Bengals history of making lemonade out of lemons

[Shake n Blake]

(04-10-2019, 01:26 AM)NKURyan Wrote: ...which is mitigated when you've got AJ McCarron playing QB for the Bengals instead of an MVP-caliber Andy Dalton. Knock Mark Sanchez and Matt Schaub if you want, both of those guys are better QBs than McCarron was.

That said, I'm not disagreeing with your point. The Bengals absolutely should've won a few of those games. Hell, outside of the Houston games I was at all of them lol. All I'm saying is, I'm not sure too many other coaches would've pulled off a win against Pittsburgh in '15 without Dalton, and even fewer would've gotten a playoff win with the few guys they had left in the Indy game in '14 (which would've been coached by Zimmer under your suggestion).

2012 and 2013 were the two games Marvin absolutely should have won. 2009 is debatable in my eyes, because I'm not sure that team was really all that good to begin with.

Everyone brings up McCarron, but we lost to TJ Yates and Mark Sanchez (and yes, Sanchez is just as bad and Yates is actually worse). They also forget that the Steelers were without Ben for a stretch (which played heavily in our comeback) and they were rotating guys named Todman and Toussaint (?) at RB (Bell and DeAngelo Williams were out). Both players had huge games somehow.

Everyone brings up how many of our receivers were hurt against Indy, but forgets that the Colts were playing their 4th string RB (Boom Herron). They got a huge game out of some guy that we cut from our practice squad. Boom Herron outplayed Jeremy Hill. A guy who had 1100 yards on 5.1 YPC that year. Is that making lemonade out of lemons? 

- We should've won in 2005 even with Jon Kitna. We had a 17-7 lead. We fell apart in the 2nd half, which was a common theme in the playoffs.

- We should've won in 2009. Were the 9-7 Jets more talented than us? A team led by Mark Sanchez? No defensive stars outside of Revis? We were at home, too.

- We at least should've been competitive in 2011 against TJ Yates. 

- 2012 I excuse somewhat, because it was a road game against a solid QB and we did keep it close.

- 2013 was a disgrace.

- 2014 should've been more competitive than it was. Missing some WR's doesn't excuse away our defense giving up 376 yards passing (Luck's 3rd best total that year), giving up 141 yards to Boom Herron, or not getting anything out of Jeremy Hill (who was having his best year).

- 2015 was an odd one. I want to partially excuse it because we were starting McCarron, but (1) we were at home, (2) the Steelers got 183 yards out of their 3rd and 4th string RB's, (3) Ben was hurt for 3 series and (4) we had the lead only to lose in embarrassing fashion. 

Obviously we can't win them all, but I'd say we should've had at least 2-3 of these.