Mike Brown checks his optimism, but still hopeful for Super Bowl win

[Arkansas Bengal]

Mike Brown checks his optimism, but still hopeful for Super Bowl win

 

 

CINCINNATI -- Mike Brown's hands are completely bare; he doesn't like wearing rings.

It's just simply one of the personality quirks of the soon-to-be octogenarian. So if the Cincinnati Bengals ever win their first Super Bowl under his watch, don’t expect the venerable team president to wear any bling on his fingers.

He'll sport his championship badge in other ways.

"It's one of the things that I don’t have on my resume," Brown said about his franchise’s lack of a Super Bowl victory. "It’s unfinished work, if you will.

"It would make a nice entry on my gravestone."

Laughter erupted from reporters who gathered around Brown as he made that comment before the Bengals' season kickoff luncheon Tuesday. The annual luncheon is one of two times each year that Brown goes on record with media. But gravestones and rings aside, the fact the Bengals don't have a championship in their 47-year history sits poorly with Brown.

"I haven’t managed that and it doesn’t please me that that’s the fact," Brown said.

He's cautious not to make the assertion that this season's team will hoist the Lombardi Trophy, but he has faith it has the talent to do so.

"We're a pretty good team," said Brown, who turns 80 on Aug. 10. "I feel that we have a good shot at things. We don't have glaring weaknesses. We're like a lot of teams; our depth is suspect. If we get an injury at a wrong spot it will hurt us, but it will hurt us no more than say, Pittsburgh, if [Ben] Roethlisberger were to go down. Or Baltimore if [Joe] Flacco were to go down. Every team in this league has top starting players and after that, it's a rare team that can fill in fully."

Concerns about back-end depth aren’t the only ones Brown has. He also said he was worried about the Bengals' schedule, particularly games within the AFC North.

Brown isn’t the only one a little troubled by the Bengals' daunting schedule.

"We know our division and how difficult it is, how physical our division is, and playing the AFC and NFC West as well this season," head coach Marvin Lewis said. "We are playing good football teams."

Based on league winning percentages from last season, Cincinnati's 2015 slate has been deemed the second-toughest in the NFL this year. Only Pittsburgh has a more challenging schedule based on that formula.

But it's the postseason that has been the Bengals' biggest source of consternation in recent years. After failing to have a winning record from 1991-2004, Cincinnati has now been to the playoffs six times in the past 10 years. Each of those postseason trips have come with Lewis at the helm. Each has also come with a first-round exit.

Those postseason disappointments help keep Brown from proclaiming his team the champion of anything, although deep down he's already convinced himself it is.

"I’m secretly an optimistic guy. I think of myself as hellaciously optimistic," Brown said. "I guess I’m guarded in what I say and, 'Oh my goodness, if this happens what will that mean?'

"I’m one of those guys, but it doesn’t mean that in my heart of hearts I don't think we aren't going to get there. I really do. I've never gone on the field thinking we weren't going to win. I've probably spent all the time talking to people and telling them what we've faced to win. I like to think of myself as optimistic."

He's just not a ring-wearer.

 

http://espn.go.com/blog/cincinnati-bengals/post/_/id/18032/bengals-mike-brown-super-bowl-hopeful-guarded-optimism-win

 

[|Harley|]

It's official, soP is senile. He's forgotten the Shula era.

"I've never gone on the field thinking we weren't going to win."