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Award-winning columnist Tom Archdeacon — an old-school storyteller in a brand-new venue — writes about sports, the city, southwest Ohio and anything else that catches his fancy… or yours.Home > Blogs > Through the Arch > Archives > 2008 > December > 29
Monday, December 29, 2008
blog: Browns will be in better shape than Bengals
The Bengals finished with three straight victories and — by virtue of that tie with Philadelphia — ended up with a slightly better record at 4-11-1 than the 4-12 Browns, who lost their last six games and , were out-scored, 45-0, in the final two.
So which franchise will fare better in the future?
Even though they canned general manager Phil Savage on Sunday and coach Romeo Crennel this morning — even though their roster has too many overpaid players and the club will face salary cap issues because so many huge signing bonuses that have been handed out — I’ll go with the Browns.
And that’s even if they don’t end up with Bill Cowher, Bill Parcells or Giants defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo as their next head coach.
Whether it’s in politics or sports, change often can be for the better. The Miami Dolphins scrapped everything after last year’s 1-15 nightmare and look at them now. They’re 11-5 and in the play-offs.
As for Cincinnati?
Once again nothing of significance will change and because of it a winning record in 2009 will be just as elusive as it has been the past 18 seasons — when just one Bengals team finished a winner.
Thanks to three meaningless victories in a row to close out this season — against, it should be noted, three teams they should have beaten — the Bengals power brokers can fool themselves into believing they are right on the cusp of NFL respectability.
They’ll point out they had a record 23 players on injured reserve , including quarterback Carson Palmer. They’ll note the emergence of young players and back-ups from rookie receiver Andre Caldwell to veteran running back Cedric Benson.
Certainly Caldwell and Benson and some others were great finds this year, but one thing — the main thing — was no different.
Team owner Mike Brown and his family — good people, but inadequate when it comes to managing a competitive NFL franchise — run the Bengals like a Mom and Pop corner grocery:
No GM, few scouts, no clue,.
And they certainly won’t change anything now that the season ended with a glimmer of hope. But that promise shimmers like an emerald mirage in the middle of a desert.
A young Cincinnati Enquirer reporter touched on that point in a legitimate question to Marvin Lewis a couple of weeks ago and the Bengals coach wrongly laced into him, saying the question was disrespectful of what he and his team were trying to do.
The only people being disrespected here are the Bengals faithful fans, the Hamilton County voters who paid for Paul Brown Stadium and the corporate donors who fork out something like $175,000 to rent a stadium suite.
They deserve more for their money.
Since Mike Brown took over the club in 1991, the Bengals have won just 101 games — 34 of them in December. Most of those wins meant nothing. By then, the play-offs were an impossibility.
And will next year be any different?
Several key players will be lost to free agency and there’s still the looming question of Carson Palmer’s arm. Will it ever be the same again? Will the offensive line — hampered both by key injuries and some over-matched starters — be able to protect him when he does return? Bengals quarterbacks were sacked 51 times this season — three times the number in 2007.
Under the Lerner family the past 10 years, the Browns haven’t — as just two winning seasons attest — been very successful either. But at least they will make an effort to change.
Owner Randy Lerner will spent a lot of money to dump Savage, Crennel and possibly offensive coordinator Rod Chudzinski. Savage has four years left on his contract, the other two have three and that could cost Lerner $30 million in all.
But he gave $12 million to Butch Davis when he left in 1994.
If nothing else, a guy coming into the Browns knows he will be paid well. Sure, name guys are going to want more than that and that’s the convincing Lerner will have to do.
Cowher is first on his wish list, but tops on several other teams’ as well. And the former Pittsburgh Steelers coach has said he was going to stay out of coaching another year.
I don’t necessarily believe that and I don’t think there’s any kind of handshake agreement with the Steelers not to coach the Browns. Whether he wants to come to Cleveland, though, is another story.
Parcells, as ESPN’s Chris Mortensen reported Sunday, can leave his Dolphins front office job if owner Wayne Huizenga sells the team and, from what I know from folks in Miami, that seems likely to happen next month in a deal already in the works with developer Stephen Ross.
As for a general manager, the Browns first choice seems to be New England executive president Scott Pioli.
But if that should be the case, Parcells wouldn’t be interested in Cleveland. He’s said all along that he’s not going to work alongside Pioli, who is his son-in-law.
He believes family and business don’t always mix.
Too bad the Bengals don’t see it the same way.
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