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ESPN insiders say Bengals are at least 5 years away from Super Bowl contention


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The ESPN article had us as the only tier 5 team or 5 years away.  Cincy Jungle threw out this gem disputing the ESPN article which made me chuckle:  

 

“The Bengals have a great core of players and a brilliant, young head coach.”  

 

Uhh, last time I checked, Taylor is 0-0 as a head coach, it’s a little too early to use the word “brilliant” me thinks. 

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Since NFL teams can go from the bottom to the top in less than 5 years, it's another way of saying the Bengals aren't competitive despite MB's fondest wishes. His version of "competitive" is taking the field and not losing every game by multiple touchdowns. Normal people's definition of competitive is having a decent chance of winning the title. 

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Yeah, and is it these same "insiders" that are now saying the BROWNS are Super Bowl contenders, one season removed from being 1-31 over two seasons???  Give me a break, regardless of whether you think the Bengals aren't on the path to contention these "insiders" know as much or less than the rest of us.  As other have said here "5" is beyond arbitrary and teams in a similar position to our own have gone on to win in much shorter periods of time.  We all know the real "obstacle" is MB and his policies, so if any of *us* were asked to pick an arbitrary length of time before we're legit contenders, we'd be asking a psychic how much longer he has on this earth (as morbid as that is).  

Let's keep in mind also that a coaching change can of course have a dramatic effect, but often needs time to show up.  Belichick went 5-11 and starting 0-2 before Brady took over (which also speaks to how a top QB can help turn the tide).  Any prognostications on the future of the Bengals can't sincerely be made until we know how Taylor and his coaches run the team and the games, and how our "known" players fit in those schemes.

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On 7/29/2019 at 9:56 PM, SF2 said:

The ESPN article had us as the only tier 5 team or 5 years away.  Cincy Jungle threw out this gem disputing the ESPN article which made me chuckle:  

 

“The Bengals have a great core of players and a brilliant, young head coach.”  

 

Uhh, last time I checked, Taylor is 0-0 as a head coach, it’s a little too early to use the word “brilliant” me thinks. 

He's brilliant because they want him to be 

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Browns are two years removed from four wins three season stretch. Now they are contending for "greatest team ever" via all the NFL media outlets.

They are full of shit. Every time The Bengals go on a two win stretch these same putz' call them a team to watch then as soon as they lose one the are the same old Bengals...

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11 hours ago, HavePityPlease said:

Yeah, and is it these same "insiders" that are now saying the BROWNS are Super Bowl contenders, one season removed from being 1-31 over two seasons???  Give me a break, regardless of whether you think the Bengals aren't on the path to contention these "insiders" know as much or less than the rest of us.  As other have said here "5" is beyond arbitrary and teams in a similar position to our own have gone on to win in much shorter periods of time.  We all know the real "obstacle" is MB and his policies, so if any of *us* were asked to pick an arbitrary length of time before we're legit contenders, we'd be asking a psychic how much longer he has on this earth (as morbid as that is).  

Let's keep in mind also that a coaching change can of course have a dramatic effect, but often needs time to show up.  Belichick went 5-11 and starting 0-2 before Brady took over (which also speaks to how a top QB can help turn the tide).  Any prognostications on the future of the Bengals can't sincerely be made until we know how Taylor and his coaches run the team and the games, and how our "known" players fit in those schemes.

Some of it most certainly has to do with the team makeup at this point.  Most  intelligent followers of the sport don't see this team accomplishing much this year.  The oline still lacks healthy talent at most positions, the defense hasn't done much to get substantially better and the cold hard fact is the window is starting to close on some of these guys.  5 of our best 6 players will be 30 or older (Atkins, Dunlap, Dalton, Green, Glenn and Mixon being the only sub 30).  

 

If the season goes as many expect then what next? The current owner has never shown a propensity to blow it up and start over.  On the contrary, he will let contracts run their course and attempt to replace most players thru the draft.   There is no evidence to suggest that the front office will make bold moves in an attempt to quickly change the makeup of the team if it needs remaking or even overpay aging players that could make a significant difference like Whitworth.  About the only time this team experienced significant change was when a player decided to "retire" rather than come back, the front office really had nothing to do with it and it did help the team in the long run but it was NOT by design. 

 

Just sort of feels like 1992 again.  The team will probably not be very good, the front office will try to make the necessary changes at the pace of a tree sloth and we will probably spend a few extra years being Meh.  You can say what you want about the Browns but they are swinging for the fences which is something that really never happens here.   

 

 

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On 7/31/2019 at 10:20 AM, SF2 said:

Some of it most certainly has to do with the team makeup at this point.  Most  intelligent followers of the sport don't see this team accomplishing much this year.  The oline still lacks healthy talent at most positions, the defense hasn't done much to get substantially better and the cold hard fact is the window is starting to close on some of these guys.  5 of our best 6 players will be 30 or older (Atkins, Dunlap, Dalton, Green, Glenn and Mixon being the only sub 30).  

 

If the season goes as many expect then what next? The current owner has never shown a propensity to blow it up and start over.  On the contrary, he will let contracts run their course and attempt to replace most players thru the draft.   There is no evidence to suggest that the front office will make bold moves in an attempt to quickly change the makeup of the team if it needs remaking or even overpay aging players that could make a significant difference like Whitworth.  About the only time this team experienced significant change was when a player decided to "retire" rather than come back, the front office really had nothing to do with it and it did help the team in the long run but it was NOT by design. 

 

Just sort of feels like 1992 again.  The team will probably not be very good, the front office will try to make the necessary changes at the pace of a tree sloth and we will probably spend a few extra years being Meh.  You can say what you want about the Browns but they are swinging for the fences which is something that really never happens here.   

 

 

Everything hinges on Taylor and his staff.  If he's some sort of "gem" coach he's going to build a roster that doesn't rely on big-ticket FA's or home-run draft picks (which I believe can be done under the MB regime).  Yes, on paper the Bengals are no better than last year so this year certainly doesn't look promising, and they're definitely not a Super Bowl contender on paper.  But let's take the defense as an example.  The biggest change last year was a DC who was nothing less than hot garbage.  Thus, I'm not sure a defensive lineup that remained largely unchanged between the year before and last season performing so much worse can't perform that much better with an actual coach who knows what he's doing (which we don't know about the new guy yet either).

As for the "window closing" argument, what happened the last time we had a full-on changing of the guard?  Yep, we went to the playoffs for 5 years straight.  We can nit-pick and argue over individual players and their impact, but using history as a guide doesn't exactly support a 5-year window of misery just because we have to find a new core.  To be fair the original article/argument is whether a team is a *Super Bowl* contender, not just a playoff team, and that is certainly a harder criteria to meet, and out of those playoff years I personally only felt like we were contenders maybe twice.

The only piece of *potential* (yet circumstantial) evidence we have is the assumption that Taylor will run the team like McVey runs the Rams.  Under that assumption we'd need to be able to sign some significant FA's, and yes I agree there's no evidence that that will suddenly start happening.  But again, that hinges on Taylor and until we see the outcomes none of us knows anything worth making bets on.

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3 hours ago, HavePityPlease said:

Everything hinges on Taylor and his staff.  If he's some sort of "gem" coach he's going to build a roster that doesn't rely on big-ticket FA's or home-run draft picks (which I believe can be done under the MB regime).  Yes, on paper the Bengals are no better than last year so this year certainly doesn't look promising, and they're definitely not a Super Bowl contender on paper.  But let's take the defense as an example.  The biggest change last year was a DC who was nothing less than hot garbage.  Thus, I'm not sure a defensive lineup that remained largely unchanged between the year before and last season performing so much worse can't perform that much better with an actual coach who knows what he's doing (which we don't know about the new guy yet either).

As for the "window closing" argument, what happened the last time we had a full-on changing of the guard?  Yep, we went to the playoffs for 5 years straight.  We can nit-pick and argue over individual players and their impact, but using history as a guide doesn't exactly support a 5-year window of misery just because we have to find a new core.  To be fair the original article/argument is whether a team is a *Super Bowl* contender, not just a playoff team, and that is certainly a harder criteria to meet, and out of those playoff years I personally only felt like we were contenders maybe twice.

The only piece of *potential* (yet circumstantial) evidence we have is the assumption that Taylor will run the team like McVey runs the Rams.  Under that assumption we'd need to be able to sign some significant FA's, and yes I agree there's no evidence that that will suddenly start happening.  But again, that hinges on Taylor and until we see the outcomes none of us knows anything worth making bets on.

I totally agree with your sentiments,  I was just trying to explain why someone looking at the Bengals from the outside would put us in tier 5.  Keep in mind the issue is making it to the Super Bowl, not playoffs, so this extremely new coaching staff definitely has to prove itself first and they will have the same learning curve a new QB might have. 

 

It took 4 years for Jimmy Johnson to build a Super Bowl winner but the Cowboys had to blow it up year 1 to get there.

 

McVay did it in 2 and didn't have to blow it up, rather just spend some big money on the oline (and cut #2 pick in the draft bust OT Greg Robinson), add some skill players and turn Goff into a good QB. 

 

No doubt it can be done with the right staff and a little luck for once. 

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But the Bengals seem to want to try to win a SuperBowl with Dalton as QB. That's like entering a track meet with ankle weights. Have the Bengals at any time in the last 20 years been within 5 years of a SuperBowl appearance? I'd say the only time that was true was in 2005 before Kimo happened. 

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2 hours ago, sparky151 said:

But the Bengals seem to want to try to win a SuperBowl with Dalton as QB. That's like entering a track meet with ankle weights. Have the Bengals at any time in the last 20 years been within 5 years of a SuperBowl appearance? I'd say the only time that was true was in 2005 before Kimo happened. 

The 2005 team holds a place in many of our hearts since it had been the first playoff team in 15 years but that team was never going far with that shitty defense and the offense dropped off fairly quickly after 2006.

Marvin sitting Palmer his entire 1st year simply wasted his development and that of a young team at the time.  Trying to squeak into the playoffs with Jon Kitna in 2003 was fucking dumb considering we had the 28th ranked defense.  He sat a franchise QB and Heisman winner the entire year in favor of a guy who lost his job in Seattle to Matt Hasselbeck.   What better way to build excitement with the fan base after a 2-14 season than to sit the #1 pick in the draft the ENTIRE season.  So glad he is gone. 

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