL? I don't know for sure, but it's the first I remember. And I sure as hell don't know a thing about Jay, so I have no idea if getting him is as smart a move as hiring Zimmer or as bad a move as hiring Bresnahan.

All I know is, to make a move like this, Jay had better be a kick-ass coordinator with an ass-kicking attitude. Fans of all teams and prick sportswriters (a la Gregg Doyel) are not going to take an arena guy seriously. If he is not spot-on from the start, he will end up just one more in a long string of Bengals punch lines.