WhoDeyRevolution

Week 17 Battle Lines Are Drawn: Bengals v Ravens and Bengals Fans v Mike Brown

I'll give the Bengals this: 2011 has been one hell of a season.  It's only fitting that the last week of the season promises to be a dramatic blow off top on a couple of levels.  The first level is on the field, where the team needs to beat the holy-crap-when-will-it-end Ray Lewis era Ravens. I don't have much to add there except to say that the Bengals are perfectly capable of winning and as 2.5 point dogs at home I'd even consider putting money on them.

The second level of interest is fan attendance.  Listening to local talk radio, it seems to be the main focus in fact.  Make that national media too.  See Pro Football Talk, Shutdown Corner at Yahoo!, ESPN and National Football Post for more.  I expected many of these outlets to get this story completely wrong, and call out the city for having "bad fans".  Instead, they get it kinda sorta correct and highlight the souring relationship between the fans and the ownership.  Gregg Doyel actually comes down harder on ownership than we probably do here at WDR.

With paid attendance seemingly fluctuating more or less in the 40,000s, essentially the Bengals have about 20K+ season tickets available for future seasons they would love to sell.  Another way to put it is that they are operating at 75% of the stadium's capacity.  I wanted to take a look, using the best data I could find with some basic searching, to see exactly what is going on here in Cincy.  We all have our own opinions and narratives we want to use to explain this story, but a little hard data goes a long way.

For starters, I'm working off of ESPN.com's attendance database, which is only good from 2006.  Not perfect, but good enough because it captures the growth just before the Great Recession, the Great Recession, the Lockout and some of the economic recovery.  For those interested, here's a spreadsheet of the data: Download Attendance Trends

In short, here is what has happened in Cincinnati:  Since 2006, paid attendance in capacity terms has fallen roughly 27%.  This happened in steady drips from 2007-2009 and then accelerated in 2010 and 2011. 

The glory years are over

If you haven't yet heard the news, brace yourself: after 21 groundbreaking years as Bengals director of football ops, Jim Lippincott has decided to "retire" (ie. move back to his old job as Moeller High School defensive coordinator).

Devastating news, I know. It's uncertain how in the hell the Bengals can fill the gaping hole left by Lippincott's departure. Who else will preside over the drafts that have yielded two (or maybe three!!!) playoff teams over more than two decades? Who else will, as Hobspin so lovingly writes, show up "with a gleam in his eye or a quick in his step"? Few personnel executives in the NFL today look so alive, so full of life and passion as that man to the right. But most importantly, who will wake fringe players up at 5:30 in the morning to inform them of their release? Who can ask for playbooks with such grace?

This quote by Lippincott about Mikey Boy truly says it all:

“To me, Mike is the living example of what a man should be. He’s honest, sincere, loyal, intelligent, gentlemanly. He made that part of the job easy."

As we all know, Jim Lippincott was grossly unqualified for the job he held with the Bengals; someone without any NFL experience cannot competently serve as one of the few scouts and personnel men for an organization, a fact that partially accounts for all of the losses we've witnessed throughout the years. But because he and Mike Brown have a good relationship -- because Lippincott apparently thinks the world of Mikey Boy -- he was fit for the position under Brown's standards. How insightful or talented Lippincott was never mattered; as long as Brown liked working alongside him, and as long as Lippincott never challenged Brown's authority over the team as its de facto GM, he was as good a director of football ops as could be found. This will certainly apply to whomever Brown gets to fill the position once Lippincott leaves.

People who wonder why we at WDR still protest the Bengals despite this 2011 season can look at Jim Lippincott for some enlightenment. The Bengals continue to be run less like an NFL organization than a pet project with which Mikey Boy can feed his ego and greed. Until the front office is packed with experienced, knowledgeable executives who have professional, not personal, appeal, the Bengals cannot reach sustained success. We all realize this, as well as how far away such a scenario is--the head of football ops without anything on his resume except 20+ years of failed drafts leaves, in the Bengals organization, due to a retirement and not a firing, to fanfare and not regret.

Bengals BOGO Fever

After waking up from the post-Christmas haze on Monday morning, the Bengals ticket office was innundated with season ticket holders lining the plaza at PBS and jamming the phone lines.  Their purpose?  To take advantage of a buy one, get one free ticket offer (no limit) to pack the cobweb filled upper decks of PBS for Sunday's win and in season finale against Baltimore.  The pro-shop is even cutting the prices of Bengals replica jerseys - from $80 to $50.  Profit is only now $45 per jersey, instead of $75.  (Don't expect a Valentine's Day present next year, Mrs. Brown)

Here's WDR's question - where was this ticket offer 6 weeks ago? 

Following the Pittsburgh game, the Bengals had four games left:  Cleveland, Houston, Arizona and Baltimore.  Ticket numbers ranged from low 40's for Houston, Arizona and Baltimore and high 40's for Cleveland.  The family KNEW that selling that many tickets at full price (cheapest ticket is $65) would at the very least a miracle, if not impossible.  Not to mention that three games fell directly around the holidays (Sunday after Thanksgiving, Christmas Eve and New Years Day).  Plus the weather would likely be crappy outside. Despite the fact the Bengals won a huge game in Tennessee to move to 6-2, very few tickets were sold over the next few days - a telling sign.

They could have, and should have, done some kind of promotion earlier.  Instead, it was typical Bengals - only reactionary, keeping their head in the sand...not looking ahead and attacking the problem head on.  They did offer a family four-pack for the Indianapolis game - where you received $65 in stadium bucks for buying 4 tickets - but Season Ticket Holders were rightfully not thrilled about being screwed once again.  No ticket deals with the lockout looming, no deals once the lockout ended, and next to nothing the entire season - where there have already been 6 blackouts. 

Do you think the Reds would ever sit back and do nothing?

At the end of the day, they have almost no incentive to offer ticket deals to the most loyal fans in the NFL.  Scrooge McDuck-like TV revenue and the NFL's socialist ways take care of that.  The eyes of the league are now on the Bengals, however, and we wouldn't be surprised if there was a little nudge from Commissoner Goodell's office to make an effort to fill the stands on Sunday.

Will the Bengals sellout?  What seemed impossible last week is certainly a possibility now.  They will need four more days like today to come close.  The biggest single week of ticket sales for a specific game likely came before the Kansas City game in November 2003. 

It's hard not to like the players on the field for the 2011 edition of the Cincinnati Bengals.  However, ownership still makes it very hard to financially support this organization - a fact supported by acres of empty seats for 6 of the 7 home games this season.

One thing I hope the distinguished local media, Ken Broo, and the nation realize is this:

The reason the Bengals are not already sold out for a playoff-clinching game is not because of the economy, not because Cincinnati doesn't like football, or because we get too drunk on New Year's Eve.  It's solely because the Brown family and their ownership has beaten us down - and 2011 was finally the first full season where we collectively stood up and said:  NO MORE.  More than 120,000 people over six games were no longer financially supporting an ownership that had delivered exactly zero playoff wins in two decades, not to mention a century's worth of embarassment.  This was despite a young team in playoff contention.

Make no mistake, it is their fault that PBS might not sell out this game. 

Only one question remains:

Will Bengals fans bail them out?

Ho Ho Ho Santa Brought You A Blackout: Bengals - Cardinals Open Thread

Santa always knows what I want.

Bengals have taken care of every team they were favored against (I'm guessing) so look them for to do that today despite the limp towards the finish line.  If the Bengals are to win out though, the D needs to find a way to step up despite key missing bodies (same for O line) and Dalton needs to elevate his game another notch.

Have a merry Christmas (Eve) everyone.

Bengals - Texans Open Thread

OH MY GOD, SO INTENSE.

Must win game of the week of the century.

2nd half of the season has been a slow bleed out with tougher schedule and injuries...here's hoping they can stop the flow before it's too late.

Who Dey.

Odds & Ends

Hi.

Good news, bad news.  Good news is we actually wrote something at WDR!  Bad news is that it's for another site...it's cool, though, follow the link to go to Texanschick, a blog run by the excellent Steph Stradley about Houston footbaw.  It's a Q&A type post where I elaborate a little on my take of the broader narrative of this season.

Blackouts, I remind everyone, are a good thing.  Doc's cooking something up that should help those of you looking to watch the games locally find some relief.  Check out this blog post and look for a follow up column.  Spoiler alert:  Slingbox is pretty sweet.

Last, please read both this Joe Reedy article on stadium attendance and Cincy Jungle's poll results on why Bengals attendance has COLLAPSED in 2011.  I'll weigh in with my own take later but the drop in attendance is truly staggering when compared to underlying trends across the rest of the NFL.  Something unique is brewing here.

Assuming Bengals take care of Rams & Cardinals, they need to take 1 of 2 from Texans and Ravens to get to that magical 10 win number for a wild card berth.  It's not a must-win per se, but a headless Texans team on the surface might be more realistic to beat than the Ravens.  Personally, I'm not particularly sanguine because I don't see a lot of points coming on offense and our defense is wearing thin. 

Fortunately both are home games.

Who Dey.

Sunday Prediction: No CB's, Weakened Pass Rush = Tough to Win

When Steelers have the ball:
The DL needs to get to the college rapist and prevent those extended plays that Ben kills the Bengals with. Even though the Steelers have one of the worse OL's in the NFL, without Dunlap in the lineup again, it is difficult to slow down Ben.

Now that Ben will have the ability to extend plays more frequnetly, Brown and Sanders should cut up the weakened secondary. 

The Steelers come out throwing and Brown may have a 100+ receiving yards by the end of the first half.

Advantage: Huge advantage for the Steelers

 

When the Bengals have the ball:
Polomalu is active, but is one good shot to Benson's knee away from dying on the field. The OL needs to cancel out the Steelers pass rush again, and control the LOS in the running game, which is very difficult to do. Last game Benson had over 100 yards rushing, which they can possibly repeat again today.

With AJ Green in the lineup and Polomalu hurt, the passing game possibly opens up. If Gruden can creat matchups like he has been doing the past couple of weeks, build upon the plays they ran against the Steelers last time, and Green can play all 4 quarters, there is a chance they could keep the pace and turn this into a shoot out in the second half.

Advantage: even

 

Prediction:
This game is like going into a gun fight with a knife. It will be tough to win in Pittsburgh, but they have the stamina to pull it off in the second half if they can keep it close in the first and not get down by more than 14. In the end, this will be a live again to fight another day type of game, and hope that we get to face the Steelers in week one of the playoffs with the defense almost fully loaded.