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WEEK 2: 49ERS @ BENGALS


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11 hours ago, Hooky said:

I never bought into that culture BS. That puts it on the players like they don't want to win or don't know how. Every player in the NFL is familiar with winning in their football career. It comes down to the coaches and org creating a team that's consistently better than the other teams.

These guys are professionals.  They are supposed to bring it every day.  Just like the rest of us in our jobs.  If you need your boss to motivate you, well, you aren't a professional. 

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5 hours ago, Hooky said:

You can say culture 20 more times, but players want to win regardless of who they're playing for. An org doesn't need to create that attitude. They need to put the pieces together to create wins. You can't compare a sports team to other corporations. A google employee isn't performing for thousands of people. A professional athlete is a different animal. They are driven to succeed. Kraft has a history of winning because he continuously hires good coaches and personnel and makes good decisions. They don't win just because they won before.

Hahaha.   Yeah.  A professional athlete would never mail it in.  Two words:  Terrell Owens. 

 

Frankly, it isn't even mailing it in.  It's not playing with an edge.  It's being complacent.  The NFL is full of very talented athletes.  If you are off your game just a little bit, you are going to get embarrassed.  This is what I see happening with the Bengals on a regular basis.

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37 minutes ago, UncleEarl said:

Hahaha.   Yeah.  A professional athlete would never mail it in.  Two words:  Terrell Owens. 

 

Frankly, it isn't even mailing it in.  It's not playing with an edge.  It's being complacent.  The NFL is full of very talented athletes.  If you are off your game just a little bit, you are going to get embarrassed.  This is what I see happening with the Bengals on a regular basis.

 

Terrell Owens?  The dude that played in a Super Bowl with a broken leg and kicked ass?

 

You need to accept the fact this team is woefully lacking talent at too many positions. Good coaching can’t fix a serious lack of talent at the professional level.  You simply can’t have the worst offensive line and linebackers on the same team and win much.  It just isn’t possible  

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5 hours ago, SF2 said:

 

Terrell Owens?  The dude that played in a Super Bowl with a broken leg and kicked ass?

 

You need to accept the fact this team is woefully lacking talent at too many positions. Good coaching can’t fix a serious lack of talent at the professional level.  You simply can’t have the worst offensive line and linebackers on the same team and win much.  It just isn’t possible  

He also quit on teams several times, including the Bengals.  TO chose when he wanted to play.  Professional athletes aren't some special breed.  Some are hard workers, but others just go through the motions and collect checks. 

 

I don't think you are following my position.  This isn't about coaching necessarily.  It's about having leadership from the players.  Every team throws a stinker now and then, but the Bengals are very predictable.  Yes, their OL and LB suck.  It doesn't change the fact that the Bengals haven't been able to put together consistent efforts for more than a decade. 

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Can't have it both ways: either players are self-centered and do what they want/when they want...or they need to be "motivated" and led around by the nose by the coaching staff. 

 

Bellyaching for years that ML had no "motivational leadership"--and letting the players off scot free. Now they are blamed for not "motivating" themselves...and the staff is let off the hook? 

 

For me, it's always been the players need to step it up--that is their well-paying job. 

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3 hours ago, UncleEarl said:

He also quit on teams several times, including the Bengals.  TO chose when he wanted to play.  Professional athletes aren't some special breed.  Some are hard workers, but others just go through the motions and collect checks. 

 

I don't think you are following my position.  This isn't about coaching necessarily.  It's about having leadership from the players.  Every team throws a stinker now and then, but the Bengals are very predictable.  Yes, their OL and LB suck.  It doesn't change the fact that the Bengals haven't been able to put together consistent efforts for more than a decade. 

He never quit on the Bengals. He arrived in late August and was without a doubt the best receiver on the team until he got hurt.  Led the team in receiving at age 37.  Guy gave 100% on the field.

 

Sure, acted like an asshat sometimes off the field and especially in Philly were he had no respect for McNabb or Reid but played 14 games or more 14 of 15 years he played.

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On 9/17/2019 at 11:19 AM, Le Tigre said:

It's 95 on the field...in full pads...going against an offense hitting everything it ran. If every play wasn't appearing to be textbook Charlie Hustle on the idiot box, there was no question that they were giving their best. Playing every snap because of lack of LB's and a goofy rotation system, sort of does that to a human body. 

 

And, as I said last week, this "new defense" did work well against Seattle. As I also said, film can be an equalizer--and SF had a week to see it. 

 

It (defense) will drift back to "competent" this week. Even in a weird system, film can work the Bengals way too. 

I hope you are right

18 hours ago, Le Tigre said:

No one said the 5-2 in theory wouldn't put people in proper places...it's that SF noted the places they were not, and hit the vacated places. All you have to do is look at the vid above to see that. And, being at field level, it was patently obvious that Jimmy G could see the open field where a LB or another S should have been. Bad tackling--yeah...but the RB has a 15 yard head start before there even is contact.    

I'm sure that there were a few blown assignments that caused these wide open spaces on the field, I can assure that's not how it was designed. 

 

The defense had zero discipline last Sunday, they fell for every misdirection and screen play they Niners ran, that's on the players as they have seen these plays before but they didn't play like it.

10 hours ago, Le Tigre said:

Well, where does that start...perhaps with the HC (a familiar refrain)? 

It's a New Dey, so obviously not...🙂

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16 minutes ago, SF2 said:

He never quit on the Bengals. He arrived in late August and was without a doubt the best receiver on the team until he got hurt.  Led the team in receiving at age 37.  Guy gave 100% on the field.

 

Sure, acted like an asshat sometimes off the field and especially in Philly were he had no respect for McNabb or Reid but played 14 games or more 14 of 15 years he played.

He's also a HOF'er, no in the HOF has ever quit on a team.

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53 minutes ago, SF2 said:

He never quit on the Bengals. He arrived in late August and was without a doubt the best receiver on the team until he got hurt.  Led the team in receiving at age 37.  Guy gave 100% on the field.

 

Sure, acted like an asshat sometimes off the field and especially in Philly were he had no respect for McNabb or Reid but played 14 games or more 14 of 15 years he played.

C'mon...TO had short arms constantly for the Bengals.  He is better than that.  Who gives a shit what he thought of McNabb.  I thought he was a professional?  TO did not give 100% on the field all the time.  He was excellent when it was easy and/or in his interest.  When it wasn't pffft!

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19 minutes ago, PatternMaster said:

Name one player that is in the HOF that openly quit on a team.

Openly?  That's different.  TO quit on many occasions. 

 

This discussion has gotten off the rails.  My point was that these guys aren't a different breed.  They are more like us than we realize.  Some are absolute workaholics, but some are just very talented guys that have other interests and motivations that vary, just like you see at your job.  The big difference is professional athletes get paid more than their "bosses."  Coaches have to convince them to do what they want.  Their leverage is  limited.  The best teams have leadership from within.  I'm sure Bill Belichick is a good coach, but Tom Brady is the real deal.  Even AB seems to be behaving because he gets to play with the best QB to ever lace 'em up. 

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1 hour ago, UncleEarl said:

Openly?  That's different.  TO quit on many occasions. 

 

This discussion has gotten off the rails.  My point was that these guys aren't a different breed.  They are more like us than we realize.  Some are absolute workaholics, but some are just very talented guys that have other interests and motivations that vary, just like you see at your job.  The big difference is professional athletes get paid more than their "bosses."  Coaches have to convince them to do what they want.  Their leverage is  limited.  The best teams have leadership from within.  I'm sure Bill Belichick is a good coach, but Tom Brady is the real deal.  Even AB seems to be behaving because he gets to play with the best QB to ever lace 'em up. 

Definitely agree with you on all points 

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11 hours ago, UncleEarl said:

C'mon...TO had short arms constantly for the Bengals.  He is better than that.  Who gives a shit what he thought of McNabb.  I thought he was a professional?  TO did not give 100% on the field all the time.  He was excellent when it was easy and/or in his interest.  When it wasn't pffft!

Yet he was the top receiver on this team.... AT 37 and after missing training camp.   He didn't give 100%? Maybe he would have if Palmer wasn't shitting himself the entire season.  I had season tickets that year, the last year I had them.  Palmer FUCKING SUCKED that year. Refused to get surgery 2 years earlier and still had the noodle arm. Watching his rainbow passes was brutal.

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If you didn't see TO quit when it suited him you didn't watch him enough.  Very easy example is his final bit of time with 49ers.  He had a (big) beef with Garcia, and he started "dropping" passes that were perfect balls.  I'll never forget the time Garcia hit him square in the chest and TO somehow magically bumped it like a volleyball over his head and into the hands of a defender.  Nope, sorry, TO had a competitive streak in him but his ego was much more important and if he felt like he wasn't getting his perceived notion of respect, he'd quit or do his own thing in protest.  I mean, the dude implied that Garcia was gay, is that what a pro does?

 

As for the source of motivation for a player.  I think there's truth on both sides of the argument (individual vs "follow the leader").  An individual *must* be self-motivated to succeed at a high level of competition, no doubt about it.  But the difficulty in team sports comes with whether that individual is motivated to be part of something greater than themselves (the team) and if so, what it takes to maintain the level of trust required to sacrifice when needed for that greater good.  Quite often, if not always, that trust factor has to be either carefully tuned or directly applied by one or more "orchestrators" within the team.  Sometimes it's a coach, sometimes it's vet players.  What I've observed over the years is that in the "old days", a player tended to put that trust in the coach much more readily than they do today, so in most cases the handful of leaders within the player group has to play a key part.  What I've observed of the Bengals is that you tended to have poor orchestrators in one or both of those roles (player or coach).  Then what you end up with are a bunch of motivated individuals, only trusting themselves, causing the unit to break down and fail because they have no belief in the team's direction.  You only have to look at the Patriots for an example of having elite orchestrators in both roles.  Nobody questions whether the team direction is sound, or whether the other guy is doing his job.  If he isn't, he's out - there is no need to doubt it, so sacrifice is easy for the individual.

 

To end this off, I think it's pretty clear why the Bengals have this underlying and pervasive mistrust.  We've all said it, seen it, and complained about it at one time or another; it's a cliche, but "it all starts at the top" is never more true than with this team.  MB doesn't inspire anybody, and his lack of commitment puts a cloud over everything the team tries to do.

 

 

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5 hours ago, Le Tigre said:

Interesting observations. However, as to the "at the top" illustration, how can Robert Kraft inspire any one? 

He doesn't really have to, he just has to spend the money and let the real professionals (GM, coach - in the current case, the same person) do their job.  Let's not forget, Brown as owner is in the (nearly) unique position of being the "GM" and considers himself a "football man" when he quite clearly isn't.  Thus, his influence is far beyond what most owners demonstrate.  The Hard Knocks back in the day was a real eye-opener at just how much Brown's influence feeds the dysfunction, at least IMO.

 

If we want to get into the deeper semantics of "starts at the top", I'd say that in the typical case as long as the owner isn't a cheap skate and the GM is as much a professional as he expects the players to be, you've got a good executive group to start from.

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Neither Kraft nor Jones are looking to their NFL franchise to provide for their great-grandchildren.  Most NFL owners made their money elsewhere and then bought a team mostly as a status symbol & maybe secondarily as an investment or tax write-off, depending.  

 

The Browns (et al) on the other hand expect owning the Bengals to keep them in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed indefinitely, over generations at the least.  They'd rather risk losing games than losing money. That basic difference in view colors everything they do, down to why their team plays in a stadium with all the character of a parking garage.  

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I don't know...one could say much the same about the Al Davis tribe. There was a reason why he or Marky never invested any loot into new stadia regardless of where they traveled. Up until now of course...but even that is a much smaller percentage than the amount local investors and public entities are plunking down. 

 

 

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