Can Andy and the Bengals finally win a playoff game?

[*bfine32*]

(07-08-2015, 05:31 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: The answer is, more than likely, no. 
We heard how they'd surely win when they had a full offseason and Andy AJ had another year under their belt.  Didn't happen.

We heard that surely in year 3, with another year of seasoning for a duo that already had a fund set aside for them, and with a plethora of added weapons (Eifert, Bernard, the emergence of Marvin Jones), that we'd certainly be poised to take the next step and be a contender.  Even getting a game at home, against a team we already beat , against a West Coast team in an AFCN stadium, in January, a kickoff at 10am their time...it still didn't happen.  Not only did it not happen, we were embarrassed and outscored 20-0 in the second half, and suffered the biggest margin of defeat for the entire round (we were the worst team).

Then we heard that with Jay Gruden gone and genius that is Hue Jackson stepping in that we'd surely take that next step in year 4.  We even added another weapon to the offense.  This was to be the year.  Shocker >>>> DID.  NOT.  HAPPEN.

And these are just the "reboot" years.  It didn't happen in 2009 either, which was another home game.  

It didn't happen under Carson.  It didn't happen under Andy.  It didn't happen under Brat.  It didn't happen under Gruden.  It hasn't happened with Hue Jackson either.  It didn't happen under Frazier, Breshnahan, Zimmer, or Gunther.

In fact, it didn't happen in 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 or 2014. (Just ratting off those years is exhausting.)

And if you want to take it bigger than the reboot years and the Marvin years, let's look at the Mike years.  It hasn't happened in 25 years.  That's a QUARTER of a CENTURY!!!  25 years, and this Mickey Mouse owner, with Mom and Pop's Nickle and Dime approach hasn't produced one stinking playoff win.  Do you know how poorly run of a team you have to be to accomplish this in this league.  It's statistically more likely to win 3 Superbowls over 25 years than it is not even luck your way into one playoff win.

So for me to come up with answer I just ask myself one question: Why should this year be any different than previous years? (The last 4, the last 12, and the last 25?)

I can't come up with one single answer to that question.  Nothing has changed.  Same owner, same general approach, same head coach, entire coaching staff returning, much of the coaching staff here going back a decade or more.  You've got the same QB, same core group of skill players, you've got the same schemes you've been running for years...  I could go on and on.

Look, I get fans convince themselves of things getting better for no other reason than that's just how it goes.  I'll admit I'm in the minority of fans.  But if I'm being totally honest and fair, looking at this team like any other, I can't see any logical reason to believe that the results should change.  Because the approach certainly hasn't.

(07-08-2015, 06:06 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: They weren't decimated by injuries in 2009, 2011, 2012, or 2013.  What happened?

Also, I would encourage people to look at some injury situations around the league and then compare them to ours and ask again what constitutes "being decimated".  Because losing a starting QB, that's going to hurt a lot worse than losing a backup tight end, coming off 300 yards receiving. 

We were really "decimated"?  Have we had more injuries than any other average team over the last few years? Losing your starting QB like Sam Bradford or Carson Palmer, that really hurts a team.   Losing Julio Jones for the season in week 5, like the Falcons did in 2013, is worse than losing AJ Green for 3-4 games.  The loss of Calvin Johnson last season was a bigger blow. 

Each and every year you can see the injury report littered with names much bigger than Eifert and Jones.  Names like Arian Foster, Jamaal Charles, Roddy White, Reggie Bush, etc.

Each and every year you see position much more valuable than Middle Linebacker go down.  Hell, look at the Cardinals last year.  They went through two QB's.  Is Vontaze Burfict a fantastic player?  Sure.  Is he a better MLB than Palmer is a QB?  Definitely.  But is MLB of greater or equal in value to a starting QB?  Not even close.  If you were to rank which team was hurt worse, team QB or team MLB, team QB is taking a much bigger hit.

So again how many injuries have we seen recently?  Going back 1 year, 2 years, 3 years, 4 years, what's the volume like?  Are we seeing  a higher than normal amount of total injuries?  And what about the value of the players lost?  If you were to try to assign a value to every players lost, would we have lost a greater caliber of player than our peers?  Are we having a higher rate of starting players hurt?  Are we having a higher rate of star players hurt?  What about the rate of IR's?

I think the answer you would find to most of these questions would support the fact that we haven't seen a greater deal of injuries these last 4 years than average.  No more than normal.  In fact, you may find that we've been somewhat lucky.  I also think you'd see that we haven't loss any greater caliber of player than the norm either.  Our starters, stars, key contributors, leaders, whatever you want to call them, aren't dropping at any higher of a rate than that of most everybody else.

I personally think the injury excuse is one of the most overstated excuses you see when it comes to rationalizing another early exit.  New England won a Superbowl with their #1 WR playing both ways and starting at CB.  The Giants won a Superbowl with Jeff Hostetler.  The Texans beat our very Bengals in the playoffs with a 3rd string rookie QB.  Acting like this team saw such bad luck recently isn't accurate IMO. 

I would love to believe we won't have a single injury or that staying relatively healthy, just like we did a number of other years, will result in fixing all our woes.  And if it doesn't play out that way then I'm sure I can expect to hear about some new and exciting excuse nest year.  The sun being in Marvin's eyes perhaps?  Black magic?  Iluminati conspiracy?

(07-08-2015, 07:04 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: I don't recall ever trying to say that injuries don't matter.  Among my points were that I don't we have seen an above average amount of injuries, both in sheer volume and impact.

I don't think it's fair to say that this team has been hindered more than average amount by injury, both last season and over the course of the last 4.  I don't it's fair to use it as an excuse.  Good to great teams win all thae time with injured players.  That's what makes them good (or great).  And all teams see significant injuries at some point.  Unless you're seeing an unordinary amount of players getting hurt then it's excuse almost every team could share.

The 2013 New Patriots lost Wes Welker (FA), Rob Gronkowski (Injury) Aaron Hernandez (Murder 1) and the newly signed Welker replacement Danny Amendola (Injury).  Welker and Hernadez obviously for the whole year, Gronk for the majority and Amendola on and off for half.  Guess what they did?  They went 12-4 and made it t0 the AFC Championship.  This with the likes of Aaron Hobson and Kembrell Thompkins seeing significant time.  This with the duo of Gronk and Hernandez, the greatest TE due ever, being replaced by Michael Hoomanawanui and Matthew Mulligan.

You want to know how they did this?  Because they're a legitimate contender.  They're well coached.  They have a great QB.  They expect nothing but the very best.  Their expectations and demands are ridiculously high, regardless of circumstance.

Like or not, these are you peers.  To win in this league sometimes you got to sack up and win a game with a star player out.  Sometimes your QB is going to be down a weapon or two.  Happens to everyone.  And if you can't adapt then that's what makes you less than.  That's why you're not one of the big dogs, but a pretender. 

And IMHO if you allow the idea that excuses are acceptable into your organization I think you're already behind the eight ball.  I think some of that plagues this team.  It is clear they don't demand as much as their peers, and I think that hurts them.  I just hope none of the thinking on injuries being such a greater hindrance here is shared by the staff.  Which would be scary, because I doubt you'd hear the same excuses in places like NE and Pit.  And many teams have lost players a whole of lot better than Tyler Eiffert and Marvin Jones, and many star players have missed longer periods than AJ Green.

(07-08-2015, 11:01 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: 1.) Our defensive rankings in 2011, 2012 and 2013 were: 7th, 6th, 3rd.

So maybe people aren't ignoring the fact that we had a bad defense but more realize that we've had more than adequate ones before and have had the same results.  We've also been relatively healthy in previous years, and we've hosted a playoff game.

2.) A ton of credit?  He finished 25th in QB rating.  He didn't even hit 20 TD's. 

To put that into perspective, he threw less TD's than a rookie in Derek Carr, who plays for the freaking Raiders.  You want to talk about weapons or lack thereof?  Oh, Dalton only had AJ Green for 12 games, and he had to use Sanu instead of Marvin Jones as a #2, he only had Jermaine Gresham at Tight End?  Carr's top 2 receivers were Andre Holmes and James Jones.  His Tight End was Mychal Rivera.  His 1/2 punch at RB was Darren McFadden and Latavius Murray.  Need we even get into the OL's?

Andy Dalton's QB rating was lower than that of such superstars as: Shaun Hill, Teddy Bridgewater (another rookie with terrible weapons), Austin Davis, Kyle Orton.  Jay Cutler, who was benched for playing so poorly, had a QB rating that was a full 5 pts higher than Andy's.  He 50% more TD's than Andy and he didn't even play the full year.

And you think he deserves a "ton of credit"?  Who are these "most" you speak of?  Most people would give that performance a ton of credit?  Are you serious?

Lastly, I find your throwing the defense under the bus very intriguing.  It is amazing to me the amount of things that factor into Dalton's performance (excuses).  Things like injuries, play calling, throwing too much, throwing too little, wind, flu, etc/.  Fine, I guess.  But such a simple statement that the defense played bad is commonly used, without much of the same explanation.  It's simple, they didn't play great.  Forget that they were missing Burfict, forget that Atkins wasn't 100%, forget that they had a new DC.  They played bad.  How refreshing to be able say and discuss a simple topic, without finding every single reason to deflect blame.  It's a shame such obvious statements can't be made about Andy, who by the way, had  a worse year than our defense statistcially. (22 vs 25)

Every year I think some of you will run out of excuses.  Every year I'm wrong.  The lengths people go to combat what seem to reasonable takes (Russell Wilson being very good, Andy playing poorly, etc) just seems incredibly desperate and defensive to me.  He needs to be better.  He's had good defenses, he's had weapons.  He needs to step it up.  Period.

(07-08-2015, 11:28 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Russell Wilson won playoff games each of his first 3 years.  In fact he won a Superbowl in year 2, and made another appearance in year 3.  Joe Flacco advanced in the playoffs in each and every one his first 5 seasons.  Colin Kapernick made in the NFC Championship after 13 starts.  He returned again in year 2.  I think the Raped Crusader won a Superbowl in year 2.  And those are just examples off the top of my head.

Saying your QB couldn't or shouldn't win because he's only in year 3 (after 50 starts) really tells you everything you need to know about him.  (He just not that good.)

I think you've covered just about everything but the mascot.