If there was no salary cap?

[THE PISTONS]

(09-02-2019, 07:03 PM)NKURyan Wrote: For as bad as the Bengals were in the 90s and early 2000s they were never as bad as the Browns have been over the last decade. The Browns have had 11 straight losing seasons - something the Bengals of the 90s never even came close to. And yet people here will gladly point to that franchise as being something to strive for. Yeah, sorry, I'll pass. A big LOL to everyone giving the Browns credit for frequently changing coaches/GMs... those frequent changes come become they've been terrible - not bad, terrible - under all of them, and even then they brought back a guy coming off an 0-16 season lol. Truly a visionary franchise!

Do I consider what the Bengals did from 2009 to 2015 success? Hell yeah I do! I don't really give a rat's ass how they stack up to the rest of the league - as a sports fan I want my teams to be good and they were, and I'm going to enjoy the times when that's actually the case because as a Cincinnati sports fan I've learned that those times aren't any guarantee. If you want to call the most prolonged period of success a failure, I mean okay, you're allowed to do that, I just can't see the point in it personally. You can end up disappointed if the Bengals "only" win 9 games this season and I'll have a blast enjoying the ride. And while it's easy to point to the franchise and say "well if that's the most successful run in franchise history it sure is a sorry franchise", well... duh we already know that, and you've made the choice to follow them anyways lol. Folks are welcome to be self-loathing fans if they want, but no sympathy is coming from me.

No doubt the Browns were terrible. You never get the stench of 0-16 off of you...unless you win a SB...which I think we all doubt they do.

re: Changing coaches and GM's - Most teams do it if they don't win playoff games in 3-4-5 years. The Bengals gave a coach what a decade and a half to win one. I wouldn't say that's a sound strategy too. We actually had a good roster 4-5 years ago, and wasted giving a new coach a shot with it. Now we hire a new coach, when some of our stars are advanced in age and with our offensive line and LB's a mess.