40yrpatsfan said:
When you see a team like the Bengals making comments like that, you can see why BB controls the message to the degree he does. It is such a team game, and most of these players are likely to say the wrong thing every time.
Lewis may be a decent X&O coach, but he doesn't have control of those players. The inmates run the asylum in Cinci.
No, the Bengals
were a joke. Don't think that Lewis doesn't see all of these problems. But he was hired by the Bengals, has only been there three years, didn't have the authority that BB has. Here's an extract from NFL.com at the time of his hiring:
"After failing to get a head coaching job after the 2000 or 2001 seasons, Lewis became defensive coordinator of the
Washington Redskins, but was eager for the chance to become an NFL head coach.
He's starting at the bottom.
The Bengals haven't had a winning record in the last 12 years and became a national laughingstock during a 2-14 season that was the worst in team history. **** LeBeau was fired a day later.
For the first time since owner Mike Brown took over the team in 1991, he looked outside the organization for a replacement...
The last time the Bengals went entirely outside the organization for a head coach was 1980, when they hired Forrest Gregg. He led the team to its first Super Bowl a year later, but butted heads with the Brown family over control of the roster and left after the 1983 season.
During their dismal dozen years, the Bengals have had four head coaches with links to the organization: Sam Wyche, Dave Shula, Bruce Coslet and LeBeau. None has been able to produce as much as one winning record.
Lewis will bring a fresh perspective to a locker room that wallowed in misery as the losses mounted. Lewis, the team's first black head coach, also will be welcomed in a city still trying to heal from race riots in 2001.
The question is whether Lewis, who has been an NFL assistant for 11 seasons, can overcome the front office's shortcomings, which practically ensure failure.
The Bengals are 55-137 under Brown, who refuses to bring in a general manager, give his head coaches final say over the roster, or upgrade the NFL's smallest scouting staff.
In addition to learning what it's like to be an NFL head coach, Lewis will learn what it's like to deal with an owner who waffles on decisions, hoards authority, and is fixated on quarterbacks."
Management 101 says that the most difficult situation for someone to impose their authority is when their subordinates can see that their own position is in question. Lewis has managed to get the organization much more under control than it ever was before, despite having to deal with that ownership.
He hasn't done it the BB way and he hasn't done it perfectly, but if I were a Bengals fan I'd worship the ground he walks on. (Which they do -- see Marvinforprez, etc.)
