Thursday, September 10, 2009

My Bengals Love/Hate Relationship

Well football starts again today and I decided to log in and make my prediction for the Bengals. I am torn this season.

I love the Bengals and I want them to do well. I want them to win. But since last season I have started following a blog that I have come to enjoy and agree with. It's called the Who Dey Revolution. The goal is basically to call out and expose the crappy Bengals management in order to get changes made to the way the team is run. The guy, as cynical as he comes off, is 100% right about almost everything. He makes it obvious how terrible the Bengals organization is run. It's painful to say, but any success the Bengals acheive is pure dumb luck. They really will be the siberia of the NFL until they get competent management. Did you know the Bengals only employee 1 scout? Yes that's right, 1 NFL scout for 1 NFL team. There are only 6 teams in the NFL who don't have a GM. Those 6 teams include either extremely successful owners (Jerry Jones) or extremely unsuccessful owners (Mike Brown and Al Davis). There is no in between. You'd think with 19 years of crappiness, maybe going a different route for success would be good?? Those are just a few of the topics the blogger at Who Dey Revolution brings up.

So as you can see, it's understandable that I'm torn on rooting for them to win.

Regardless, I enter another year hoping for the best and expecting the worse. Can you believe last season I actually predicted that the Bengals would be ruined by injuries? Check it out. Well I didn't get it all right, Rudi Johnson didn't do well in Detroit, but Carson took the year off with an arm problem so I got that right at least. This year I can't help but be optimistic. Carson is back and doing well, Ochocinco is reenergized and talking about playing in the Super Bowl, apparently Cedric Benson is playing this year at the same weight he was in college (his last good football season), and the defense has added a bunch of new players and is expected to improve their 12th ranked defense from last year. How could this not be a good team?

If only they weren't Cincinnati. I'm afraid the higher my optimism is, the higher my disappointment will be. I read somewhere that the Bengals could potentially win 10 games this year. I say bogus, we aren't going to split with BOTH Pittsburgh and Baltimore. I'll believe it when I see it. My prediction is that it will be an up and down year. Our offense will disappear for a few games and I think we'll end up 7-9. I don't think Benson is going to make a big impact this year and Bernard Scott may have to come in to pick up the slack. Unless any of the wide receivers or Carson get hurt, I think they'll all have a decent year. The defense will improve but will be mediocre and stay around 12th ranked in the league. We're better than we were last year but not as good as we were in 2005. If we had an easier division I'd be a little more optimistic about our record, but I just can't see us having a winning record.

And if you just read all that, congratulations, I could barely stand to type it myself.

It may not be clear by the post above but... Go Bengals!

Also I can't wait until October.

3 comments:

I'm sure Scott will devour this post, despite the fact that he gave up his Bengals fan card last fall.

I just can't imagine cheering for a team that is consistently so bad. If the owner weren't so dang cheap and short-sighted, the Bengals might have a chance. Someday. But I hope for your sake (and Liz's and the sake of your future children) that you give up on them soon!

From our experience last fall, I can attest to the fact that a die-hard, devoted, life-long Bengals fan can cheer for a new team but still follow the Bengals without remaining emotionally entrenched in their woes. It works for Scott!

our future kids will be Bengals fans, i already have the vision in my head and it can't change, it's too cute. and I don't think I can ever give up my loyalty. I love the Bengals too much.

Oh, Michael! You're sentencing them to a lifetime of pain and heartache! That's what made Scott change his mind about his team, I think.

Sigh. I just hope you'll reconsider. :)