11-10-2021, 05:24 PM
(11-10-2021, 10:12 AM)fredtoast Wrote: The haters were wrong for years when we went to the playoffs from '11 to '15. They were forced to change their tune from "worst in the league" to "Can't win a championship" but most of those years these guys still predicted we would not even make it back to the playoffs. Theses are the guys who claimed the Bengals would never use a first round pick on a TE, OG or OC. These are the guys who claimed the Bengals would never sign any big dollar free agents.
I think the big problem here is the extremists. There are a very few who just constantly have nothing but negative takes. They often make up shit out of thin air to come up with claims that start with "You know the players think. . ." or "You can tell by the look on his face. . . " or "The Bengals will never. . . ". Or they work really hard to twist stats to make the team look as bad as possible.
There are really only a small handful of these extreme negative type posters. And when it comes to overy optimistic posters I can only think of a couple. Mostly, right now we are all talking about what is wrong with the team. It is clear we have some problems. Just most of us don't see it as a complete lost cause.
The problem here is that the things you claim were "extreme negative" takes were all based in truth.
1. "We can't win a championship" - Well? We were 0-7 in the playoffs, so was this really an unreasonable take. The answer is no.
2. "The Bengals will never use a 1st rounder on a TE, G or C". Well? We didn't for decades until we suddenly did. Were people really being unreasonable for doubting something that hadn't occurred in decades? Do you think the Bengals will build a practice facility in the next 5 years? Probably not, right? Guess that makes you extremely negative then.
3. "We won't splurge in free agency". Same deal. I can count on maybe 2 fingers how many times the Bengals had splurged in free agency prior to 2 years ago. So were people unreasonable to doubt? People like you even brought up FA failures every year to defend the team for never splurging. Now your tune has changed to this.
Sure, people should never speak in absolutes. "Never" is a strong word. That said, the doubt was perfectly understandable, and pretending otherwise is being disingenuous just to help make a stronger point.
The training, nutrition, medicine, fitness, playbooks and rules evolve. The athlete does not.
