How things got this bad?

[*ochocincos*]

(11-10-2019, 07:51 PM)TKUHL Wrote: Give us your most logical idea on just how things got as bad as they are now. Every position group is just pathetic, absolutely pathetic this year. Worse than last year. I’m sure most of the problems were building the past 4 years missing on draft picks while letting good players walk. But there has to be even more to it than that. Personally I think we have some good players, take the D for instance. The D line has everyone healthy yet they can’t do anything. So what gives. Is coaching, schemes, play calling a result?

I think it's obvious, is it not?

Draft - The Bengals' player philosophy has been to primarily draft and develop. They drafted a large number of players who took too long to develop or never blossomed at all.

Free Agency - As part of the above, they let their good players hit FA and go elsewhere in hopes that the drafted players behind them blossomed into good players to fill the void. They signed mid-to-lower-tier FAs as stopgaps.

Staffing - The Bengals went with unproven coaches for HC, OC, and DC. None have had good success calling plays anywhere, and it shows.


Scouting - The Bengals have the smallest scouting department in the league and require all of the coaches to double as scouts to help cover the lack of resources. The scouting department and staff have not done a good job of working together to find good talent, developing that talent, and building an effective game plan with that talent.

This all started in 2016 when we started to see Marvin Jones, Mohamed Sanu, and Andre Smith leave in FA. Their replacements didn't quite perform at the same level. It's been a downhill slope from there.