WhoDeyRevolution

I've Been Too Nice to Mike Brown Lately

I found myself listening to the Bill Simmons podcast with Rich Eisen previewing the NFL season.  They discussed, among other things, potential tweaks that could be made to the NFL to make it better.  Simmons, of course, has like 8 billion ideas on how to change shit. 

In response to his ideas, Eisen calmly points out how damn hard it is to change anything in the NFL because finding consensus among the owners can be extraordinarily difficult.  To illustrate his point, Eisen tells a story of the first time he attended an owners' meeting (I believe in 2003, maybe 2004). They held a vote to either continue using instant replay or to completely throw it out.  Now keep it mind replay had already been in use since 1999 (I believe), yet still this issue managed to come up for votes half a decade later.  Simmons asks Eisen who in the hell voted to eliminate replay?  The only name Eisen remembers:

Mike Brown.

Stories like these remind me why the Bengals still are just beginning to adjust to the modern NFL.  I would guess the credit for this rests mostly with Marvin Lewis and Katie Blackburn who must drag Mikey kicking and screaming into the modern era.  Mike Brown appears to have a knee jerk resistance to anything that threatens the paradigm he grew up under with his Daddy. 

Anyway, I hear Mikey treats his employees quite well...but if I worked for a man whose first instinct was to always and forever resist change I can't help but think I'd want to rip his fucking head off the majority of the time.  I'm sure Marvin feels this way often.

Pick a Side

On the one hand, Football Outsiders.

They devote a lengthy piece to breaking down AFC wildcard matchups, with a very healthy section on the Jets - Bengals.  Their ratings give the Bengals no respect and have not really given them much respect all season.  Going by their breakdown, you'd probably favor the Jets.

On the other hand you have Mr Bill Simmons.

He devotes a lengthy piece to the Wild Card round as well.  He makes all the arguments supporting the Bengals that the Football Outsiders analysis would not capture.

One side will get it right.  The other will get it wrong.  I'm of the opinion we will know pretty quickly into the game which side is going to prevail.

Countdown is on...

Maybe It Wasn't That Bad?

Once again, I could not watch the Bengals preseason game even though I safely reside outside the Blackout Zone.

Sounds like the performance against the Rams left much to be desired.  Without Carson in there I can't imagine there was much to be learned from the game anyway as far as our fate this season is concerned.  One thing I did see repeated to some extent was that our performance was particularly disconcerting because we played the Rams.

Obviously, the Rams stunk last year.  However, go listen to the Sports Guy's podcast* with Aaron Schatz of Football Outsiders.  Aaron notes that in many of their simulated projections of the upcoming season the Rams do quite well.  Of course, he also notes that in many of their simulations the Rams absolutely stink as well.

The point is the Rams likely have more talent and potential than is generally acknowledged...so if the Bengals looked bad last night, don't necessarily get extra down because it was against the Rams.