IN THIS TIME of perpetual Cincinnati Bengals incompetence and futility, with zero playoff wins in the nineteen seasons since the WhoDeyRevolution Godfather, Paul Brown, passed away in 1991 and handed the team to his fortunate son, the Despot, Mike Brown;
Introduction
WE, the members of the Who Dey Revolution, in our fervent dedication to the Cincinnati Bengals and fanatical desire to transform our hometown team into perpetual Super Bowl contenders, call for a popular revolution of fans to demand comprehensive reform to the managerial decisions and approach of Cincinnati Bengals ownership, management, staff and players, and hereby call for the adoption of the following Who Dey Revolution Manifesto:
Manifesto Demands
THAT the Mike Brown, Katie Blackburn, Marvin Lewis, along with every other member of the Bengals management, staff and personnel, state publicly to all Bengals fans, “I will do everything in my power to help the Cincinnati Bengals win a Super Bowl;”
THAT Mike Brown will hire a general manager, drastically expand the scouting department and relinquish all control of player personnel;
THAT all training, rehabilitation and medical facilities are considered best-in-class compared to other NFL teams;
THAT the management fill the team only with players who fit the system, both mentally and physically, and are not reluctant to makes changes to player personnel when needed, regardless of cost or loyalty concerns;
THAT offensive and defensive line depth is considered the top priority for all player personnel decisions;
THAT all decisions made by ownership, management, staff and players, both on and off the field, are judged only by this criterion: “Does this help the Cincinnati Bengals win a Super Bowl?”
As first brought to our attention by Ben, and then immediatly after by Colin (so close!), someone has been having some fun with Bob Bratkowski's wikipedia page. Here is a screenshot of the edited page, taken from SI's Extra Mustard (it has now been changed to a more standard and far less accurate version).
If you want to see some of WDR's previous coverage on Brat, click here or on any of the more colorfully named hashtags appended to this post below.
Since I didn't get to watch the game this weekend, I can't comment on the actual X's & O's this week, but I can comment on this: I HAVE HAD ENOUGH OF BRATKOWSKI'S BULLSHIT PLAY CALLING & LEWIS FALLING ON THE SWORD FOR HIM.
Following the game on my iPhone thanks to ESPN’s Game-tracker on my drive home from Virginia Beach, for three quarters, it looked like things were going pretty well: a couple of nice long scoring drives, but it didn’t look like I was missing anything too dramatic outside of the TO TD, and Benson's performance. Then we get to the fourth quarter, and "SQUIRREL!"
First of all, Lewis’s excuse that they were being aggressive is complete horseshit, and the media needs to call him out on this. The play calling speaks for itself.
Starting with the second drive of the forth quarter, Bengals ahead 21-14, starting on the Bengals’s 6 with 8:51 to play: 1-10, Benson run; 2-6, Benson run; 3-1, Benson run; 1-10, Palmer 4 yard pass to TO; 2-6, Benson run; & 3-2, Leonard run for a loss of two yards. REAL AGGRESSIVE PLAY CALLING ASSHOLE.
Bucs get the ball back on starting on their own 20 with 4:51 left in the game. Zimmer forces them into three downs and out, and the Bengals get the ball back starting on their own 41 with 3:17 left to play. They are only 60 yards away from ending the game with a statement, or if they can just get a couple of first downs and we walk off the field with another unconvincing win.
Brat comes out guns blazing on first down: Benson up the gut for zero yards; 2-10, Benson off LT for a 2 yard gain.
Before I go any further, if you are attacking the Bucs to end the game by being aggressive as Lewis claimed, you don’t come out with two running plays most likely against eight men in the box. I am assuming the Bucs put eight in the box since they most likely knew the Bengals were going to try to run out the clock (please correct me if I am wrong about this). If you are aggressive, you come out and call a play action pass to take advantage of the defense looking for the run. I would have been 100% in support of being aggressive and taking this risk because it could have put the game away with one play. Instead, the Bengals were basically running against a wall that our OL is not good enough to break through. Forget the idea that we were averaging over 6 yards a carry for the game, it doesn't apply when the opposing defense stacks the deck to shut down the run. Sure enough, we tried to run out the clock and we weren't able to move the ball against a defense looking for it. REAL AGGRESSIVE PLAY CALLING ASSHOLE.
Next play is a false start on Gresham, pushing it to 3rd & 13 with 2:28 to play. From the highlights, the Bucs bring out what looks to be their dime package. Brat decides to still go for the first ignoring the potential disaster. Unfortunately Palmer doesn’t check down into his favorite laizze fare running play that has probably only netted us 10 yards in the past three seasons. Sure enough Palmer forces the throw into tight covereage and its behind TO. Results in 7 points for the Bucs.
This had to be the stupidest play call I have ever witnessed, second to Belicheck’s crazy forth down play call a couple of years ago. This “aggressive” play is nothing but a culmination of his incompetent decisions. You don’t throw the ball when the Bucs are expecting it, have their dime package on the field, and there is less then two and half minutes to play with only a seven point lead. In this case, there is too much to lose so do the always unsuccessful draw play and punt the ball to make the Bucs drive 80+ yards with less than 2 minutes left.
Ironically, it was only a couple of weeks ago that I called for his head because Bratkowski was too conservative against the Ravens and it almost cost us the game. I would have been perfectly fine with that approach Sunday.
If you want to be aggressive and attack the defense, then DO IT WHEN THEY AREN'T EXPECTING IT! Unfortunately, Mike Brown is not going to mess with his hand picked staff and this dumb ass is staying put to make my Sundays suck.
I would accept a Brian Billick hiring over continuing with this asshole, and from the looks of it TO would tend to agree since it sounds like he doesn’t like Brats route trees either. The video's cut right to the good stuff. My favorite part is his statement that he's been around some "great football minds"...the implication being he's not exactly seeing the same thing from his offensive coaching here.
TO trust me, we feel your pain.
20 - Years since the Bengals have won a playoff game
0 - Total number of playoff wins in Mike Brown's tenure as owner
.359 - Bengals regular season winning percentage since Mike Brown took over as owner (115-206-1 in 20 seasons)
29-34-1 - Record since 2005 playoff game vs Steelers
6 - Seasons the Bengals have lost their first six games since 1991. No other team has more than two.
0 - Teams North of Cincinnati without an indoor practice facility
10 - Players arrested in a 14 month span from 2005-2006
32 - Mike Brown's ranking, out of 32, of the "Best Owners in the NFL" by Michael Silver of Sports Illustrated in 2007
458,000,000 - Amount, in dollars, that Hamilton County Taxpayers paid to build PBS
2032 - Year that Hamilton County will have finally paid off its debt on the stadium deal
3 - Total number of non-clerical employees employed in the Bengals scouting department, lowest in the league
747,000,000 - Amount, in dollars, paid in free agency by the Bengals from 1994 - 2005, second worst of all 28 teams in existence for the duration, behind only Arizona
118 – Ranking, out of 118 professional teams, of the “Worst Franchises” in professional sports, as ranked by ESPN the Magazine in 2003.
97 – Ranking, out of 98 general managers in all four major sports with three or more years of experience, of Mike Brown’s performance as a GM, as ranked by Forbes in 2007.
