In his latest Hobson's Choice, one of Hobs' answers touched on why he thinks Mike is reluctant to change the status quo:

“Year after meaningless year?” Really? Three division titles since 2009? Yeah, I know. No post-season wins. But six post-seasons berths in eight years? Yeah, I know. It’s not the Patriots. But year after meaningless year? That’s a bit much for me.

I don’t think you can mistake the team’s approach for the media’s approach. This is Mike Brown’s style. He hates change. He thinks in the Green-Dalton Era he’s been on the brink of a championship. (Plenty of pundits have been with him, too.) Now, he may change his tune after this season, who knows, but this is why he’s hung with Marvin Lewis. He thinks he’s close and he thinks any kind of change is a setback. Agree with him or disagree with him, but franchises like Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami and others that keep changing coaches and quarterbacks like socks and cell phones reinforce his fears."

ie...I'm scared to change because we'll go back to the 90's and we're better than the worst teams in the league.

How a team can be 0-7 in the playoffs and routinely lose primetime games to good teams and think they are on 'the brink of a championship' is beyond me.

When I read that I wanted to scream at Hobson.... Yes, MEANINGLESS. Winning one playoff game and being done is meaningless. Division Titles are MEANINGLESS unless you go further. It's not meaningful until you hit Conference Champion or SB Champion levels.....

(10-26-2017, 12:45 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: ie...I'm scared to change because we'll go back to the 90's and we're better than the worst teams in the league.

How a team can be 0-7 in the playoffs and routinely lose primetime games to good teams and think they are on 'the brink of a championship' is beyond me.

That has always been my problem with this line of thinking. 

He's looking at the worst examples and making that the basis for comparison - saying 'at least we're not them, but if we change things up, we could be'. 

Why not reverse the logic and use the best teams as the measuring stick - 'we want to be like them, and if we make some real changes, maybe we can be'. 

The thought process is frustrating to say the least. 

(10-26-2017, 12:53 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: That has always been my problem with this line of thinking. 

He's looking at the worst examples and making that the basis for comparison - saying 'at least we're not them, but if we change things up, we could be'. 

Why not reverse the logic and use the best teams as the measuring stick - 'we want to be like them, and if we make some real changes, maybe we can be'. 

The thought process is frustrating to say the least. 

I see fans do it all the time too. 'You want us to spend in free agency??? That doesn't work, look at the Redskins!' or 'Atleast we're not the Browns.'

Clearly Bengals Management feels that a Superbowl win is some mythical creature that takes a huge confluence of perfect storms to come together to win. I mean how probably is it that we'll win a Super Bowl in a season when we couldn't win primetime games against tough teams? We'd have to beat 3-4 such teams for a Super Bowl.

I'll argue that the jump from 1990's level bad to respectable is actually less steep than the jump from above average to great. The 1st jump lets you just correct low hanging fruit so to speak. After you get to above average, there becomes less low hanging fruit and the things you can do to improve are harder to find.

Things like maybe adding a quality Center in free agency. Waiting that MLB that you have that isn't performing. etc. And 1 or 2 small changes may reap a huge reward.

Good is the Enemy of Great. Totally true.

"Agree with him or disagree with him, but franchises like Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami and others that keep changing coaches and quarterbacks like socks and cell phones reinforce his fears."

Nobody is asking Mike Brown to fire coaches after one or two seasons, but Christ Almighty something has to give at some point. There is an enormous difference between two years and fifteen. Talk about a reach.

(10-26-2017, 01:09 PM)Big Boss Wrote: "Agree with him or disagree with him, but franchises like Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami and others that keep changing coaches and quarterbacks like socks and cell phones reinforce his fears."

Nobody is asking Mike Brown to fire coaches after one or two seasons, but Christ Almighty something has to give at some point.  There is an enormous difference between two years and fifteen.  Talk about a reach.

Yeah...it's basically a strawman.

I'd say that after a coach is 0-7 in the playoffs and the team melts down in loss #7 that it's time.

(10-26-2017, 01:09 PM)Big Boss Wrote: "Agree with him or disagree with him, but franchises like Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami and others that keep changing coaches and quarterbacks like socks and cell phones reinforce his fears."

Nobody is asking Mike Brown to fire coaches after one or two seasons, but Christ Almighty something has to give at some point.  There is an enormous difference between two years and fifteen.  Talk about a reach.

Yeah, changing the head coach after 15 years, 7 failed playoff opportunities, 8-23 against your main rival and 8-30 in prime time games ... it isn't exactly a knee jerk reaction. 

(10-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Yeah, changing the head coach after 15 years, 7 failed playoff opportunities, 8-23 against your main rival and 8-30 in prime time games ... it isn't exactly a knee jerk reaction.

It just boggles my mind that our owner could think we were on the verge of a Super Bowl win.

We struggle against basically any good team we play. To think we could win 3-4 games to win a Super Bowl...blows my mind.

(10-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Yeah, changing the head coach after 15 years, 7 failed playoff opportunities, 8-23 against your main rival and 8-30 in prime time games ... it isn't exactly a knee jerk reaction. 

Right.  It's simply not comparable to the circus they run up in Cleveland.  Trying to even draw that comparison is borderline insane.  It's certainly delusional.  

The lack of a scouting department and in-door practice facility aside, Marvin Lewis has been given more than a fair shake during his tenure with the Bengals.

(10-26-2017, 01:09 PM)Big Boss Wrote: "Agree with him or disagree with him, but franchises like Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami and others that keep changing coaches and quarterbacks like socks and cell phones reinforce his fears."

Nobody is asking Mike Brown to fire coaches after one or two seasons, but Christ Almighty something has to give at some point.  There is an enormous difference between two years and fifteen.  Talk about a reach.

The thing is, we've had one GM for 26 years, one HC for 15 years, and two different starting QBs for 14 years.  We can rag on the proof the Browns/Jaguars/Dolphins/Bills lend to change for the sake of change not leading to championships (by the way, 3 of those 4 teams currently have better records than we do and 2 of them had better records than we did last year, too), but the Bengals are proof that consistency doesn't lead to championships, either.

All this "not rocking the boat' stuff played a lot better when we were melting down in the playoffs...not during the early weeks of the season.  And I know a lot can happen between now and the end of the season, but here are the teams that have as many, or less wins than we currently do right now, and the teams that had as many or less wins than we did last season:

2 or less wins as of now
Bengals
Browns
Colts
Giants
49ers
Buccaneers


6 or less wins in 2016
Bengals
Jets
Chargers
Browns
Jaguars
49ers
Rams
Bears
Panthers


So we share both lists with only the Browns and the 49ers. Anyone else has moved out of our league between their lousy 2016's and now. To think that teams like the Jets, Rams, Bears, and Jaguars have left us behind in any sense in the past year is quite the kick in the groin.

So yeah, we aren't the Patriots.

Ego Investment - When a person internalizes a mental schema (see belief) so thoroughly and has become conditioned to it for so long, it becomes an integral part of their personality. So to attack the belief is to, literally, attack the person. This is why we see such polarization and violent reaction to people’s political, religious, inter-social/inter-sexual, etc. beliefs – they perceive it as a personal attack, even when presented with irrefutable evidence that challenges the assertions of their belief.

This is also why Bengal fans think we are going to win every year and flip out when I talk about the roster having players playing Poor.

(10-26-2017, 01:18 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: It just boggles my mind that our owner could think we were on the verge of a Super Bowl win.

We struggle against basically any good team we play. To think we could win 3-4 games to win a Super Bowl...blows my mind.

Someone should remind Brown about the Buccanneers when Dungy was there and then what happened when Gruden replaced him.

Well there you go. Many seem to be under the impression that Mike doesn't care about winning a championship. Well that right there tells me it's worse than we thought:

He is that damn stupid. He actually believes that what he's doing (i.e. Keeping Marvin on staff) is good enough to win a championship. How delusional can a man be?? Unbelievable

It's losers mentality. My boys made the playoffs the first time in ten years and we got beat in the first round. I was not happy at all. Proud of what they accomplished, work they put in, etc....but the results was not there.

Mike Brown simply doesn't set the standard of breeding a championship culture, therefor he will never get one.

(10-26-2017, 01:55 PM)Hoofhearted Wrote: It's losers mentality. My boys made the playoffs the first time in ten years and we got beat in the first round. I was not happy at all. Proud of what they accomplished, work they put in, etc....but the results was not there.

Mike Brown simply doesn't set the standard of breeding a championship culture, therefor he will never get one.

In Las Vegas, the reason people stay in a casino and lose their life savings is because they think that no matter how many times they lose....that the next hand will be the winner where they come out ahead.

The Bengals strategy appears like that. Lewis is 0-7 in the playoffs but he's going to bring that Super Bowl the next time he's there.

You would also think that he would have someone in his ear saying "you realize our attendance numbers are way down, merch is down... we're losing money because of your 'it's better than the Browns' approach".

(10-26-2017, 12:39 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: In his latest Hobson's Choice, one of Hobs' answers touched on why he thinks Mike is reluctant to change the status quo:

“Year after meaningless year?” Really? Three division titles since 2009? Yeah, I know. No post-season wins. But six post-seasons berths in eight years? Yeah, I know. It’s not the Patriots. But year after meaningless year? That’s a bit much for me.

I don’t think you can mistake the team’s approach for the media’s approach. This is Mike Brown’s style. He hates change. He thinks in the Green-Dalton Era he’s been on the brink of a championship. (Plenty of pundits have been with him, too.) Now, he may change his tune after this season, who knows, but this is why he’s hung with Marvin Lewis. He thinks he’s close and he thinks any kind of change is a setback. Agree with him or disagree with him, but franchises like Buffalo, Cleveland, Jacksonville, Miami and others that keep changing coaches and quarterbacks like socks and cell phones reinforce his fears."

1. This sounds like Hobson prepping us for the bad news that's to come. (no change)

2. What a bunch of ____ing malarkey. "It's not the Patriots" - Yeah, no shit Sherlock. It's not the Chiefs, Steelers, Ravens, Packers, Seahawks, Broncos, or any other good franchise, either. Mike is hanging his hat on "we were sorta good recently". There's a huge gap between what we were and the Patriots. Speaking of "were"...

3. Why is he bringing up a string of regular season success that ended 2 years ago? Since starting 8-0 in 2015, the Bengals are 12-17-1. Why don't they acknowledge that instead of defending it? Only the Bengals would be so defiant and smug in the face of utter failure.

(10-26-2017, 01:15 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Yeah, changing the head coach after 15 years, 7 failed playoff opportunities, 8-23 against your main rival and 8-30 in prime time games ... it isn't exactly a knee jerk reaction. 

Ikr? Hobson sounds like a lot of posters we've had through the years. Take a valid argument and make it sound extreme. You want to be more active in free agency? Look at the Browns and Redskins. Ignoring all the successful teams that use FA, and that no one is asking for $100 million dollar guys. 

You want Marv or Ivory Tickler fired after 15/26 years? Clearly you haven't seen the Browns and Jags fire their coaches every year. Of course, this ignores the fact that (a) many teams turn it around under new coaches (think Rams this year), and (b) Marv is in his 15th year without a playoff win and is 8-13-1 since last year.

This is why I don't look at Bengals.com. Hobson echoes the thoughts of Mike Brown, and listening to Mike Brown makes my head hurt. The man is either a complete moron or he's only about making the Bengals profitable and thinks we're morons.

Rant over.

(10-26-2017, 12:51 PM)Sled21 Wrote: When I read that I wanted to scream at Hobson.... Yes, MEANINGLESS. Winning one playoff game and being done is meaningless. Division Titles are MEANINGLESS unless you go further. It's not meaningful until you hit Conference Champion or SB Champion levels.....

Division titles are only meaningless if you win them every year....

Playoff Births are never meaningless.