Who Ya Got: Marvin Lewis or Mike Zimmer?

[PlayerFormerlyKnownAsMousecop]

(08-12-2016, 11:46 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Marvin inherited the following players:

Willie Anderson
Levi Jones
Richie Braham
Chad Johnson
Peter Warrick
TJ Houshmanzode (Championship!)
Justin Smith
Brian Simmons
Rudi Johnson

Not too mentioned he walked into a situation where he had the #1 overall pick, which would have been Palmer no matter who was the coach, and the 33 pick, which almost like a 2nd first rounder, which was used on Eric Steinbach.

By the start of camp, he had both Jon Kitna and Carson Palmer in stripes. 4/5th's of what became a dominant OL was gifted to him.  Probably would be hard pressed to find a single roster in the league at that time that had more future NFL talent at WR.

The point is, it's not like he inherited absolutely nothing.  Did he walk into an ideal situation?  Of course he didn't.  No coach does, or the job wouldn't be open.  But he did walk into a situation that actually came with a lot of talent, albeit undeveloped in some cases.  He walked into a situation with a franchise boasting a brand new stadium.  He was given some, and more than coaches prior, freedom with his staff.

So I'm sorry, but I think you guys greatly overstate just how bad his situation was.  Saying it wasn't just empty but destroyed is a bit much IMO.  Is it really worse than Zimmer?  That's a pretty tough call.  Is it worse than what Hue Jackson just walked into?  Doubtful.

To each their own, but I just don't think his situation was, without a doubt, worse than someone like Zimmer's.  He inherited a turd just like almost every other coach inherits a turd.  His turd polished up quickly because there was a lot of young talent already in place.  For that he deserves credit but not worship.  Guys have been gifted much worse turds.  Big turds sandwhiches covered in turd sauce, with a side of fried turds.  Ice cold turds to wash it down.  Jack Del Rio may have had to take on more turds than anyone of recent memory.  Marvin is not king of the turds.  :smirk:

All this talk of turds is making me nauseous.

Just because Marvin inherited talent is meaningless. Cincinnati hadn't even sniffed a winning record record in over a decade, and Marvin came in with four straight non-losing seasons.

Pointing out the talent level Marvin inherited is irrelevant. Did those players that you mentioned play well before Marvin showed up? A few, but mostly no. So it's safe to say that Marvin's staff coached them up to get them to perform well as a team. That's more important than inheriting talent.

Your original question is also loaded, whether you'd like to admit that or not. The presumption here is that Mike Zimmer was a fan favorite and has never experienced ups and downs as the Bengals head coach, so he was not exposed to that criticism once in his life. Your question is fallacious. I always thought Zim deserved some blame watching his defense get torched by SD in the playoffs in 2014, but as DC he never received the same criticism as Marvin. I mean there were times last year that the Vikings played way below their talent level (signature of a ML coached team) and looked totally bad, and that missed field goal in the playoffs was on par with our meltdown against Pitt.