as always, a well done interview hitting on many of the same questions we have asked here. It is like Jim read our minds :)

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/nfl/bengals/2018/01/19/cincinnati-bengals-owner-mike-brown-why-marvin-lewis-back-head-coach/1048725001/

Props to Jim, who always does a great job, but Mike has basically been giving these same types of answers for 20 some years now, with slight variations.

My biggest frustration with Mike was pretty much summed up in his first sentence: “I chose not to make a decision on what we were going to do going forward until all the evidence had been submitted."

His evidence for bringing Marvin back for a 16th season was that they played hard down the stretch and beat 2 potential playoff teams.

What about all the other evidence from the last 15 years - 0-7 playoff record, 2-15 home record vs the Steelers, 68-89 record vs AFC teams not from Cleveland (counting PO's)...the abysmal prime time record???

It seems he's extremely selective about what he chooses to see as 'evidence'. As I've said before, he has a long history of ignoring and/or rewarding failure.

All of the same things that we've been hearing/reading for years. Just said very politely, in a well spoken manner.

(01-19-2018, 06:43 PM)pally Wrote: as always, a well done interview hitting on many of the same questions we have asked here. It is like Jim read our minds :)

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/nfl/bengals/2018/01/19/cincinnati-bengals-owner-mike-brown-why-marvin-lewis-back-head-coach/1048725001/

Agreed Jim did a great job he didn’t ask easy questions and pretty much asked all the questions I would ask if I was interviewing Mike Brown myself. With that being said what I got out of the article confirmed what I thought from the second they brought back Marvin “ nothing will change “ same old Mike Brown. Hiring all these new coaches is just window dressing , we’re not going to be active in free agency and as long as these two are in charge we’re going nowhere.

As long as the players are comfortable. God forbid a new HC come in and change wasn't hasn't work..... But as long as the players are comfy.

Mike normally doesn't do interviews, and I guess I'm in the minority that didn't think he did too bad in this one and liked some of the things I heard.

Every other year, it's just "we did some things good, but we just need to improve." This interview has some of that, but it also has more sound of direction and that Mike finally pulled the trigger and did the things needed to improve the team.

He seemed to take notice of the weaknesses and not just say "we need to get better in a lot of areas" and he's actually doing something about it:

Quote:“We were way off offensively last year. It starts with pass protection. We’ve got to get that up to standard. We have to run the ball more effectively than we did over the course of the year. At the end of the year, we were (more effective). So perhaps we’re closer to putting together one of those pieces that has to be corrected. The pass protection issue is still out there and we will work to try to make that what it needs to be. I honestly feel that on offense, overall, we have enough people to be good. We do intend to shore it up. That is one of our principal goals.

“On defense, some of the problems over there were caused by the lack of the offense’s ability to stay on the field, move the ball, get ahead and not make the chore of the defense harder. Do I feel we have people there? I think we do. I think we can add a couple pieces there as well and that will help. And we have to stay healthy in certain spots. By the end of the year, we were down top playing with our (practice) squad linebackers. That was something I had never seen before. To their credit, they went out and did pretty darn well. But we do need (Vontaze) Burfict to be on the field. We need Burfict to be healthy. We need to get our other ‘backers back and playing.

“As a group, I think they’re talented enough to win a lot for us.”

It's still up in the air whether or not he'll actually be active in free agency and the draft to try to improve those things, but it sounds like he will and he's acknowledging specific weaknesses instead of just saying general statements about the entire team.

Then he goes on about the coaches and about how the sweeping change should bring an entire change of culture:

Quote:“That’s how it presented itself. We had a clean slate. The order of work was head coach first. And then the process of settling on that, the assistant coaches were fending for themselves. Once Marvin was taken care of, we turned to the assistant coaching area. Some of our guys chose to leave. Some of them we chose to ask to leave. It was a big changeover. I think it’s around seven guys were moved in some fashion, maybe more. That’s unprecedented. We’ve had more changeover in the assistant coaching level than I can remember short of changing the head coach. That would bring a lot of fresh ideas in here. We’re in need of some fresh ideas. I look forward to how it will be put together a little differently than before. But we also retain a lot of continuity, and I think that’s important too. It’ll be a mix. It will be interesting to see if it plays out right. I think it will.”

The fact that he even says that it's unprecedented (for us, anyways) and that we need new, fresh ideas gets me excited.

Like I said, it sounds like I'm in the minority, but this is another thing for me to like so far this offseason!

Is anyone really surprised he brought Marvin back after we won the last two games? We've seen it before.

2008: 4-win season but won the last few game, Marvin stays

2010: another 4-win season, final two games ended with a huge prime time win over the playoff hungry chargers and a close loss to Baltimore. Marvin is extended.

2016: second consecutive losing season, won the last two games over playoff hungry Detroit and Baltimore, Marvin is extended.

Let's face it, as long as there's a even a sliver of hope under Marvin, Mike will keep him around. I was cheering for us to win the last two games but I had a sickening feeling after we won them both the Mike would "see hope" and extend the prick...

I hate it when I'm right

(01-19-2018, 08:02 PM)Pat5775 Wrote: Is anyone really surprised he brought Marvin back after we won the last two games? We've seen it before.

2008: 4-win season but won the last few game, Marvin stays

2010: another 4-win season, final two games ended with a huge prime time win over the playoff hungry chargers and a close loss to Baltimore. Marvin is extended.

2016: second consecutive losing season, won the last two games over playoff hungry Detroit and Baltimore, Marvin is extended.

Let's face it, as long as there's a even a sliver of hope under Marvin, Mike will keep him around. I was cheering for us to win the last two games but I had a sickening feeling after we won them both the Mike would "see hope" and extend the prick...

I hate it when I'm right

We all get it.

Translation = Mr. Brown is too old to break in a new horse.

(01-19-2018, 08:02 PM)Pat5775 Wrote: Is anyone really surprised he brought Marvin back after we won the last two games? We've seen it before.

2008: 4-win season but won the last few game, Marvin stays

2010: another 4-win season, final two games ended with a huge prime time win over the playoff hungry chargers and a close loss to Baltimore. Marvin is extended.

2016: second consecutive losing season, won the last two games over playoff hungry Detroit and Baltimore, Marvin is extended.

Let's face it, as long as there's a even a sliver of hope under Marvin, Mike will keep him around. I was cheering for us to win the last two games but I had a sickening feeling after we won them both the Mike would "see hope" and extend the prick...

I hate it when I'm right

While Mr. Brown did a pretty nice job explaining the moves he made, I too fear things really aren't going to change overnight with Marvin still here; 15 years of "almost" pretty much proves that. I said all along we would have been miles ahead to lose those last two and be picking much higher in every round, with a new coach to guide us in our efforts; I just really believe that is the case, and I can't jump on the hype train. I guess time will tell, but I'm not going all in until we make the playoffs and win at least one game. Then and only then will I believe the status quo with Marvin really has changed. I guess I'm from Missouri.....

(01-19-2018, 08:34 PM)Bengalsrob Wrote: While Mr. Brown did a pretty nice job explaining the moves he made, I too fear things really aren't going to change overnight with Marvin still here; 15 years of "almost" pretty much proves that. I said all along we would have been miles ahead to lose those last two and be picking much higher in every round, with a new coach to guide us in our efforts; I just really believe that is the case, and I can't jump on the hype train. I guess time will tell, but I'm not going all in until we make the playoffs and win at least one game. Then and only then will I believe the status quo with Marvin really has changed. I guess I'm from Missouri.....

Sadly, I fear that not much of anything will change, until Mr. Brown decides to retire.  I feel like there's much more to the story than the same canned rhetoric that we see from Mr. Brown, year after year.  I feel like he's a great man, and has the best of intentions at heart, but is still functioning in the pre-modern free agency era.  In my opinion, the greatest thing that he could do is hire an actual, modern football General Manager and turn football operations over to that individual.

Quote:“Clearly, our attendance was off. The best single thing we can do to re-establish our attendance is to win on the field. All the other things are peripheral to that. We won’t be able to improve any of that until we get out there and have our chance to do so. But that is the key. I suppose there are other things. We have people that work on the other things and we try to do them right. You mentioned the 50th-anniversary celebration. We brought old-timers back on a weekly basis and I thought that went extremely well. Yet doing that is not going to fill the seats. They’re going to come when we win. In some ways, ours is a hard market. It is the fact that our people are judgmental about us. They are often easy to condemn when it doesn’t go to their standards. But we’re coming off a run of playoff years and they began to see that as the bare minimum. Well, maybe for them it is. For most people in this league, it’s a pretty solid achievement. I think only a couple of other teams have managed that during that same time period. But we didn’t go forward from that. We didn’t have success in the playoffs. And that was our undoing.

"Now, here we are, having fallen off some. And we have to collect ourselves and come back to that level or better. That’s the goal.”

While I applaud Jim O. and his great question as always.

This is for Mike Brown :

(01-19-2018, 06:43 PM)pally Wrote: as always, a well done interview hitting on many of the same questions we have asked here.  It is like Jim read our minds :)

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/nfl/bengals/2018/01/19/cincinnati-bengals-owner-mike-brown-why-marvin-lewis-back-head-coach/1048725001/

Mikey was desperate for an excuse to NOT have to fire Marvin. The team saved his bony ass the last two games. Mikey was sweating but he was spared at the last minute. Besides being stuck with M&M for two more years we also dropped in draft position.

Nice job by Jim O, but it's standard issue answers from Mike. Same low standards, same boasting about mediocre achievements. What team with championship aspirations brags about a few consecutive playoff appearances that all ended in epic failure? What team brings back a HC with a 15 year long resume based on the performance in a couple meaningless games down the stretch?

(01-19-2018, 10:20 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Nice job by Jim O, but it's standard issue answers from Mike. Same low standards, same boasting about mediocre achievements. What team with championship aspirations brags about a few consecutive playoff appearances that all ended in epic failure? What team brings back a HC with a 15 year long resume based on the performance in a couple meaningless games down the stretch?

Sad to say, only the Bengals.

I havnt been paying attention to Mike Brown interview for that many years. I remember his take charge in free agency that never happened. But I got to give y'all credit,you knew how Mike Brown thought. I was kind of unsure in a way .

But I kind of liked some things ,and there was things in this interview I hated. He identified o line on offense,ok that's good but on the other hand he thinks all the other pieces are there on offense for a Superbowl. I don't know about that,I think we definitely need a better #2 receiver,and sounds like they will stick with lafell. I can't stand lafell.i also think Dalton isn't the answer to win us a Superbowl and it would be wise to draft a guy to atleast sit behind him and get ready. Doesn't sound like they will do that.

He claims everyone wants to win,and he said he's not going to dwell on it. Well we can tell mikey. He said maybe you do but I don't. Like wow that's coming from the owner. He also admits taking charge on occasions to override marvin.i didn't know if that was the case or not but we find out,it is true.

Another bad thing,doesn't sound like we will get a good free agent ,we are going to go ahead and worry about guys too early. I feel that's a problem with this team,looking too far in the future. What about trying to win this year and figuring that out later,are you worried them guys are going to get outpaid Mikey? I guess so.they could of got better free agents in the past,but they carry over a ton of money and pay the guys we don't really need . And watch some good ones walk smh.

Oh one more thing,Mike Brown talks as him and Marvin are a team on things,so we can bury the thought of Mike getting out of the way.

(01-19-2018, 07:02 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: Props to Jim, who always does a great job, but Mike has basically been giving these same types of answers for 20 some years now, with slight variations.

My biggest frustration with Mike was pretty much summed up in his first sentence: “I chose not to make a decision on what we were going to do going forward until all the evidence had been submitted."

His evidence for bringing Marvin back for a 16th season was that they played hard down the stretch and beat 2 potential playoff teams.

What about all the other evidence from the last 15 years - 0-7 playoff record, 2-15 home record vs the Steelers, 68-89 record vs AFC teams not from Cleveland (counting PO's)...the abysmal prime time record???

It seems he's extremely selective about what he chooses to see as 'evidence'. As I've said before, he has a long history of ignoring and/or rewarding failure.

He also put a hard kibosh on  any thoughts of a different FA approach.  

Nice job by Jim O, but it's standard issue answers from Mike. Same low standards, same boasting about mediocre achievements. What team with championship aspirations brags about a few consecutive playoff appearances that all ended in epic failure? What team brings back a HC with a 15 year long resume based on the performance in a couple meaningless games down the stretch?

Those last two wins cost us big time. Sealed Marvin’s return for what? Meaningless....

(01-19-2018, 11:09 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Nice job by Jim O, but it's standard issue answers from Mike. Same low standards, same boasting about mediocre achievements. What team with championship aspirations brags about a few consecutive playoff appearances that all ended in epic failure? What team brings back a HC with a 15 year long resume based on the performance in a couple meaningless games down the stretch?

Yeah, you could dig up any of his old interviews, ask those questions, and dub the answers in from any of them.