Marvin got this franchise out of the dark ages. If he didn't do that, I doubt Zac haves this success.

Marvin brought a lot of things up to league standard atleast.

(01-23-2023, 07:26 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The Bengals brought in a bunch of guys with character concerns. They did it to add talent cheaper.

Zac is totally the opposite.

That and one could argue that Mike Brown did it because Paul Brown believed in giving people second chances, but I think it was more of Mike just thinking "we can get this kind of talent for cheap and the fans won't care as long as we're winning.

(01-23-2023, 07:27 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Marvin got this franchise out of the dark ages. If he didn't do that, I doubt Zac haves this success.

Marvin brought a lot of things up to league standard atleast.

I agree that Marvin did a lot for this franchise and Mike even acknowledged that Marvin had more control than any coach prior to him, and I'm thankful that he gave us a good team to cheer for, but he just wasn't a good head coach.

I don't know how he did it, but this team always seems to be on the right side of the penalties.

They were second in the league in net yards gained via penalties (their opponents' penalty yards minus their penalty yards) at +254 yards.
They have the 3rd fewest penalty yards accepted against them this season at 674 yards.
They are 5th in the NFL in total flags per game (accepted, declined and offsetting) at 5.78 flags/game.
They are 3rd in the NFL in net penalties accepted (90 against, 112 for) at 22 flags.

https://www.nflpenalties.com/

It always felt like Marvin's team was undisciplined, took too many penalties and the other team didn't seem to get as many penalties. I think this is one major factor in Zac's success compared to Marvin's.

You know, that and the fact that Zac drafted Joe Burrow. That'll help you succeed in the NFL.

(01-23-2023, 06:55 PM)jj22 Wrote: I don't think any of Marvins teams, even the good ones under Palmer had the toughness without the character flaws like this team does. That's the significant difference. DOG without the extra stuff (record arrests, and emotional instability).

Me thinks me agrees with DOG analogy.

(01-23-2023, 06:39 PM)Interceptor Wrote: When it was playoff time, Zac went with what got him there. And if something was working, he'd stick with it until the opposition can actually stop it dead cold in its tracks. But the best thing Zac did was to instill discipline in all his players at all levels. This brought down drive-killing penalties and life-breathers for opposition to almost nil.

This..... Marvin had a playoff game won with AJ freaking McCarron at QB. Then his knuckleheads literally fumbled it away....and figuratively. Marvin's teams were tight, Palmer or Dalton, and they made critical mental errors at critical times. 

(01-23-2023, 06:55 PM)jj22 Wrote: I don't think any of Marvins teams, even the good ones under Palmer had the toughness without the character flaws like this team does. That's the significant difference. DOG without the extra stuff (record arrests, and emotional instability).

Agree that character flaws is what differentiates Marvin and Zac's teams from each other.  

Marvin turned a blind eye to character flaws if the player had talent and Zac will not tolerate them at all. 

I like Marvin and appreciate him a lot, I'm glad Zac has the Bengals where they are at. With some luck and timing, we got good drafts on the offense, and seems like year 3 out of nowhere we birthed a defense unlike I ever seen before as a Bengal fan, ha!

As I said before, I hope the Bengals organization gets a loan and pays the players to keep.

(01-23-2023, 08:01 PM)Wyche Wrote: This..... Marvin had a playoff game won with AJ freaking McCarron at QB. Then his knuckleheads literally fumbled it away....and figuratively. Marvin's teams were tight, Palmer or Dalton, and they made critical mental errors at critical times. 

That has been a big difference under Zac. Multiple beat writers mentioned that Marvin's locker rooms always felt tight in big games. Felt like the players couldn't acknowledge how they felt about the situation. 

Zac embraced it. The writers noted that the players are loose and aren't afraid to mention how they feel about big upcoming games. It's definitely helped in amping up our division rivalries.

(01-23-2023, 08:29 PM)Go Cards Wrote: Agree that character flaws is what differentiates Marvin's and Zac's teams from each other.  

Marvin turned a blind eye to character flaws if the player had talent and Zac will not tolerate them at all. 

Yep

One play/issue that sticks out in my mind a lot was Domata Peko running out onto the field in his sideline coat vs. Steelers. Getting a penalty of course. I'm not trying to throw Peko under the bus. Just illustrating the difference in the lack of discipline on ML lead teams. 

Well then there is Eli Apple who hasn't handled the win well and has been his typical trolling self drawing negative reactions from people who were inclined to support the Bengals run. But at least he isn't getting arrested.

But we all got that ONE in the family.

(01-23-2023, 03:23 PM)jj22 Wrote: In the AFCN you have to have some "dog" as the young kids say. You can't have a team full of choir boys as some old heads would say. Marvin sacrificed character for that "dog" and while it gave us the edge we needed to have some bite against some of the other "dogs" in the AFCN, we paid a heavy price for it with penalties, arrests, and emotional meltdowns.

Zac has somehow gotten players with edge and fight, without the character flaws. This team is full of choir boys, but yesterday showed me they have bark AND bite to go along with high character.

This team seems finesse, but somehow they aren't. They are tough and physical, without all the character sacrifices that haunted us in the past. Zac and the Front Office has done a great job walking that thin line this new era.

ZT only sees a deer in the headlights that's in front of him while Marvin was the deer in the headlights too many times.Big big difference.

Marvin was a fine coach in his own right and re-built the fabric of this team but there were plenty of times those looks were shown with no answer
in very critical games, mainly the playoffs. 

I liked Marvin. I thought he would bring a SB home with the Bengals. I truly appreciated what he did for the team (which was in a ditch with a blown motor when he took over).

I think we all know that discipline was an issue for ML. He wanted the “thugs” like he had in Baltimore. That’s how we ended up with Odell, PacMan, Burfict, etc. ML gave lip service to discipline, but rarely showed any desire to actually instill it.

Even Chad was off the chain under Marvin. I can’t even imagine Chase or Higgins doing any of the stuff Ocho did.

Still, Marvin seemed to endear himself to Mike Brown….always mentioning him as more of a friend than his boss. That, gave him a little reprieve I think.

He had been flailing for a while. But, that last season was ugly. Even his coaching hires had big flaws (Hue Jackson, Jon Gruden, Leslie Frazier, Vance Joseph, etc). Yeah, they had some limited success. Some went on to bigger-better things. But ultimately, they all crashed and burned.

Definition of insanity, doing the same failed things over and over and expecting different results. That was Marvin’s undoing.

Zak? Totally opposite. Knew he couldn’t win with what he had after that first season (Dalton, AJ Green, John Ross, Dunlap, Atkinson, William Jackson, etc). Some of those guys are still playing, but not nearly at the level needed to move up the performance ladder with the team.

So, somehow-someway (after the fan base was calling for his head those first two seasons). He stuck with his play. More importantly, he got the Brown family to understand what he wanted to do, and executed the plan.

He even got a practice bubble.

The rest, is history.

I do believe at some point (hopefully way far in the future), he’ll falter. As they say, NFL HCs are hired to be fired. But, I hope it’s more of a Bellichick career than it is a Marvin Lewis career trajectory.

(01-24-2023, 09:22 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Yep

One play/issue that sticks out in my mind a lot was Domata Peko running out onto the field in his sideline coat vs. Steelers. Getting a penalty of course. I'm not trying to throw Peko under the bus. Just illustrating the difference in the lack of discipline on ML lead teams. 

Right, and when Vernon Hargreaves ran onto the field to celebrate last year, he didn't stick around after that. No tolerance nowadays.

(01-24-2023, 09:22 AM)bengalfan74 Wrote: Yep

One play/issue that sticks out in my mind a lot was Domata Peko running out onto the field in his sideline coat vs. Steelers. Getting a penalty of course. I'm not trying to throw Peko under the bus. Just illustrating the difference in the lack of discipline on ML lead teams. 

Peko stated he simply forgot he was wearing the cape. I take him at his word.

(01-23-2023, 09:23 PM)Bengalitis Wrote: I like Marvin and appreciate him a lot, I'm glad Zac has the Bengals where they are at. With some luck and timing, we got good drafts on the offense, and seems like year 3 out of nowhere we birthed a defense unlike I ever seen before as a Bengal fan, ha!

As I said before, I hope the Bengals organization gets a loan and pays the players to keep.

Got nothing to do with getting a loan. It has everything to do with the Salary Cap!

Clock management? Throwing the red flag when it matters most? Not standing there with that dumb look on his face the entire game? I could go on…

I think Zac is standing on Marvin's shoulders in a way. There was a distinct culture change during Marvin's tenure, but he ran into a brick wall (playoff wins) for myriad reasons, both in and out of his control. Zac has, for reasons both in and out of his control, been able to break through.

If Zac got pulled through a time warp back to 2003 and was hired in Marvin's place, with the organization and players as they were, I'd be hard pressed to say that Zac would find that much more success.

It's hard for a lot of people to understand what a laughingstock the franchise had become before Lewis dragged it back to some kind of respectability. The playoff futility of the 2000s was nothing compared to the utter debacle of the '90s.

It's impossible to say how much of the problem during Lewis' tenure were his own shortcomings as opposed to ownership's resistance to change. There's no question that a lot has changed since his time.

I'll preface this by saying that none of our answers will be able to be made definitively without someone being able to disagree or refute them, but I started seeing a slight glimmer of hope in both Zac Taylor and Lou Anarumo in the season before last, and a handful of my posts stating this on here during last year's offseason had people trying to argue with me, inciting some sort-of pent-up anger and frustration that seemed to be stewing within (which I kind of understood, considering the loyalty of many of us, despite the horrid track record of the team up to that point). I certainly wasn't definitively sold on Zac, and even cited areas and instances in which I had concerns about, but I thought I might have seen an extra effort given in a collective and individual sense by the team and players at points where it seemed futile - even as a fan during games where we had no chance in winning, and at the end of the season where I was in that infamous position thinking that losses would be a good thing for a higher draft pick. It just seemed as if the team seemed to play with a bit more pride and effort relative to other incarnations of losing Bengal seasons. I certainly didn't see last year's magical run coming, but I felt that he deserved a 3rd season, which is what I feel it takes to overhaul the personel of a pervious regime, especially with a roster like what he inherited. I guess we can question whether it was Zac or a pivot by the front office, but I remember Zac stating early on about a philosophy based on drafting and signing players whom were team captains of their respective teams, and also trying to bring in players who have been a part of winning teams and cultures. I like to think that aforementioned extra pride and fight was the earliest stage of this philosophy showing through. I see a much more collective spirit. It feels funny saying "one heart beat" (for those of us who remember this mantra) but it absolutely fits much better attached to this team. It seems a little less individualistic and more collective, and I personally give Zac Taylor some of that credit for us having the opportunity to witness it. I also think those that still try to subtly throw shade on Zac - and attribute 100 percent to Burrow -should realize that Burrow doesn't seem to be the type of dude who would GO OUT OF HIS WAY to praise Taylor as a coach and not mean it.

A. Draft Burrow
B. Draft Chase
C. Be the coach that seems like the young cool uncle
D. Hire Sweet Lou
E. Never giggle