WhoDeyRevolution

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.

"Do Your Job."

My friend and yours, Bengals "Dear Leader" Mike Brown has a philosophy about football and about business, but looking at his major holding, you'd be hard pressed to figure it out. His coach, Marvin Lewis, does too. While Mike's philosophy may be harder to discern, perhaps we can figure it out by attacking Marvin's motto: "Do your job."  Whether or not that's been an effective rallying cry over the Lewis years is up for debate. Let's just look at Mike.

Mike's job is to do one thing, as far as business is concerned: make money. We have 18 years to judge him on, but if we look at the end result, we see that Forbes Magazine last year ranked the Bengals 21 out of 32 teams for overall value. Not good, so Mike loses points there.

Another good way to evaluate a business? Overall growth. Once again, we look to Forbes Magazine.  In this category, we see that between 2007 and 2008, the only team whose value increased less was the Rams. Ouch (The Cardinals were the same as the Bengals, but I think it's safe to say they'll see a healthy jump).

So why do people perform poorly in their jobs? Maybe they're unhappy.

Which brings me to a theory about Mike Brown that Cincinnatians have perhaps been circling for years, but I don't think has been sufficiently voiced. Mike Brown hates football. Or the business of it, anyway, and one could argue if he were interested in it ON the field he'd have made some kind of effort to show that by now.