What have the Bengals been doing right.

[*SHRacerX*]

(04-04-2019, 10:34 PM)fredtoast Wrote: First of all please don't turn this into another argument about how the Bengals suck no matter what.  I am not claiming that the Bengals have been great over the last decade.  I am not saying anyone should be satisfied with what they have done over the last decade, but the fact is that the Bengals have outperformed a lot of the other teams in the league over the last 10 years.

-They had a better winning percentage than 19 teams despite playing in the toughest divisions in the league.
-They were 9th in wins against playoff teams.
-They were 8th in wins against teams that finished with a winning record.
-Only 3 teams made the playoffs more than them.

So no matter how much you like to complain about the Bengals you have to admit they had to be doing something better than many other teams.

What was it?

Well, people will hate this, but they didn't make snap decisions.  I am amazed at the number of NFL coaches given one or two years and then dumped before they really get their feet on the ground.  The Bengals undoubtedly stayed with Lewis too long, but their consistency in the coaching staff is one of the reasons they had a solid 5 year playoff run.  

The other thing that kind of goes hand-in-hand with the lack of snap decision making is that when they finally decided to move on, they let the new coach build his staff and they are unlikely to give up on him right away.  Sure, the Bengal's brass needs to do something to reverse the rapidly declining season ticket base, but it is not going to see much of an impact from a change in the coaching staff.

This team has to become fun to watch again.  I believe that the Bengals did the right thing by going with a younger, innovative coach instead of trying to make a splash with a trade-up to get a player like Haskins.  That would be the easy way out.  Try and get the Buckeye fans to jump on board.  However, it would not work with the old coaching staff.  They had to go younger and more creative.  I think that was the wise direction.

I have no idea if they would go after Haskins.  If he somehow fell to them, they would surely grab him but I doubt they try and trade up for him.  The price would be way too high for a team that values compensatory picks as much as I value coffee and bourbon.