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

[Shake n Blake]

(02-01-2023, 02:53 AM)pally Wrote: The dark years of the 90s set a narrative they have never escaped from. Bad teams, dysfunctional teams, no fans, fans with bags over their heads, CHEAP OWNER, etc. The narrative was expanded upon during the Marvin years to include out of control, thugs, criminals, and chokers on the big stage. Most reporters are too lazy to check out the reality and most shock jock sports talking heads don’t care if it’s changed. They will continue to bring up 30 year old narratives.

Some of that is changing with Joey and Zac. Though to put more behind them winning that big diamond ring would be a great next step

Signing JoeyB to a long term contract paying him millions of dollars is important too in changing outsiders tunes.

Great post. I think a big part of it is that we've never won a SB to rid the stench of the 90s.

(02-01-2023, 08:55 AM)WiregrassBenGal Wrote: My votes for the most miserable franchises of the NFL are (in no particular order): Arizona (should be called the Coyotes or Roadrunners) Cardinals, Detroit Lions, Cleveland Browns after 1999, New York Jets, Washington Commanders, Miami Dolphins, and Chicago Bears.

Yes, the Bengals completely stunk up the 90s but even then there were some fun moments such as the Jeff Blake aerial show, Boomer returning for a swan song, and some fun upsets. Akili Smith and David Klingler both show up on "worst NFL quarterbacks of all time" lists. Since about 2004, it has overall been pretty fun to be a Bengal's fan.

Of those miserable franchises, the Bears and Dolphins are forever reliving their glory days of '84 and '72 respectively, the Cardinals were only fun in the mid '70s and maybe when Kurt Warner was there, the Browns are just stupid, the Jets perenially disappoint, and the Commanders suffer from having terrible ownership. The Lions might get good.

I'm with ya. I definitely think there are several teams with histories that are definitely worse than ours, and based on our playoff appearances, division titles and SB runs (pre-Burrow), I would put us right on par with teams like the Chargers and Falcons.

But we get lumped at the bottom with the Lions. At least it seems that way.

(02-01-2023, 10:42 AM)HarleyDog Wrote: The organization has a history of being cheap. Specially in the early days of Mike Brown. Players who played here were open about how cheap the team was and when you don't spend money, it's easily perceived as a team that doesn't want to win. I seem to remember Houshmandzadeh saying they had used jockstraps, no bottled water or Gatorade in the locker room. They had a water fountain. I doubt the peoples view of the FO was reminiscent of the Charlestown Chiefs in the movie Slap Shot, but sure it has something to do with how we are perceived today. Add to that, Mike Brown voting no on basically everything the NFL wants to do/change.

Mike Brown is probably a huge factor, agreed. Old stigmas die hard.

(02-01-2023, 08:55 PM)Awful Llama Wrote: People keep bringing up the Cards and Lions, and while it's true that the Cards once possessed the longest playoff win drought, they not only broke that streak but were NFC Champs in 2008. The Lions? Well, the Lions went 33 seasons without a playoff win (1958-1990), won a divisional round playoff game in '91, then promptly strung together another 31 season-and-counting playoff win drought from 1992-2022. If you're a Lions fan and you remember witnessing two playoff wins in your lifetime, then you're at least in your seventies. Definitely puts our past failures in perspective.

The 2 streaks that jumped out the most when I was researching all this crap was the Lions' playoff droughts, the Cardinals playoff drought (and overall lack of success sans Kurt Warner) and the 34 year division title drought by the Browns that Essex mentioned.

Stuff like this is why I look at the Marvin years and our SB runs in the 80s and question whether we should really be lumped in with such teams. I bashed Marv as much as anyone, but he did have an overall winning record in 16 years. 131-122-3.