Here are some portions of Dan Hoard's  article about previous interviews with Mike concerning his thoughts on coaching:


Why is coaching continuity so important to you?

“The obvious thing is that when we are all singing from the same hymnbook and know the words it helps,” Mike told me. “You do things without having to ponder why. It’s incorporated in you and I think that’s a good thing not a bad thing. Yes, there’s the argument that change helps and I think periodically the people that argue that are correct, but I think when you look at the National Football League there’s way too much turnover. The owners turn over the coaches at the end of the year – about seven go every year, about a quarter of the coaches. It takes the heat off the owner, but I don’t think it’s justified in that many cases.”

As the son of one of pro football’s all-time greatest coaches, Mike is fiercely loyal to the coaches he employs. Perhaps seeing his father Paul get fired in Cleveland after winning seven championships in 13 seasons left an enduring feeling that good coaches are not “hired to be fired.”

In another interview with Mike, I asked him why he didn’t follow in his father’s footsteps and get into coaching.

“It’s what I wanted to do with my life,” Mike said. “I found it fun. The only coaching job I ever had was helping coach the Harvard freshman football team – how’s that for big-time football? But it was the most fun of anything that I ever did. I wanted to be a coach but my father told me that I wasn’t going to do that.”

Did he tell you why he didn’t want you to follow him into coaching?

“He thought it was perilous and a tough way to make a living. People eventually turned on you and it ended in a hard way. Almost always. And I don’t think he wanted me to have to go through that.”

Is it any wonder that firing a coaching staff is not a decision he takes lightly?

You can argue that Mike is loyal to a fault and that it was time for a change, but the Bengals owner believes in Marvin Lewis.

In December of last year I asked Mike Brown if he was “angry, disappointed, or in disbelief at the end of that playoff game?”

“It was hard,” Mike said. “I thought we had won the game. It was a tough game. We somehow came up with a way that I’m not sure I understand even yet that caused us to lose the game. There are times in the National Football League where you face real disappointment. It’s part of it. And you just have to keep on trudging. Yeah, did it hurt? It hurt in a very real way. But you can’t just cry in your beer. You have to take the next step and keep on going.”  

He’s made the decision to “keep on going” with Marvin Lewis as his head coach. Time will tell if it pays off.


http://www.bengals.com/news/article-1/Coaching-Converesations-With-Mike-Brown/7e800047-d7ea-4893-8e83-f152921094be

Interesting that the very qualities that make him a good human being also make him a lousy GM.

(01-08-2018, 02:33 PM)McC Wrote: Interesting that the very qualities that make him a good human being also make him a lousy GM.

Yep, and when he says "But you can’t just cry in your beer. You have to take the next step and keep on going"  - it seems like it's still not even a consideration in his line of thinking, that maybe the next step should be to make real changes in hopes of avoiding the previous steps that have led to crying in your beer far too many times...like stepping aside and finding a more competent GM or replacing the head coach who hasn't won a single playoff game in a 15 years.

(01-08-2018, 02:58 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Yep, and when he says "But you can’t just cry in your beer. You have to take the next step and keep on going"  - it seems like it's still not even a consideration in his line of thinking, that maybe the next step should be to make real changes in hopes of avoiding the previous steps that have led to crying in your beer far too many times...like stepping aside and finding a more competent GM or replacing the head coach who hasn't won a single playoff game in a 15 years.

With his Harvard education, I'm sure that Mike also knows a few things about classical architecture.  He probably thinks, "Well, it took 22 years to build the Taj Mahal.  We still have 7 years to complete this feat of winning the Superbowl".

It makes it harder to hate the man when you see that he's indeed a human being.

But, I'm still gonna try.

Nobody claims that Mike Brown is a terrible person. He just has trouble running an NFL franchise that leads to any meaningful success in terms of winning (especially making legitimate run at the Lombardi).

Mike Brown has "daddy issues", hard to say about an 80 something year old man. Someone needs to explain to him, why teams turnover every 7 years, because they are not winning! Doing the samething every year and failing is only going to make you fall further behind...

(01-08-2018, 05:52 PM)CornerBlitz Wrote: Nobody claims that Mike Brown is a terrible person. He just has trouble running an NFL franchise that leads to any meaningful success in terms of winning (especially making legitimate run at the Lombardi).

I think that’s the biggest issue.

Mike is likely a hell of a guy, in terms of character. In terms of business or success, he’s someone who inherited a successful business that he can’t conprehend.

this buffoon owner is INSANE! How do I know??? What is the definition of INSANE!! all that needs said!!!

The way he treats the team and it’s fans is comparable to an eccentric, wealthy father who buys his children clothes at goodwill.

Meh.....they invented the salary floor because of him. **** him.....