Bengals Ownership Growing Impatient with Marvin Lewis

[*Wyche'sWarrior*]

(04-08-2016, 01:24 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: If you don't think there was any QB controversy in Washington, I'm really not sure how to convince you otherwise. There was arguably controversy from the moment Kirk Cousins was drafted. RGIII was benched for the last 3 games of '13. While Shanny claimed it was to rest RGIII and "prevent injury", many viewed it as an excuse to get Cousins on the field. 

You're right that Jay was picked to resurrect RGIII's career (Dan Snider was pretty much in RGIII's back pocket), but that doesn't mean there wasn't a groundswell of support for Cousins. Either way, for Jay to stand up to Snyder and play Cousins took serious guts, and it paid off. Jay deserves a lot of praise for getting the Skins through that storm. It very well could've turned out much worse, and honestly I thought it was headed that way. No one expected the Skins to go 9-7 last year. 

No doubt the Bengals had been bad for a long time when Marv came along, but it's really undeniable that most of the key pieces were already there for him. Carson Palmer was the consensus #1 pick and would've been a Bengal with or without Marvin. Plus all the other players I mentioned. So I'm not sure how Marv rebuilt the Bengals when most of the core was already there. 

Marv was definitely the best coach we'd had since Wyche, but I tend to believe that a team with Palmer, Chad, TJ, Warrick, Rudi, Willie, Levi, Justin, Brian Simmons, etc would've been competitive with any competent HC. Does anyone really think we would've went 4-12 with that group had we hired Coughlin or Denny Green instead? The Bengals were bad because they'd been drafting poorly through the 90's. 

But right before Marv arrived, the Bengals started hitting on several draft picks. Those picks were green in 2002, but we started seeing rewards in 2003 and beyond. Palmer was also the best  2nd best behind Greg Cook, QB prospect we ever had the opportunity to take. I know this idea takes away from the "Marv is a hero" narrative, but I believe the Bengals were in much better shape for the future than their record indicated at the time.

To finally wrap this up, I think Marv is a fine coach who really brought a steady hand to the organization, but I really think he gets to too much credit for "rebuilding". (3 rebuilds? When was the 3rd one?)

FIFY