Were the pre-Joe Bengals as bad as most think?

[*Nately120*]

(01-31-2023, 11:38 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I guess it does make more sense that the media would accredit more of our success to Burrow when we were 2-14 immediately prior to his drafting. As opposed to the Chiefs, who were already contending with Reid when they got Mahomes.

Still, I don't see the media constantly saying the Chiefs were a bad franchise prior to Reid.

We did take the riskier route, but I think both teams handled the situations as they should have. Our rebuild was just a bit more lengthy, and bc of that, I don't think we really got to properly guage whether or not Zac was a decent HC. Which was very risky when you take a QB as obviously talented as Burrow.

I still think this whole tank and rebuild start to the ZT era is hindsight.  Things obviously worked out, but ZT was brought in to get Dalton and Green and John Ross back into the playoffs by replacing Marvin's outdated defensive-minded plan with a an offensive-minded young HC who had just been part of a SB run. Well, Ross was more of a player who "proved" that Marvin simply couldn't or wouldn't do what needed to be done to unlock this team's potential. ZT was supposed to be an instant upgrade with a roster that still had "win now" potential.

Our total suckage in 2019 and Burrow's ghastly injury in 2020 played an essential role in getting us where we are now, but I don't recall us expecting either to happen.  Going into the 2019 we had a poll on how many wins we'd get that year.  I recall picking 8 wins, and I think most folks hovered around "a bit better than Mavin has been doing lately."  I don't recall anyone saying we were tanking or needed to tank or we'd just flat out win 2 game.  Well, someone probably picked that.