T-Dub

IIRC they talked about it with Hue but weren't willing to put it in writing. Our coaches are tenured which doesn't go well with the general lack of accountability; players, coaches, whoever. I have been accused of both homerism and being overly negative at various times around here, I think just about everyone falls somewhere in the middle. Just depends on whose ox is being gored at the moment.

Same. We seem to be trying to groom guys to promote in-house, my guess is as a HC replacement ultimately, but they keep getting sniped because we're too slow to make a move.

Didn't we play some of the worst offenses in the NFL the last half of the season? Not to say the defense didn't improve in their own right, but "very, very, very good" is a stretch. Coyle was with the Dolphins from 2012-15. Vance Joseph was our DB coach in '14-15. In fact the only reason Coyle was available was because Miami fired him & hired Joseph as their DC. I thought the secondary looked much less aggressive last season & we got picked apart by the short passes. Blitzing frequently and "off" coverage are a bad combination.

IDK, the sooner we make this jackass expendable the better. As for Guenther & Coyle.. Yeah, I don't see it. The defense has gotten steadily worse since he took over. Tackling has kind of gone to shit & the secondary play is a lot softer now, yet we're blitzing in all sorts of weird situations.

This sort of shit is fairly common. News Flash: People can be kind of terrible.

Or, y'know.. Dead. I suspect it may have swung too far the other way, with the severely limited contact in TC & all that. Seems like guys get hurt in camp just as much but the first 2-3 regular season games look more like preseason. I would not be surprised at all if early-season injuries are up, if anything. I don't see how 300+ lb dudes are expected to condition themselves to butt heads for an hour by shadowboxing for a couple of weeks beforehand. Beyond that, "toughness" is a hard thing to quantify. By the end of the season I'm sure everyone is playing through some pain. I think it's likely that players with the reputation of being injured aren't always getting hurt more often, but are less able to play through the common injuries -sprains and such - that everyone is suffering from by December. I think it's fair to say, if the old guys weren't necessarily tougher, they were most definitely less coddled. Crap like 24/7 coverage from SportsCenter etc, million-dollar endorsement deals, & fantasy football have absolutely had an impact on how players act, what they can & can't get away with, & so on. I'd say that's obvious. I find it funny when fans act like the modern NFL is trying to set some kind of moral example and protect players from injury when it's really about liability, but either way the modern NFL player exists in a much different environment than 20+ years ago.

Spicy is out and Herr Trump appoints another Goldman Sachs plutocrat. Millions of Trump faithful throughout the Midwest struggle to find new ways to identify themselves with a petulant NYC billionaire.

Who hasn't found some trash on their lawn at one point or another? Most people don't quit their jobs and leave town over it. I think it's safe to say there was more going on than either of them wanted to admit. What that was, we'll probably never know.

Logged in just to upvote you for the Aretha reference. 1985 & hip to that Spanish Harlem freestyle sound with none other than Randy "Dawg" Jackson on bass. He's still spending that "Freeway of Love" money. While I'm here SPOILER: knowing that was Arya and not old Walder didn't make the reveal any less awesome. Great scene and episode, but where the hell did Meera and Bran go? I was expecting a reunion. Maybe they got lost in the tunnels under the Wall.

While that's true, he could have simply offered "personal/family reasons" instead of letting people speculate about the franchise & city. He sulked in his McMansion until the raccoons chased him out

To be fair, the guy is tenured. He would have to shit on the desk in Mike Brown's office in order to get fired, and even then I'm still not convinced he wouldn't try to "redeem" the turd.

We'll have to agree to disagree on that. Dalton rarely has a clean pocket to throw from, but he's fairly elusive for a QB and gets rid of the ball faster than just about anyone else in the league. Seems clear to me that the offense is built around maximizing that in order to protect a shaky OL. People complain about not throwing deep often enough. A big part of that is not feeling safe waiting for routes to develop, so they go with bootlegs and/or PA. Of course play-action only works when defenses respect the run, and lately with us they've had no reason to worry about it. Result: A short-to-midfield, timing-based passing offense that tends to disappear against better defenses.

Librul teers!

That could be interesting. Not shelling out for the PPV interesting, but at least watch the highlights interesting. I would guess Mayweather has a big advantage since Mac's coming from an "anything goes" background & is going to have to think about boxing. I guess he could wear the 40 year old Mayweather down if he can stick around long enough, but it's hard to imagine a situation where he doesn't get schooled. DQ wouldn't be a surprise either if Mac gets his bell rung a couple of times, forgets where he is and starts trying to arm bar Mayweather or some shit.

Yeah it's hilarious to me how all these folks who like to consider themselves such die-hard patriots have no issue at all with a Russian former KGB agent meddling in our elections. Tell us more about the dire need for "Voter ID" laws, why don't you? Here we have some dude claiming that they weren't really discussing election tampering, they just used that as a pretense to discuss something totally harmless. Dude.. What are you smoking? Hey speaking of which, maybe we could meet up to discuss you selling me some of that crack rock BUT OH WHAT I REALLY MEAN IS I'D LIKE TO PURCHASE YOUR USED LAWNMOWER. I just said that stuff about the crack so nobody got suspicious about the totally legal thing we're really doing! LOL nothing to see here folks! Fucking listen to your bullshit for a moment and ask why anyone without Trump and/or Putin's balls on their chin would actually believe that. I mean I understand that y'all really identify with a self-absorbed megadouche and envy him because he's rich and can get away with saying the horribly ignorant shit you only dare to think, but are you really that committed to going down with his ship?

I believe if you want Bengals season tickets you need to send a self-addressed envelope with adequate return postage to the Brown Family Charitable Trust @ PBS.

Always seemed like a class act, too. Textbook tackler as well AFAIK. Considering what the DB room has for leadership these days & all the young guys, Hall is missed in many ways.

They gave up 41 sacks last year. The Bengals offense is designed around getting rid of the ball quickly and/or getting Dalton outside of a usually-nonexistent pocket. Without their check-down receivers in Eifert and then Gio - in other words, the smoke & mirrors protecting a shaky OL - they got exposed.

Maybe Goodell himself? The fans generally hate him, and even though that's only part of the NFL kayfabe right now the owners will eventually need him to fall on his sword over something. I thought the Rice tape was going to do it for a moment, but as it turns out NFL fans don't really care if you beat women. Just don't do something truly awful like kneel during the national anthem. edit: on the subject of hitting women, they were all geared up to go after Mixon - it was a white woman so middle America gave half a shit - but they weren't dating so it lacked that whole "i'm not racist but .. my daughter" angle, & the victim wasn't a very sympathetic figure once they started digging. They still did a good job of laying the groundwork so I'd expect if Mixon gets anything more than a parking ticket they will reheat all that in a hurry. If he starts looking like an OROY candidate I'm sure they'll get some more mileage out of it then, too. You'd think Pacman would serve well enough but I suspect everyone's burnt out on him & have come to expect him to do dumb shit. He'd have to really step up the stupid for people to take notice, simply spitting on people isn't going to do it when you're known for shake junt shoot-outs.

I can explain that. When he says "election tampering" he doesn't mean the Russians or some other foreign power, he means the 15th Amendment.

They boxing or doing that MMA shin-kicking stuff?

Well, he did retire if that's what you mean? Otherwise the only thing that changed IMO was Goodell grooming a new scapegoat with less opposition.

You mean he's going to go play for the Stealers? Otherwise Harrison has been much, much worse. Isn't this the same guy who said he would start taking out knees since he couldn't get away with the blatant headhunting anymore? Look at all the fines he racked up before finally being suspended for one game http://Stealerswire.usatoday.com/2016/08/18/james-harrison-roger-goodell-fines-history-suspension-al-jazeera-peds-timeline-everything/

That's pretty much how I see it, hopefully they play a lot better than they look on paper right now. It's definitely not about the one 1st round pick, either. Outside of Whitworth the OL has been suspect for a long time & then when they do draft someone it's a player that they know is going to spend his rookie season on IR. IDK if that's Father Brown trying to redeem them or what but I can't understand any team, let alone an AFCN team, trying to build an OL through retread free agents and bargain shopping for injured draft picks. Combine that with an OL coach where the best you can hope for is that he doesn't make anybody worse or insist on starting another Livings.. It's bizarre how little value they seem to place on that group with so much riding on the offense. It's like putting used tires on a Lamborghini.

It'd be one thing if it was just their fans whining, but it actually works for them. Much as I despise their cheap-shot style of play, how do you hate them and not the league that encourages them to play that way?