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Next step for TCU ex Andy Dalton: Escape Cincinnati’s Jungle


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BY MAC ENGEL

tengel@star-telegram.com


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For those of us who are Andy Dalton fans, the worst scenario has entrapped the red-headed Frog of Fort Worth.

He is stuck in Cincinnati surrounded by a cast of dummies and an organization that together are his professional football tomb.

We like to talk about sports curses. Yet there is no curse against the Cincinnati Bengals but rather depressingly inept ownership that makes the Dallas Cowboys look like Apple Inc.

Andy needs to escape Cincinnati, but he won’t because he’s too nice. Be a jerk, get out while you’re still young.


 

 

Bengals QB Andy Dalton says he'll be ready for OTAs

Cincinnati Bengals QB Andy Dalton said his season-ending thumb injury is a thing of the past as the NFL starts a new year and the former Horned Frog is honored at the TCU Legends Luncheon benefitting Meals on Wheels of Tarrant County.

 

Dalton may sometimes sound like a little league football coach, but if the team has any prayer of unseating itself as the Kansas Jayhawks of the NFL it would be better off to follow his lead, or do the humane thing and allow him to go to a place that takes winning seriously.

Dalton is back in town to promote his annual fundraiser for the Andy and Jordan Dalton Foundation event on Sunday, April 3 at Joe T. Garcia’s. The man is all that is right about the Bengals, who do nothing but undermine his efforts to ensure they remain a franchise with no expectations.

5-14The Bengals’ all-time record in the playoffs

I say this as someone who passionately rooted for that team when I was a kid, who shed a tear when they lost the Super Bowls in the 1981 and 1988 seasons. They were the better team in ’81, and had Lewis Billups not dropped that interception at the goal line in ’88 there would never have been that immortal Joe Montana-to-John Taylor play that I still can’t watch.

I proudly owned a Bengals No. 14 jersey, the number worn by the great Ken Anderson. It’s the same number Dalton wears today, and he carries that legacy with the distinction befitting a player who should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame (looking at you, Charean Williams and Rick Gosselin).

It’s chic to crucify Dalton for not being Peyton Manning, or his other shortcomings, but no one has done more in spite of his surroundings than Red 14. You can hate on Jerry Jones as a general manager until the end of days and he’s still better than Bengals owner Mike Brown.

You see, 2015 was Andy Dalton’s year, and it was supposed to be the season the Bengals made noise in the playoffs.

IT’S ONE OF THOSE THINGS, THE TIMING OF THE INJURY WAS SO UNFORTUNATE FOR THE SEASON. THE WAY THE SEASON WAS GOING IT WAS THE BEST YEAR OF MY CAREER.

Bengals quarterback Andy Dalton

The last time we saw Dalton was Jan. 9 when he stood on the sidelines in Cincy wearing a protective cast over his broken thumb that prevented him from playing in the Bengals’ playoff game against the Pittsburgh Stealers.

Dalton was having a shut-up season to his legion of haters when he suffered that injury in Week 14.

“This year definitely changed the perspectives in people’s minds,” Dalton told me in a recent interview. “The way we were winning games before the injury; we were 10-2 and we were playing at a high level. And we were one of the best teams in the NFL. I don’t think they are questioning that anymore.”

Dalton was completing the types of throws his critics said he could not; he averaged 8.4 yards per pass attempt and threw 25 touchdown passes with seven interceptions. What remained was to carry that in the playoffs, something he has not done, which slaps the label that he is a lucky bus driver on a talented team.

Then he broke his thumb. All he could do was watch his teammates and coaches as they executed a handful of penalties and errors ruined the season in a wild-card loss against the Stealers. It was all so Bengals.

The Bengals did not choke; they pointed the gun in their face and pulled the trigger multiple times to ensure they would avoid winning their first playoff game since January 1991.

Linebacker Vontaze Burfict and cornerback Adam “Pacman” Jones committed a series of memorably stupid personal fouls to all but give the Stealers a short field goal to win a game that the Bengals had.

Predictably, the Bengals did nothing in response. Actually, that’s not true. They gave Pacman an extension and Burfict will return, too. This entire merry cast of boneheads is set to surround Dalton again.

IN 2015, ANDY DALTON PASSED FOR 3,250 YARDS WITH 25 TOUCHDOWNS AND 7 INTERCEPTIONS

Head coach Marvin Lewis looked weak, the ownership group doesn’t care as long as it’s cheap, which leaves Dalton stuck to do the right thing and defend all of it.

“A lot of people that are talking about those guys aren’t around those guys all the time. The same aggression, the same thing that got us in trouble, are the same things that got us there. We hurt ourselves,” Dalton said. “You can’t have penalties at the end of the games. I think our guys understand that. It’s knowing when it’s going to hurt your team and for us, and those guys, I think we grow from it. You wish you didn’t have to learn from experiences like this.”

The Bengals never do.

Andy’s thumb is healed, and he has been working out at TCU in preparation for another Bengals season.

While he has progressed as a player, the organization he plays for has not.

He would never say it, so I will for him — get out while you can.

 

http://www.star-telegram.com/sports/spt-columns-blogs/mac-engel/article68432082.html


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The Bengals are holding Dalton back?  This dude is delusional.  And I don't believe the claims he makes in his article about being a long-time Bengals fan, sounds like bullshit he's spewing to gain some credibility for his opinion.

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To write for the Fort Worth Star Telegram, means that in order to be relevant, one needs to write in a way that tries to get attention away from the Dallas Morning News. It is a hopeless task. The Morning News gets to fall out of bed and have full readership because of the Cowboys. The Star only gets TCU. So write something stupidly homerish for the Frogs--even though you are a writer who knows literally nothing about the target of the blame. 

And for the last fucking time: the Lewis Billups drop was at the beginning of the fourth fucking quarter. That never led to the last drive . So please, Mr. Star-Fucking-Telegram Pseudo Bengal fan hack: shut your damn trap.

 

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i support him completely.. i think dalton needs a shot anywhere else.. i hear NYC is nice. he should do great there. can we get this process started?

i know the NY media takes it easy on average QB's on great surrounding cast teams....

do i need to sign a petition or something?

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i support him completely.. i think dalton needs a shot anywhere else.. i hear NYC is nice. he should do great there. can we get this process started?

i know the NY media takes it easy on average QB's on great surrounding cast teams....

do i need to sign a petition or something?

Shocked!  Shocked, I say!:rolleyes:

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Seeing these articles really make me wonder about what the media would be forced to talk about if Cincy did defeat Pittsburgh on that rainy Saturday night.   There wouldn't be low-hanging fruit like "haven't won a playoff game in 25 years" or "Lewis is winless in the playoffs" or even something like "Stealers is Bengals kryptonite' or some shit like that (provided there is a losing record vs, Steeltown but scores don't show how the teams fight each other--long story short, there are causualties on both sides, neither bends over for the other willingly though the records say otherwise).

Seriously,  how would all you had handled that the Bengals won,  not just defeat the Squeels in The Jungle, but got their first  playoff win in a quarter-century, and meant Cincy had to prepare for New England, probably with A.J McCarreon with the start (Something tells me Dalton still wouldn't be able to play effectively)?

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Seeing these articles really make me wonder about what the media would be forced to talk about if Cincy did defeat Pittsburgh on that rainy Saturday night.   There wouldn't be low-hanging fruit like "haven't won a playoff game in 25 years" or "Lewis is winless in the playoffs" or even something like "Stealers is Bengals kryptonite' or some shit like that (provided there is a losing record vs, Steeltown but scores don't show how the teams fight each other--long story short, there are causualties on both sides, neither bends over for the other willingly though the records say otherwise).

Seriously,  how would all you had handled that the Bengals won,  not just defeat the Squeels in The Jungle, but got their first  playoff win in a quarter-century, and meant Cincy had to prepare for New England, probably with A.J McCarreon with the start (Something tells me Dalton still wouldn't be able to play effectively)?

In your scenario, the stories would have been about how AJ put the team over the hump that Dalton could not.

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In your scenario, the stories would have been about how AJ put the team over the hump that Dalton could not.

He did something that Dalton hasn't yet. Dalton has never even had the Bengls close to beng in a position to win a playoff game. AJ set them up to win that game. But then again, if Dalton didn't get hurt, he may have won the game easily, if they even played the game in the first place. 

But what's really stupid about the article is that he has Dalton free from blame for our playoff struggles.

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He did something that Dalton hasn't yet. Dalton has never even had the Bengls close to beng in a position to win a playoff game. AJ set them up to win that game. But then again, if Dalton didn't get hurt, he may have won the game easily, if they even played the game in the first place. 

But what's really stupid about the article is that he has Dalton free from blame for our playoff struggles.

So do many Bengals fans.

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i support him completely.. i think dalton needs a shot anywhere else.. i hear NYC is nice. he should do great there. can we get this process started?

i know the NY media takes it easy on average QB's on great surrounding cast teams....

do i need to sign a petition or something?

Still in fantasy land I see....

GoBengals Posted 18 Dec 2015:

so if we pull pittsburg at home in the playoffs, beat them 35 to 24, mccarron throws 4 td and no picks, then say we play new england in new england, lose 31-28, mccaron throws 4 TD and no picks... we go back to dalton? who has never even sniffed winning a playoff game?

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In your scenario, the stories would have been about how AJ put the team over the hump that Dalton could not.

He did something that Dalton hasn't yet. Dalton has never even had the Bengls close to beng in a position to win a playoff game. AJ set them up to win that game. But then again, if Dalton didn't get hurt, he may have won the game easily, if they even played the game in the first place. 

But what's really stupid about the article is that he has Dalton free from blame for our playoff struggles.

Hmm...it's a 'damned if you do, damned if you don't' scenario, isn't it....No matter what happened, someone goes under the proverbial bus...

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