IF You Ever Wonder About the Bengals Not Having Any Money

[Shake n Blake]

Here's an article from 4/22/2011 that talks about the Bengals working towards building a facility:

http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2011/04/22/mike-brown-finally-may-be-building-an-indoor-practice-facility

Mike Florio Wrote:For years, Bengals owner Mike Brown has resisted the notion of building an indoor practice facility.  The issue nearly caused coach Marvin Lewis to resist the opportunity to stay with the team.

Joe Reedy of the Cincinnati Enquirer reports that Brown could be breaking down and breaking out the wallet for an indoor venue.  Reedy writes that the team is “continuing preliminary assessments” toward that end, and that the team would fully fund the project.

“Marvin has a desire to have a practice facility,” Brown said when Lewis agreed to a new two-year contract in January, when he was a coaching free agent.  “I have a desire, but probably not as keen. That doesn’t mean I don’t have a desire to do it.”

He should have a desire to do it.  An indoor practice facility is one of those things that can help a team improve, allowing practice to continue during thunderstorms or heavy snow.  It also could be a factor in the decision-making processes of free agents.

We can’t imagine many players spurning the Bengals because they don’t have an indoor practice facility, but the absence of an indoor practice facility is a tangible item to which a free agent could point when deciding to point his search for a new team in a different direction because he senses that the Bengals perhaps don’t “get it.”

And that could be one of the reasons why the Bengals so often have to rely on signing talented players with off-field concerns, whose options are playing for an NFL team with no indoor practice facility — or playing for a CFL team that has one.