Gruden, Newton & a nixed trade - How Andy became a Bengal

[Shake n Blake]

First off, @JimO - thanks for posting such interesting articles. You're quickly becoming my favorite Bengals beat guy, and that has little to do with you posting here, although that is appreciated as well.

I hate to be the negative guy, but this story just confirms that Mike Brown is still a knucklehead. Marv and Jay had Mike "convinced" to trade up for Dalton, yet he changes his mind on draft day cuz "trades affect the rest of the draft"? Obviously he's correct there, but if you have a QB that the coaches feel is the future of the franchise, you don't worry about a couple picks in the later rounds.

We would've been moving up a few spots in the 2nd round for Pete's sake. It's not like we had to offer a king's ransom. He's lucky that Dalton slipped a few more spots or we could've been stuck with Kaepernick or - Heaven forbid - Ryan Mallet. All for the sake of whatever scrubs they drafted after Dalton in 2011.

Jay said he was thankful to Dalton for basically getting him a head coaching gig, well we should all be thankful to Jay that he (and Marv) pushed so hard for Dalton, as it doesn't seem like Mike Brown was nearly as enthusiastic. At least not enthusiastic enough to part with a mid-late round pick.