Can Andy and the Bengals finally win a playoff game?

[BengalChris]

(07-09-2015, 02:24 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: No.  I was replying to someone who brought up the defensive ranking this season as an explanation as to why we fell short, and/or, IMO, to deflect blame from Andy.  I was simply asking for clarification as to why then we didn't win when our defense was near the top of the rankings, if they were truly to blame for this season's shortcomings.  Same goes for injuries or lack thereof.

Strange how I hear the "whole team" always gets brought up in these losses.  But I also always hear about how many games "Andy has won."  Funny how that works.  Andy made the playoffs 4 straight years.  Andy has won 40 games.  The team lost those games though.  Sure, and Noodles historically awful playoff run has nothing to with it either.  Nothing more than a team effort. 

You guys flip flop and just make this garbage up on the fly.  Look no further than fact that I'm now trying defend the relevancy of team defense, after replying to a team Andy guy, who brought it up to begin with.  I'm now getting grilled on the relevancy on the very thing that was just used to defend him.  Amazing.  Simply amazing.

Here are a few ways to handle the Dalton homers.

When they say it's a team game, agree with them. When they credit Dalton for all the success and make excuses for the bad games, do one of the follow:

Link the highlights of last year's Thursday night Cleveland game. It was so bad that there's just no excuse anywhere under the sun which can come close to explaining it.

If they blame the defense for the playoff losses, point out that only twice in the Super Bowl era has a team won a playoff game by scoring 10 or fewer points: Buffalo beat Denver 10-7 in the AFC Championship game in 1991 (24 years ago) and Dallas beat Detroit 5-0 in a divisional playoff game in 1970 (45 years ago). You can also point out that the Bengals D out scored the offense in the 2012 playoff game against Houston.

Post Dalton's playoff stats, which combined are 1 passing TD, 1 rushing TD, 6 INTs, 4 FUMs, 1 SAF, 0 wins, 4 losses. You can add that Dalton is tied for the NFL's all-time worst playoff record for a QB if you want, but that tends to go over the heads and the idea that he could set a new all-time record this year is unthinkable, even though true.

If they blame it all on injuries, just point that those must have been some mighty powerful injuries to reach into the past cause losses in 2011, 2012 and 2013. They'll change the subject to Dalton had no weapons until 2013, which is illogical when you examine the actual rosters.

I don't hate Dalton. I wish him well. I hope he plays well this year. But the excuses and the cherry picked stats used to prop this guy up are amazingly annoying. Sometimes I think it's his mother writing the posts.