Keep Burfict, lose Lewis

[Benton]

(01-11-2016, 12:45 PM)Who Dey Time Wrote: Can't disagree more.  Coaches who lose locker rooms/respect from players don't consistently churn out seasons that the Bengals have over the past five years.  Inevitably, they will stop listening and ultimately stop playing.  To his credit actually, that hasn't happened here which is unique giving Lewis' longevity in one place.

Chip Kelly is an example of guy who lost his team.  Eagles were thought of as a Super Bowl team this year but the players simply weren't buying the message and the season went south quickly.

I'm 50/50 on Lewis and can understand the calls for his ouster.  But to suggest that he doesn't have respect from his players is simply not stating telling the truth.

Can't have it both ways.  You want player like Burfict and Jones, you have to understand the highs and lows of having them.

To the bold, I can agree to disagree. I think we've got a lot of talent and we've had good assistants who make use of that. TO, Chad, Haynesworth, RGIII, and others had a ton of talent and didn't listen their coaches. They went out and made plays. Whoever was coaching them didn't matter much.

I'm not saying our guys are self absorbed like them, only pointing out you don't have to have coaches and players on the page to have success, provided you've got talented players. And that's where we are.

And Kelly's a bad example. He was fired because he tried to coach a pro team like it was college. He instituted diets and sleep schedules for grown men. The players didn't like it. He reduced the playbook with the thinking that if they had fewer plays, they could perfect them. Instead, DC's had to spend less time watching tape and could shut him down more easily.

Kelly tried an experiment. It failed. He's a good coach, but with a bad team approach.

And control over and respect are different things. The guys may like Marvin. They may respect him. But nobody listens to him.