Polian: Questioning Bengals playoff success "absurd"

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(05-18-2015, 03:00 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I think people are a little too hung up on making the playoffs, there I said it.  There is a chance the 2015 team misses the playoffs, and I'm not going to say that automatically makes them worse than the 2011 team that went 2-4 in the division and got a wild card at 9-7.  That's the thing, this team has 4 playoff berths, but 3 of them are wild card appearances, and we were the 6th seed twice and the 5th seed once.  Yes, that's better than missing the playoffs and yes that's better than being stuck in a time-warp where it is always1998 but it's not like we are powering our way into the post-season and then mysteriously falling flat.

If the Bengals really need 5+ cracks at the playoffs to win a game then they had better stop relying on the wild card and start beating the Steelers and the Browns.  I started this on a semi-positive note and I'll end it by saying if the 2015 Bengals have a decent year but lose a wild card to the Texans/Bills/Dolphins/Chiefs/Chargers etc then that doesn't mean it is a step in the wrong direction, per se.  We've been pretty fortunate under Marvin's rule because we've made the playoffs every single time we posted a winning season, so let's not act like the world is ending if we miss the playoffs (er, unless it's by a LARGE margin).

I remember the year of the Bengals first Superbowl. I went to a number of the games, including our regular season loss to San Francisco. That was the first year I felt that we really looked like a championship caliber team. They did not play their best game against San Francisco, but it looked like a quality football game. We looked like we belonged, not a bunch of clowns. I was there for the Freezer Bowl. We just flat out dominated San Diego.

That's what I want out of this team. I want to look like we know what we're doing out there instead of looking like we're stupid and confused. There were games last year where we looked like that. The second Cleveland game and the Denver game come to mind. And believe it or not in the playoff game against Indy I felt like we had a chance even with most of our offense sitting on the bench.

I want to see us take the next step - not to win a playoff game, but to play like a playoff team consistently.

Hopefully we've done enough to insure that we can survive the injuries we'll have and still play like a contender.