A down year in the NFL?

[*Nately120*]

(11-18-2017, 03:01 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I'm not sure about conspiracies, but you'd think Marv would've lucked into a win at least once. 0-7...? 0-4 at PBS? Totally smacked around in 5 of those?

Why do we fall apart in every aspect? Palmer, Kitna, Dalton and Mac have been serviceable to good passers. We've had decent run games some of those years. We've had an elite defense that really gets after the passer and does a good job against the run. We've had some solid pass blocking lines. All of that has disappeared come playoff time and we morph into the 90's Bengals.

It really is hard to figure out. I tend to place the most blame on Marvin because he's been the one constant.

In 2015 the Jets were the favorite to make the playoffs and only had to beat the lousy Bills in order to play us in the post-season in Cincy.  I figured Fitzpatrick would play pretty horribly in his only post-season game and throw 4 INTs and we'd win by default.  Sadly, he had his 4 INT meltdown a week early and lost to the Bills which then led to the Steelers getting to the playoffs by default and we all know the rest.

That was our "Can't fail" chance and we didn't get it.  Oh well, Marvin Lewis would have a 10 year contract if we won that game and Denver would have killed us in the next round.

If I recall, the Chargers and the Steelers were both let into the playoffs by other teams screwing up and letting them in and both teams marched into our stadium and beat our 11/12-win teams like the paper tigers we are. Oh, toss in 2009 since we played at 17% capacity against the Jets and let them into the playoffs a week before they came into our stadium and beat us.