Hobson Gets Red Pilled

[BURROWorBUST]

(05-23-2018, 02:46 PM)3wt Wrote: I think you're right about the negative impact of the front office on the efficacy of the head coach.   Hard to know what exactly goes on behind the veil, but the party line has always been that the bottom line decisions have always been Mr. Brown's.

The sense I have looking at the big picture over the years and in the Lewis era is that the more leeway Marvin has been given the more successful a team he has fielded.  He appeared to have a pretty free reign in the beginning of his tenure and he was pretty aggressive finding some effective free agents (Thornton, O'neal, James, Hardy, Kelly, Graham, etc)

But I think those were mainly to jump start one of the NFLs worst teams.

I think Marvin has been hamstrung more than we know, and that Marvin's conditional two year contract depended on his freedom to hire the coaches and free agents he wanted.

The over arching problem with the Bengals franchise since Mike Brown took over has been, well, Mike Brown.   I think he's a fine intelligent man who wants to win and knows football.   But for whatever the reason he has a history of making really poor personnel decisions - regarding both players and coaches - and has handicapped our team as a result.  

I think the two big (family) issues have been control and vision.  The obsession with the former and the lack of the latter.  Take New England and Pittsburgh:  You see Kraft willing (except for the Brady/ Garapolo debacle) to give control to his coach.  You see Rooney as having the vision to guide his team into a new era - and being willing to listen to others, even members of the press to the point that he was willing to change his whole paradigm of personnel development.

I'm hoping Mr. Brown's willingness to grant Marvin more autonomy results in significant success.  So far I like what I see (other than a few of the draft picks )

Well said. I think that's a fair assessment. I've always wanted to like Mike Brown. I think he's always been honest with the city of Cincinnati about the costs of keeping an NFL franchise in the city.  It's easy to understand why St Louis can't keep a football team. The city doesn't have that kind of money. Cincinnati does (for now), but who knows when that can change? (Please note that the only cities with NFL teams are the only ones rich enough to pay for them.)

We recognize this as a huge public waste, and we gripe about it. We fall into a total disavowal of this reality, that this is what it takes to have an NFL franchise come to your city. And that's what teams are – franchises. In many ways it follows a Clintonian model where it's "pay to play." 

So, I don't hate Mike Brown any more or less than I do any other NFL owner. But I do hate him (not really) for the reasons you mentioned, especially the poor personnel decisions. Isn't that what drove CP9 to retire?

Otherwise, he seems like a really nice person. He does have compassion for players who've had problems elsewhere, and he's very loyal.