Mike Brown Interview..

[TheBeaverHunter]

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/columnists/paul-daugherty/2018/01/22/paul-daugherty-sorry-bengals-fans-mike-brown-isnt-changing/1055849001/

 

Quote

Mike Brown shouldn’t talk publicly anymore to people like me. His handlers in the Bengals PR department should consider insisting on that. I say this in all sincerity and, believe it or not, with a certain affection for the team’s president. He isn’t helping himself.

Mike Brown is pleasant, caring and principled. He’s a terrific conversationalist. He knows a lot about a lot. If I weren’t in this job, I’d like to think we’d be friends.

And here comes the biggest However in the history of Howevers:

In print, Brown comes off as an arrogant dictator who cares nothing about his fans except that their checks cash.

This isn’t a new thought, and that’s the problem. The diligent interview conducted last Friday by the Enquirer’s Jim Owczarski hit all the relevant topics. It was needed, given Brown chose not to appear at the press conference with Marvin Lewis, on the day the team rehired the coach.

More: Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown explains why Marvin Lewis is back as head coach

It was also like talking to a brick, the difference being a brick cracks on occasion. Doing a state-of-the-state Q&A with Brown is like participating in a time-travel experience. It could be last Friday, or 10 years ago, or 20, or 1991. Do we need to get better? Yes, we do. After three decades, it’s starting to make my brain hurt.

 

Mike Brown will never understand fans. He will never see them as anything but butts in seats. He will never understand that passion can come with an expiration date, and that date in Cincinnati is here. To Brown, you are cash flow.

Is that harsh? Is it? How can it be, when you, loyal fan, have been saying the same thing for 30 years?

People still say what a “great businessman’’ Brown is. Really? You mean the guy who never marketed his team in Columbus and points north when Cleveland didn’t have the NFL? Whose idea of maximizing profit is raising ticket prices after losing seasons?

 

What if Procter & Gamble were like the Bengals, from its beginnings? We make soap. We like our soap. We like how we make our soap. We are, in fact, the only soapmaker in town. Why should we change anything? Why should we add different products? Just to make our customers happy?

Said Brown last Friday, “I have to just do what I think puts our team in the best position to win. Even if it is a short-term issue with our fans."

A short-term issue? A short-term issue?!? Oh, boy. Brown believes that all it will take to pack his publicly funded, $330 million-at-least playpen is a rousing 9-7 or 10-6. “They’re going to come when we win," said Brown.

No, they’re not. Unless winning somehow is redefined at PBS, as something grander than complete playoff failure.

Meantime, doesn’t that make you feel special, BengalsFan? They win, you return. I was taken for granted less by my kids when they were in high school, asking for money every weekend. Brown doesn’t work to earn your trust. He abuses it.

And then he said this:

“It is not anything more than banter, to use some of the formulae that you hear mouthed by different people. Part of our job, I guess, is just to sit back and listen and then go about our business, which is one step at a time."

Oh, the arrogance.

The Bengals have never professed even the slightest awareness or acknowledgement of your loyalty.

“In some ways, ours is a hard market," Brown said. “Our people are judgmental about us. They are often easy to condemn when it doesn’t go to their standards."

Their standards? What about your standards? Someone please hand Brown a towel in which to weep. Have the taxpayers pay for it. When Brown says these things month-after-year-after-decade, you can’t help but wonder if he really is that oblivious.

“I don’t think we’re far off. I think we can make the changes that we need to make and quickly rebound to the level where we were a couple years ago."

The level where you were? Losing your first game in the playoffs? That level?

“We have to do better in certain areas. We’re going to try to."

There is no try, Yoda. There is only do.

“We’re coming off a run of playoff years and (fans) began to see that as the bare minimum. Well, maybe for them it is. For most people in this league, it’s a pretty solid achievement."

That sentence is all you need to hear. Solid achievement equals no playoff wins in 27 years. Fans should shut up and be happy with that. Be like “most people in the league." After all, Brown kept the team here. Stop griping and start genuflecting.

“A lot of this talk, to me, is sort of a dance," he said.

Couldn’t agree more, Mr. Brown. Thirty years of the same dance. Our knees hurt.

 

[T-Dub]

 

 

 

Hacks like P-Douche are almost as big a problem as Mike Brown.   All he does is poison the well, I have no idea why a guy who hates the Bengals (and evidently himself too, just a little) is in the position he's in here.  I wish he'd go full Pied Piper and lead his contingent of sad sack, Debbie Downer fans into the river for good.

 

[Hooky]

26 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

 

 

 

Hacks like P-Douche are almost as big a problem as Mike Brown.   All he does is poison the well, I have no idea why a guy who hates the Bengals (and evidently himself too, just a little) is in the position he's in here.  I wish he'd go full Pied Piper and lead his contingent of sad sack, Debbie Downer fans into the river for good.

 

Bravo! Perfect. P-dork is worthless. When I hear anybody bitch about how cheap MB is, I shut them off. Yes, he is shrewd and doesn't spend in FA, but neither do a lot of teams that don't get branded as cheap. His main problem is his loyalty and trying to keep the same system together forever. He is outdated and is a horrible GM. He needs real football people to make football decisions. I am in the camp that thinks he has been slowly relinquishing command, but needs to totally let it go. But somebody that says all he cares about is money and not about winning is clueless and gets all of their insight from P-dork and other analysts that hate Mike Brown. Which is about 99%.

[membengal]

I hate daugherty, but he's not wrong in this instance.

[Inigo Montoya]

The main problem with Mike Brown is that he considers himself a "football man" in the mold of his father.  He believes he knows professional football and what it entails to be successful.  Of course, the truth is that his track record as owner and GM clearly demonstrates that he lacks the ability to be successful in professional football.  I compare it to Jerry Jones since he fired Jimmy Johnson (a true football man, btw). Jerry has utterly failed to win anything without the team Johnson built.  Nobody accuses Jerry of being cheap like MB, but as GM both of them are ultimately making all personnel decisions and thus far those decisions have not panned out.  The crux of the problem is that  neither guy should be pretending to be GM when they are both in over their heads trying to prove that they are something they clearly aren't.

[|westside bengal|]

I remember the interview Mike Brown did a around 3 years ago.  He was saying then how he was taking a backseat and letting Katie and Marvin run the team.  Of course since then among other things we have MB telling us it was his decision to keep Pacman after his last embarrassment and now it was his decision to keep Marvin.

 

I believe that Mike Brown conceding control means that now Katie and Marvin are the ones to make sure there is toilet paper in the bathroom stalls.  And not much else.

[LostInDaJungle]

1 minute ago, westside bengal said:

I remember the interview Mike Brown did a around 3 years ago.  He was saying then how he was taking a backseat and letting Katie and Marvin run the team.  Of course since then among other things we have MB telling us it was his decision to keep Pacman after his last embarrassment and now it was his decision to keep Marvin.

 

I believe that Mike Brown conceding control means that now Katie and Marvin are the ones to make sure there is toilet paper in the bathroom stalls.  And not much else.

Marvin wasn't allowed to pick his own gameday roster until 2011.

Mike Brown saying he's giving Marvin more control is like a warden saying they're letting the prisoners spend some time "outside".

[T-Dub]

If someone could send Ol' Musty to the wrong conference room on draft day that'd be great.

[|schotzee|]

13 minutes ago, T-Dub said:

If someone could send Ol' Musty to the wrong conference room on draft day that'd be great.

[BengalFanInTO]

Mike Brown is the cheapest cocksucker in football. He also knows very little about the game or how to run a team. He is a meddlesome, bald-headed little skinflint who would better serve the fans staying home and wanking himself in his Lumina in his tweed jacket to Field and Stream magazine.

 

August 5, 1991 was the last day someone who knew football ran shit in Cincinnati.

[UncleEarl]

Mike Brown is incompetent.  Period.  He has a long track record to prove it. 

 

Daugherty picking him apart and taking everything in the worst possible way is a great example of why people hate the press.  Daugherty wrote this article for himself.  For his own profit.  Stir up as much shit as possible.  He would probably say that's his job, which makes him exactly the same kind of guy he portrays Mike Brown to be. 

[T-Dub]

35 minutes ago, UncleEarl said:

Mike Brown is incompetent.  Period.  He has a long track record to prove it. 

 

Daugherty picking him apart and taking everything in the worst possible way is a great example of why people hate the press.  Daugherty wrote this article for himself.  For his own profit.  Stir up as much shit as possible.  He would probably say that's his job, which makes him exactly the same kind of guy he portrays Mike Brown to be. 

 

Well said

[Madieu Superstar]

9 hours ago, Hooky said:

Bravo! Perfect. P-dork is worthless. When I hear anybody bitch about how cheap MB is, I shut them off. Yes, he is shrewd and doesn't spend in FA, but neither do a lot of teams that don't get branded as cheap. His main problem is his loyalty and trying to keep the same system together forever. He is outdated and is a horrible GM. He needs real football people to make football decisions. I am in the camp that thinks he has been slowly relinquishing command, but needs to totally let it go. But somebody that says all he cares about is money and not about winning is clueless and gets all of their insight from P-dork and other analysts that hate Mike Brown. Which is about 99%.

This team worth over a billion dollars has its players and staff get on a bus and ride to the University of Cincinnati to use their football team's indoor practice facility.

 

 

Nope, no cheapness to be found.

But at leas MB finally gave in and stopped charging the players for water/gatortade. 

I'm just waiting to see if he'll pay for new bath towels once Ki Jana Carter's fray.

 

 

 

[Madieu Superstar]

52 minutes ago, UncleEarl said:

Mike Brown is incompetent.  Period.  He has a long track record to prove it. 

 

Daugherty picking him apart and taking everything in the worst possible way is a great example of why people hate the press.  Daugherty wrote this article for himself.  For his own profit.  Stir up as much shit as possible.  He would probably say that's his job, which makes him exactly the same kind of guy he portrays Mike Brown to be. 

I don't like Daugherty at all. Hate MB more, but still don't like Daugherty.

 

But can you please just tell me which parts of the article are not true?

[|SF2|]

Comparing Jerry Jones to Mike Brown is laughable.  Jones paid for 2/3rds of the cost of AT&T stadium.  The entire complex is a huge revenue generator for the area year round.  He treats his players like royalty.  Yeah, teams haven't been good but guys certainly want to play for Dallas.

 

We are a destination of last resort. Brown does the minimum required to properly run the organization. Coaches get paid pretty much league minimum to include Marvin. The facilities are non descript.  Its simply a no frills bargain basement organization. 

[UncleEarl]

1 hour ago, Madieu Superstar said:

I don't like Daugherty at all. Hate MB more, but still don't like Daugherty.

 

But can you please just tell me which parts of the article are not true?

Just about the entire article where he reads into what Brown says.  All the parts about how Brown doesn't care about the fans, only butts in the seats.  I don't believe that.  He twists Brown's words to make it sound like he could give two shits about fans.  That is one way to look at it.  The other is that Brown wants to win, but is incompetent as hell.  He is too conservative to risk his profits by overspending, unless that is overspending on his own players.  (Brown consistently signs his own players to very friendly deals.  Why this didn't happen with Whitworth is an anomoly.)  Brown is loyal to a fault.  See Paul Alexander.  Daugherty manipulates what Brown says to make him look like Montgomery Burns in the flesh.  Nothing but a self-serving bullshit article designed to enrage fans and drive up web hits.  Fuck him.

[Madieu Superstar]

1 minute ago, UncleEarl said:

Just about the entire article where he reads into what Brown says.  All the parts about how Brown doesn't care about the fans, only butts in the seats.  I don't believe that.  He twists Brown's words to make it sound like he could give two shits about fans.  That is one way to look at it.  The other is that Brown wants to win, but is incompetent as hell.  He is too conservative to risk his profits by overspending, unless that is overspending on his own players.  (Brown consistently signs his own players to very friendly deals.  Why this didn't happen with Whitworth is an anomoly.)  Brown is loyal to a fault.  See Paul Alexander.  Daugherty manipulates what Brown says to make him look like Montgomery Burns in the flesh.  Nothing but a self-serving bullshit article designed to enrage fans and drive up web hits.  Fuck him.

I’d refer you to the stadium deal to see Mike Brown’s everlasting legacy with the locals.

 

he doesn’t care about the fans. His actions and words prove that. His main concern is being able to do things his way. Whether that leads to winning (it never does) is secondary. 

 

The fact of the matter is that the media in Cincinnati has been way too forgiving for the product that this man has put on the field for nearly 30 years. So if Daugherty writes one article a year that calls out the worst owner in pro sports, so be it. 

 

[UncleEarl]

4 minutes ago, Madieu Superstar said:

I’d refer you to the stadium deal to see Mike Brown’s everlasting legacy with the locals.

 

he doesn’t care about the fans. His actions and words prove that. His main concern is being able to do things his way. Whether that leads to winning (it never does) is secondary. 

 

The fact of the matter is that the media in Cincinnati has been way too forgiving for the product that this man has put on the field for nearly 30 years. So if Daugherty writes one article a year that calls out the worst owner in pro sports, so be it. 

 

The stadium deal was a good deal for him.  Don't blame him.  If Cincinnati didn't do it, someone else would.

 

His words are twisted.  You can believe what you want.  He is a stubborn old man that wants to do it his way.  Doesn't mean he hates fans.  Means he is stubborn and foolish.

 

I'm all about criticizing the product.  Daugherty is saying he is a terrible person who cares nothing for anyone but himself.  Big difference and an enormous stretch based upon the interview. 

[Inigo Montoya]

31 minutes ago, SF2 said:

Comparing Jerry Jones to Mike Brown is laughable.  Jones paid for 2/3rds of the cost of AT&T stadium.  The entire complex is a huge revenue generator for the area year round.  He treats his players like royalty.  Yeah, teams haven't been good but guys certainly want to play for Dallas.

 

We are a destination of last resort. Brown does the minimum required to properly run the organization. Coaches get paid pretty much league minimum to include Marvin. The facilities are non descript.  Its simply a no frills bargain basement organization. 

 

For all the money and amenities that Dallas has, none of it has translated into major success on the field.  As far as I know, Jerry and Mike are the only two owners who double as GM.  That's the comparison and both of them have fared poorly in that role.  Simply put, it's a major disadvantage for a team to be run by a GM who is only in that position because he owns the team, IMO.

[|SF2|]

17 minutes ago, Inigo Montoya said:

 

For all the money and amenities that Dallas has, none of it has translated into major success on the field.  As far as I know, Jerry and Mike are the only two owners who double as GM.  That's the comparison and both of them have fared poorly in that role.  Simply put, it's a major disadvantage for a team to be run by a GM who is only in that position because he owns the team, IMO.

Well, since Mike took over the Bengals the Cowboys have gone 14-10 in the playoffs and have won 3 Super Bowls.  Yeah, most of the success was in the late 90s but success none the less and even recently they have actually won playoff games and made it to a divisional round.   Jerry isn't a great GM but the fans realize he tries hard, loves his team, loves the fans and he loves Dallas.  I can't imagine anyone saying that about Mike regardless of the validity.

 

Tom Benson bought the Saints in 1985 and it took 15 years to win a playoff game.  During that time period there was no doubt he loved the Saints, the fans and the city of New Orleans. 

 

Mike does himself no favors by being pretty much a ghost during games. Arthur Blank of the much despised Falcons can always be seen down of the field after games waving the flag.

[LostInDaJungle]

12 hours ago, UncleEarl said:

He is a stubborn old man that wants to do it his way.  Doesn't mean he hates fans.  Means he is stubborn and foolish.

But if the fans don't like it.... Well, he's a stubborn old man and the fans don't know shit.

You're right, he doesn't hate the fans, "overwhelmingly apathetic" might best describe how he feels about the people who allow him to own a Billion dollar sports franchise.

"Hate" implies that he either thinks about us or cares about us, Mike Brown does neither.

[T-Dub]

18 minutes ago, LostInDaJungle said:

But if the fans don't like it.... Well, he's a stubborn old man and the fans don't know shit.

You're right, he doesn't hate the fans, "overwhelmingly apathetic" might best describe how he feels about the people who allow him to own a Billion dollar sports franchise.

"Hate" implies that he either thinks about us or cares about us, Mike Brown does neither.

 

I've mentioned this before, a few times even, but he made some comment after a game in which Chad Ochopsycho shit the bed about how "sometimes one of the elephants doesn't do his routine" and I think that was very revealing as to his attitude.  Pro football is a circus to his Ivy League sensibilities, it's low-brow entertainment for the plebes and winning or losing at it isn't nearly as important as being a Redeemer.  I'd even say there's some truth to that, the Bengals playoff record isn't making the world a better or worse place, but that is what an NFL football franchise is meant to do - win football games.  If he thinks that's beneath him, go run an orphanage for wayward Pacmans.  It's like buying a burger franchise and thinking it's ok to serve horse meat because the money you saved is going to the poor and you only eat steak yourself.  Unfortunately with all the current guaranteed revenue just for owning the franchise, he feels no responsibility to his customers because it doesn't affect his financial ability to follow his "True Calling" or whatever. I think it's this messiah complex that makes the other owners hate him.  It's obvious he thinks the whole thing is beneath him & his players know they don't need to be particularly good or even avoid being a public embarrassment so long as they stay on his good side. 

[LostInDaJungle]

1 minute ago, T-Dub said:

 

I've mentioned this before, a few times even, but he made some comment after a game in which Chad Ochopsycho shit the bed about how "sometimes one of the elephants doesn't do his routine" and I think that was very revealing as to his attitude.  Pro football is a circus to his Ivy League sensibilities, it's low-brow entertainment for the plebes and winning or losing at it isn't nearly as important as being a Redeemer.  I'd even say there's some truth to that, the Bengals playoff record isn't making the world a better or worse place, but that is what an NFL football franchise is meant to do - win at football games.  If he thinks that's beneath him, go run an orphanage for wayward Pacmans.  It's like buying a burger franchise and thinking it's ok to serve horse meat because the money you saved is going to the poor and you only eat steak yourself.  Unfortunately with all the current guaranteed revenue just for owning the franchise, he feels no responsibility to his customers because it doesn't affect his "True Calling" or whatever. 

MB: What's the cheapest meat you have on that truck?
Butcher: Well this is cheap but it's hors....
MB: Don't tell me. I'll take it.

[T-Dub]

6 minutes ago, LostInDaJungle said:

MB: What's the cheapest meat you have on that truck?
Butcher: Well this is cheap but it's hors....
MB: Don't tell me. I'll take it.

 

Then he tips the delivery guy an extra dollar so he still feels like a Very Good Boy.

[|westside bengal|]

There is no doubt that Paul Brown was a coaching legend in his day.  Because of that I have always felt that the Brown Family Trust thought it was their inherent right to own a NFL football team.