A good way to deal with an unsettled child is to play with them just long enough to keep a game entertaining, but ultimately lose on purpose to appease the child.
Cincinnati Bengals’ owner Mike Brown seems to be quite familiar with that strategy. He annually fails to make transactions and free-agent signings that would take his team to the next level and treats fans like the kid being babysat — keeping them invested to his decent team while knowing well enough that his product isn’t anywhere near competent for Super Bowl contention.
The rest of the AFC North has been making moves to get better throughout the offseason. The Browns signed former Ravens linebacker Paul Kruger. Baltimore got Elvis Dumervil, Chris Canty and Marcus Spears to shore up its defensive line and re-signed quarterback Joe Flacco to a six-year contract that made him the highest-paid player in the league. The Ravens also grabbed former Oakland safety Michael Huff.
Pittsburgh got former Steelers’ draftee William Gay back from Arizona and was smart enough not to renew linebacker James Harrison’s contract.
The Bengals, on the other hand, are pretty content with staying just a little better than average.Their best move was re-signing linebacker Rey Maualuga, and even that was a head, er, hair-scratcher.
They also re-signed Adam “Pac-Man” Jones, who played well last year but may not be worthy of a roster spot because of past run-ins with the law. The Bengals’ most significant new addition is backup quarterback John Skelton, who compiled 25 career interceptions and 15 career touchdown passes in three years at Arizona.
I’m of the opinion that Brown is perfectly content with just putting a decent team on the field to attract fans to the mundane grey walls and forest green seats of his publicly funded football fortress, Paul Brown Stadium.
Oh yeah, and there’s the fact that a Business Insider story called Paul Brown Stadium’s contract “the worst stadium financing deal ever.” Mike Brown doesn’t care about the fans or the product on the field as long as it collects enough money to make an ample profit. If he cared about the fans, he wouldn’t have threatened to relocate the Bengals if fans didn’t agree to finance “almost the entire stadium” in 1996, according to the Business Insider account.
Mike Brown continues to get richer while fans dish out money on his subpar franchise. Legendary rapper The Notorious B.I.G. once said, “mo’ money, mo’ problems.” Well, Mike Brown must have a Biggie playlist on repeat because he certainly has more money and Bengals fans are left to deal with the problems.
