"Can We Talk About Football?"

[BengalHawk62]

Can you imagine what the media is going to say to Mixon during media day in Super Bowl week?

[CJD]

Once he has a half decent game, I'm sure it'll go to the back burner. It'll never not be brought up, but it's mentioning will decrease once there's something else worth mentioning.

[Thundercloud]

I think that one of the things that happens is that every time you have a new announcer on one of our games, he thinks that he, great journalist that is he is, MUST address this issue.

Except that the general audience has heard it all about 100 times. Just because it comes out of your mouth for the first time doesn't make it new for us. I mean, yeah, you really blew the lid off a four year old story. It's been covered numb nuts.

[grampahol]

One sad overlooked fact is that the NFL has it's own secret police who if you believe in such things uses its extraordinary powers to coerce players, probably coaches as well as owners to effect the outcomes of games and to cover the spreads for gambling and so on.. 
It's my belief for better or worse that we root for a team set up to lose from the very beginning. It's a front franchise if you want to call it that and perhaps the league secret police have some kind of dirt so embarrassing to the Brown family that they accept being the leagues loss leader to give the teams in favor someone they can count on to take a dive whenever needed. Ever wonder why Marvin never runs up the score when we're in obvious control? Gotta cover the spread.. The score can't get out of hand..too much money is involved and Marvin definitely isn't alone in this scheme. 
Of course I have no proof of this and if anyone could prove it it would spell the end of the league as we know it, but the league has long established protocols in place for discrediting anyone who could ever prove they're corrupt to the core.

But the players are all paid too much to be corrupt you say? Well the fact that the lowest paid player in the league makes close to a HALF MILLION DOLLARS every season ought to speak volumes itself. They have great medical coverage, pensions and so on so who among them wants to kill the goose busy laying golden eggs for them? That goose doesn't just lay golden eggs it lays golden bacon, toast, jelly and orange juice..
You can bet your life that NFL secret police would put a stop to anyone willing to blow the whistle on the league. They would either mysteriously vanish into thin air or otherwise be silenced into conspiracy theory land.
I don't have the definitive answer to why this team seems so utterly inept, but if I had to guess you just read it. 
What can we as fans do about it? Not one damned thing other than not give the NFL one damned dime for tickets, merchandise or through any other means..
It's bought lock, stock and barrel. 

[grampahol]

As far as the disgust level in people, well it takes more and more to get people's ire up enough to affect change. 
Think about that the next time you find yourself able to just step over or around someone on the sidewalk begging for a bit of spare change because they're so down on their luck they've been reduced to it.
NOBODY, and I mean NOBODY who has a decent job, nice home and good family just wakes up one day and says, 'You know what? The good life isn't for me. I'd much rather go hungry and be detested by society and have to beg for change than this nice life!'  Nobody just wakes up and says, 'You know, wouldn't it be great if I could become a heroin addict and go to jail today? '
The more you're exposed to these things the easier they become to stomach. 
Just a few years ago NO politician would have dared utter the things Trump did to get elected. Just the mere appearance of siding with fringe political groups used to be enough to disqualify any politician in the public eye and yet the ***** grabbing tape was largely discounted as "locker room banter". If an NFL player uttered such things in public the league would do away with them post haste..but not a politician? The so called leader of the free world? 
That's just one example. There are quite literally millions of others available all day every day on YouTube and other venues. 
We're exposed to death and destruction every single day now in the news and movies not to mention the vile language in popular media. There was a time not long ago no television network would permit the 7 dirty words. Now they're common and many people don't think twice about letting their children watch and listen to it. Hell, for that matter your kids can now log in to watch porn all day and we all know guys who couldn't get laid to save their lives and even if they could they have absolutely no clue how to talk to a woman. How many guys think the way to get a date online is to send girls dick pics?  
 Society has become so utterly absurd nobody could have possibly predicted this just 20 years ago and yet here we are.. Welcome to bizarro world..  

How many of you my age or close thought for sure we'd have flying cars by now? Who even dreamed you could watch football on your phone? 
We want to believe football is a pure sport, but consider the Bengals drafted a guy in prison before Bob Trumpy.. A prison inmate drafted for the NFL? Yes, that happened and that was in 1968..but of course the league isn't corrupt..