05-07-2020, 01:25 PM
(05-07-2020, 11:12 AM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Perhaps the lowest attendance in PBS history, the lowest % of tickets sold in the entire league, and pending negotiations with Hamilton County for the lease renewal in 2026, helped motivate the front office to spend more.
To just simply say, Zak Taylor obviously has already gained more influence, or was better able to convince the team to spend in FA than Marvin Lewis is such a simple-minded, ill-informed way of looking at the situation.
That's not to say Taylor wasn't able to make his case here and there, nor does it mean that he hasn't gained influence. It simply means that there is much more to consider in explaining the change in approach, and recent splurge.
The fact of the matter is you have no idea who Marvin Lewis pushed for, or how Taylor's influence compares to Marvin's. And neither do I, or anyone else that isn't in that building.
Sure, we can all speculate. But you should at least put forth the effort to consider other plausible reasons for why this may be.
IMHO, I find it hard to believe that Taylor, or any other coach could come in here and in two years gained greater influence than Marvin. It's clear that Mike Brown greatly respected him, and that was built on a 16 year relationship.
The team really had no choice but to spend this season. the team had a decent amount of space entering the offseason. You then had obvious roster moves made with Dalton and Cordy Glenn, that would free up an enormous amount of space. And you now have a minimum spending requirement in the cap floor that Marvin didn't work with until he was a decade into his tenure. Again, spending was inevitable.
When you consider all of this, and couple it with a half empty stadium, it seems reasonable to believe that perhaps this could also explain why 2020 resulted in record spending.
To ignore all of it, and simply attribute it to "Obviously Zak Taylor got it done, when Marvin couldn't" seems incredibly short-sided.
Are you a new fan? Did you not live through the 90's? If those empty stadiums and losing records didn't make MB change, what makes you think last season did? The only new factor in this equation is Zac Taylor, whether you guys want to admit it or not.
