The title more or less stated my faith in the reminder of the Bengals season along with their chances of going anywhere. So let’s do something fun and refute my post from then.
I started out with stating that I am not a fair weather Bengals fan, and I want to reiterate that point. I love the Bengals, and it is a love/hate relationship (as mentioned previously). I then went over my thoughts of their draft picks from 2003 through 2012. I then went into a short tirade about scouting. While I cannot change the draft picks or the scouting department, I will say that we have found a gem in Vontaze Burfict. I still wish we had more than three scouts but I have to give credit where credit is due. Speaking of which…
Mike Brown. There is no shortage of Bengals fans that despise Mike Brown, and I am probably one of them. I say probably because his trade of Palmer to the Raiders was probably the most hands down most one sided trade ever initiated in the NFL. Mike Brown, Mike Browned the Raiders. Sure Kirkpatrick (our 1st 2012 1st round pick thanks to the trade) probably won’t be a Darrel Revis, Deion Sanders, or Charles Woodson. He might turn out to be a Johnathan Joesph, Leon Hall, or Brandon Flowers though. Mike obviously has been know to take risks (Odell Thruman, Chris Henry, Vontaze Burfict, Adam Jones, Andre Smith…). The sad/good thing is that it looks like Mike Brown knows what he is doing.
I did touch on Bungling, and I will say that the Bengals have a way of beating themselves with penalties and silly mistakes and never recovering. Since the original post on 11/9/2012, the Bengals are 7-1. Let me type that again so it sinks in. 7-1. They went from being 3-5 to 7-1 finishing 10-6. What causes this?
Coaching, which oddly enough is another area I touched on. I don’t know what Marvin and his staff have been doing but I only hope that they keep it up. Marvin has taken the Bengals to the playoffs four times (including this year) over his ten years in Cincy. Not bad when you look at it like that. Plus a big monster is now gone, back to back playoff seasons (2011 and 2012). That had not happened since 1982 (I was two years old at that point in time). The next big monster to overcome is winning a playoff game (has not happened since 1990). Getting the playoffs is next but Marvin really needs to get a playoff win (or four in one year 🙂 ) under his belt, otherwise he will become another Andy Reid.
Which now that Andy Reid is officially fired, I believe that makes Marvin the second longest tenured head coach in the NFL after Bill Belichick.
Here is what matters in snapshot form.
At 11/9/2012
Overall Offense Rank by 17th
23rd Rushing
11th Passing
Overall Defense 21st
22nd rushing
16th passing
At 1/1/2013
Overall Offensive Rank 22nd
18th Rushing
17th Passing
Overall Defense 6th
12th rushing
7th passing
Defense wins championships, however our offense needs to really start clicking. A lot of that revolves around our lack of running game. That being said I am looking forward to the rematch and truly believe we can beat the Texans.
