10-13-2015, 10:16 AM
(10-13-2015, 10:05 AM)BengalChris Wrote: No one knew in advance that we'd be getting a New Andy Dalton this year. Some people hoped he would improve. Some people felt he couldn't play worse based solely on players coming back from injuries. Some people would cherry pick stats over small periods of time to show he has been better than Payton Manning or Tom Brady (threads which would insult the intelligence of one and all).
The Bengals fortunes are tied to Andy Dalton and after the complete meltdowns in the playoffs and last year's below average QBing overall, for many it was time to start looking elsewhere as they wanted better fortunes for Bengals. We all knew this would be a pivotal year for Dalton as his contract is written that way. Either he'd step up or we'd be seeing some McCarron down the stretch. But no one really knew he would play this well or even could play this well for stretches of more than a game or two.
I couldn't be happier with him right now. He's playing right up there with the best of them. I'm glad he's doing it.
Andy Dalton earned the reputation he received at the end of last year, just as he's earning his new reputation now.
"New Andy Dalton". Meh. He's the same guy who has just gotten better. Other than 2014, he has gotten better every year! He probably wouldn't have regressed last year if he had healthy players and wasn't learning a new offense. That seemed like a more reasonable explanation for the downturn, than the guy just simply got worse (especially given the fact that just a year earlier, he broke most of the franchise single season passing records) but people who had their minds made up just kept with the narrative.
And as far as "reputation". I guess it depends on how you look at it. I saw Andy as the first Bengals QB ever to lead his team to 4 straight playoff games (made more impressive by the fact that it was in his first 4 seasons) vs Andy is the first Bengals QB to lose 4 straight playoff games.
Had we failed to make the playoffs for several years, perhaps I would have bought more into the pessimism. It's OK for young QBs to struggle a bit. Especially young QBs that play for a franchise that is known to gobble up and spit young QBs out never to be seen or heard from again.
