The Bengals are the NFL's smallest market and run the lowest budget operation (believe they have smallest group of scouts) One of the things that franchise decided to do to help them compete in a league where they're at a disadvantage was to take chances on very talented but sometimes troubled players that other teams avoid.Brian wolf wrote:Taylor and Burrow will decide this one. Brown might be it, until then because he took them from expansion to contenders but underachieved like the rest of them. Lewis had consistent winners but let his team become a circus ... We probably all agree that Shula was the worst.
Had Brown hired Walsh instead of Johnson, we can only imagine what he might have achieved but Brown could never throw money around like DeBartalo, so Walsh would have had to draft and coach-up prospects pretty quickly, until he found his team chemistry. A harder task in the AFC Central.
To Cincinnati, if it works out they get a potentially outstanding player on the cheap since many times they're the only (or one of a few) teams willing to bring these guys in. As a result you're going to have to put up with a chaotic locker room...I don't know what more Marvin Lewis could've done. They know that some of these guys are gonna end up doing idiotic things, but some of them are also going to be great contributors for 4-5 years and grow up.