11-21-2018, 07:00 PM
(11-21-2018, 06:38 PM)fredtoast Wrote: First of all I am not the only one who claims the Bengals don't have enough talent. If you come around here during free agency you will see that everyone here agrees with me that Mike Brown's free agent policies hurt the teams chances of winning. The only time they try to deny this is when they want to blame everything on Marvin. So they end up contradicting themselves depending on who they want to criticize.
Second, the argument that if Marvin has the talent to make the playoffs then he has the talent to win in the playoffs is no different than saying if Marvin is a good enough coach to make the playoffs then he is a good enough coach to win in the playoffs. I just refuse to believe that some coaches don't try as hard to win in the regular season as they do in the playoffs. For example in '13 when we beat the Chargers on their own field in the regular season they were 5-6 and fighting as hard as they could to win every game to make the playoffs. If Mike McCoy could "outcoach" Marvin then he would have done it during the regular season when they were desperate for a win.
When you look at the big picture 7 games in 15 seasons is actually a pretty small sample size. Some of the losses were because we did not have as much talent, some of then were because players just had bad days (was Marvin the reason Dalton had 1 turnover against the Chargers in the regular season and 3 in the playoffs), and some of them might have been because Marvin made bad coaching decisions. I don't really understand it. Even Mike Zimmers defenses looked bad in the post season. Maybe the Bengals are just cursed.
All I know is that anyone who claims Mike Brown's free agency policy has nothing to do with the Bengals chances of winning is either clueless or lying. The teams with the most talent usual win in the postseason.
To the bold sentence, I most definitely agree that the losses have nothing to do with Lewis not wanting to win badly enough or not trying hard enough in the playoffs. I think he desperately wants a postseason victory to validate his career and I'm sure he does everything he feels necessary to prepare for those games. I just don't think -- as evidenced by the outcomes -- that he has done so adequately or competently, at least to this point. I do disagree that a coach can't be out coached by a coach that he had previously beaten. That's obviously possible and happens often.
As it pertains to the second paragraph, I agree that there have been a number of things that have went wrong during those games. However, some of those teams have looked very ill-prepared to take the field and have failed mightily to adjust to the progression of events during the game. That, as a matter of accountability, has to fall directly at the feet of the head coach because he is ultimately responsible for the on-field action.
In addressing the last part, I will refer to my previous post. If those teams had enough talent to qualify as one of the final 12, they should have been talented enough to win at least one of those, if by sheer matter of chance if nothing else.
I understand your point about Brown being a weight around the ankle in a certain sense, and I don't disagree with that. My point is that Lewis, by way of his own accomplishments in making the playoffs seven times, must be reasonably held accountable for the failings that followed -- especially in such inexplicable ways.
