HavePityPlease

Edit: My bad it's Wilson not Williams

Hold on now, the Stealers are actually being defended, along with the refs who favour them? I'll just leave this here (remember, this is from one game): http://espn1530.iheart.com/onair/lance-mcalister-7818/watch-remember-how-many-times-Stealers-15117710/

I for one don't think the league will make any more or less calls against the Bengals, they do it selectively and they have for years - and it's a lot easier to "miss" calls than make questionable ones (see any of our games against the Stealers in the past few years, and the absolutely absurd level of holding that is allowed on their end). As bad as the NFL is, the NBA is worse and the pattern speaks for itself - tilt the games toward whichever team is losing *unless* that team is an unpopular one (or far less popular than the team that is winning). The Bengals just happen to be of the unpopular variety, so they are an easy target with both the owners and fans on the league's side. Someone else said it, but indeed this always and from every angle comes down to one thing - $. That's why they try to keep the games close (avoid losing viewers), that's why they let the teams with the biggest fan bases "get calls" (majority of the $ comes from them), and that's why they care a LOT more about Joe Mixon (awful crime on video - committed three years ago for which he was punished already) than they do than, say, oh I don't know... DeDe Westbrook??? (multiple domestic abuse issues, a number of recent run-ins with the law, a complete and utter lack of remorse, and downright arrogance about it all - but no video and no record). The league cares about perception, that's it. It probably actually behooves them more that Mixon is on the Bengals than one of their "golden" teams because the Bengals are already considered a den of scum, and thus they absorb a lot of the backlash that the league itself would otherwise take. You know, like "well, the NFL tried to black ball Mixon, but those damned criminal-loving Bengals did it again..". Now, for the conspiracy side of things. Here we sit and STILL we haven't seen Joe Mixon's introductory press conference or any video of him since being drafted except for one ESPN interview in the locker room afterward (if anyone has seen another please do tell us here). Instead we're seeing a whole lot of commentary from a whole lot of sports outlets, most of them incredibly negative. I suspect the league has told the Bengals to hold off any kind of press of their own until "the dust has settled", but lord knows what that might mean for the NFL - maybe they'll let the torches and pitchforks come out, maybe they'll wait for the Bengals to slip; either way we sure as hell know they don't care about the Bengals or Joe Mixon. Just a few minutes ago I saw that Stephen A. Smith finally gave his "insightful" take on all of this and he first obfuscates the Bengals' situation - he cites the Bengals' arrest numbers from 2005-2014... then brays and honks that it's "not even taking into account the recent Adam Jones arrest, or Vontaze Burfict and his situation with the Stealers two years ago!!", which is of course convenient because a) the Bengals have been very clean since 2014 (one arrest - the Adam Jones arrest) and b) Vontaze and the Stealers *isn't an arrest at all* - then he goes on to say he believes Mixon deserves a second chance, has paid his debt, but... the Bengals shouldn't be the ones to take him because... they don't demonstrate that they're trying to win hard enough? WTF?!?!? So since the Cowboys are always talking about winning it all, and will spend and make excuses all day to get there, it would have been ok for them? Or how about this - one team has more arrests since 2000 than the Bengals - the Minnesota Vikings. Gee, I guess them taking "character risk" Dalvin Cook is ok because what, they look like they want to win more? And I mean it's not like they had a child beater on their team, or that the child beater is still in the- wait, nevermind. See, this kind of bullshit has me looking at it differently. If Mike Brown says he wants to give guys a second chance, great, do it. If it helps the team get better and says fuck you to Roger Goodell and the talking heads *do it*. As long as he stops giving the third and fourth chances, continues to not pick serious scumbags like Dede Westbrook and Caleb Brantley - yeah, so much for the Bengals "not caring" about character concerns, huh? - I don't care anymore. If the league wants us to be Raiders 2.0, own it and win with it, but do it on your own terms. You don't have to be dirty, you don't have to employ serious criminals, you just have to stick to your guns and shut out the naysayers.

Speaking of Mixon, does anyone know why there is no video of his introductory press conference on bengals.com? You see photos of it around and Hobson tends to get these things up really quick, but not this time. Hell, I'm not even seeing a transcript of it. You think there is some conspiracy here? Like the league won't let them publish yet? Or maybe it's simpler, maybe Hobson's video guy couldn't even get in the room because the national press pushed him out? If anyone has a link to either of these, let us know!

Bengals consider Wilson as a DB.

Exactly the kind of guy I've wanted for a long time - "get on my back and let's go" type, do anything to help the play, "lunch pail guy", however you want to slice it - a fuggin' football player.

Seems they view him as a DB. Certainly a special teams guy. This looks like a steal at this point in the draft.

Hey, I'd be all for a finesse OL - if we had finesse scheme. Unfortunately Marvin has made it very clear, year after year, that we are a power blocking team. Its seems odd to me when teams like the Pats, Texans, Broncos, etc that employ these finesse schemes seem to be able to perform with almost anyone they put out there, but teams like us need some very specific guys who are *top notch* power guys before we can even hope to compete up front.

Jake definitely has more, Zane played in 'zona. In fact one of the analyses I read directly stated that it was an open question whether Zane could deal with bad weather. Jake's biggest question marks were kickoff distance and his diminutive size (implying he's unlikely to get much stronger). As we know, in the NFL kickoff distance is much less of an issue, and even with that Simmons likes his short kickoff gamesmanship anyway. Jake was the better guy to count on for consistent accuracy, clutch kicks (just watch some of the videos above) and... he never missed a PAT in college! Yay!

Marvin claimed they figured the extra 4th would "let them move around" in "this draft". Time is running out on that one.

Good value, he'll have to gain weight if we're using him as a DE.

I understand where you're coming from, but he's not wrong - from Mikey's perspective he's getting a top 15 talent for a second-round price, even if only for four years. That's a rather large "bargain" from a cheapskate's perspective. Now, it's not going to save him any actual serious dollars with the cap floor situation, but this is Mike's tried-and-true method of stockpiling talent, and it seems he can't break out of it no matter what the salary dynamics are.

I totally hear you, but it's worse than that. Look around the league, who would you say is the owner who is the *least* concerned about cost? Jerry Jones, maybe? That dude signs and picks character concerns like nobody's business, but do people talk about that locker room like it's a throbbing tumour of irredeemable scum? No. To truly shed this label the Bengals will need to have YEARS of staying squeaky, squeaky clean before it will go away. So squeaky in fact they probably would need to go character over talent *every time*. That probably actually amounts to more losing, so what are they to do? Now, I think they could have done without this pick, but I'd have much preferred if they'd dumped Pacman and at least bought some good will that way.

"Bad" JuJu!

I get this but instead of claiming outright lies about the *current roster*, why didn't Brooks just identify who he's talking about? This is the NFL's own network for fuck's sake! They're perpetuating that the Bengals love shitheads when we all know they've cleaned it up massively over the past 8 years or so. I'm totally with you all on the fact that Mikey bought the bad PR himself, but again this is the NFL's own!!!