This is nothing compared to 2011

[BengalChris]

(03-15-2017, 12:21 AM)fredtoast Wrote: This offseason has been a great success so far compared to where we were at the same time in 2011.

-coming off a 4 win season

-lost our franchise QB (Palmer)

-lost our elite CB (Joseph)

-lost our top 2 WRs (TO, Ocho)

-lost the heart of the locker room (Reggie Kelly)

-lost the brains of the defense (Dhani Jones)

-we were depending on a former first round pick to start at OT even though he had looked like crap his first two years in the league (Andre Smith)

Things were much then than they are now.

But then slowly the plan fell into place.  The Bengals drafted Andy and AJ.  They rebuilt their defense with smart bargain signings of Manny Lawson, Thomas Howard, and Nate Clements.  They even showed they could think outside the box by finding an OC in the arena league (Gruden) and a WR in the CFL (Hawkins).

The front office may a nice string of real smart moves and a team that many predicted would be the absolute worst in the league made the playoffs.  In fact the last two times the Bengals have had a losing season they have bounced back to make the playoffs.

At the end of the 2010 season the Bengals were a team in disarray, had only been to the playoffs twice in 19 years and were considered just a plain bad team all around with the Ocho & Owens' weekly sideshow being the biggest camera draw.

That team really wasn't falling from more than a couple of rungs up from the absolute bottom.

Now we are routinely saying goodbye to proven young talent in favor of even younger, unproven, but inexpensive draft picks. Instead of falling from two steps from the bottom we're falling from the upper third of the ladder and it's a bigger fall.