Bengals and a GM
ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. -- Bengals president Mike Brown has said he will not hire a general manager. He has told me that the team has, essentially, a three-headed general manager consisting of himself, team executive vice president Katie Blackburn and her husband, Troy Blackburn. Head coach Marvin Lewis also has a big say -- second only to Brown -- on personnel decisions. Brown also said the team does not need more scouts and has, in fact, added to the scouting department since hiring Lewis in 2003.
If the team's fans -- customers is a more accurate term -- don't like what's going on, don't buy the product. You're the ones who have sold-out 32 consecutive home games. Hamilton County taxpayers voted for the sales tax to build the stadium. Our elected officials negotiated the stadium lease and got out-lawyered.
Vote with your wallets. NFL football is entertainment and pulls from a household's pool of discretionary income.
posted by Mark at 11:27 AM
9 Comments:
at 11/04/2007 12:23 PM 
Anonymous said...
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at 11/04/2007 1:35 PM 
M&M said...
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at 11/04/2007 2:47 PM 
Anonymous said...
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at 11/04/2007 5:59 PM 
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at 11/04/2007 8:05 PM 
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at 11/04/2007 10:28 PM 
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at 11/05/2007 9:37 AM 
Yaccub said...
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at 11/05/2007 6:01 PM 
Anonymous said...
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at 12/25/2007 7:08 PM 
Whitey63 said...
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Post a Comment*and exactly what does his daughter and her husband know about professional football and scouting players.....absolutely nothing!!! what a freakin joke!!
You tell us top vote with our wallets. First of all, a vast majority of the fans don't even attend the games. Whether they work, find the tickets too expensive or just enjoy rooting for the Bengals from the comfort of their own homes, most don't attend the games.
Second of all it is getting to the point where a good portion of the fans at PBS may be fans of either the opposing team or just the NFL in general.
When you are fortunate to interview him ask him how he thinks that every other NFL team is doing it wrong with a legitimate scouting department and the Bengals (one winning record in 15 years) are doing it right with a minimal scouting department.
It is up to the media to call Brown out and print it daily that this team will never contend for a championship as long as the Brown family continues to run it like a Mom & Pop shop. I hate to embarass the Brown family, but they have been humiliating this city for almost 2 decades now.
I am a season ticket holder and disagree with the notion that, in order to affect change, I must stop supporting the team. This essentially means that I must give up my tickets, hope this forces Brown's hands, then wait (likely in vain) to re-purchase my seat (with a new seat license fee, I'm sure) at some distant point in the future. You're essentially telling us that the only way we can improve the company in which we've invested is to sell our stock in that company. At its core, that is nonsensical. I agree that the fans have the ability to pressure the team financially, but as the prior comment notes, the responsibility rests with the media. Brown has gotten the freest of free passes from the enquirer and post. How do you think his quarter century of futility would be covered in a market like New York, Chicago or even Green Bay? Keep asking the right questions, ask them frequently, and print them in bold over and over.
Three headed "monster" is more like it. I can't not support them. I'm an idiot that I've already paid for a seat license, and with a waiting list, some other idiot will just take my place in the stadium. The season ticket holders are the ones that hAve invested in the team and are stuck.
this is Mike Browns way of saying "I DONT CARE what the fans want!. Mike Brown will NEVER take this team to the Superbowl and to have him scam the fans too sell out, is a farce.. i wont live long enough to see a Winner in Cincinnati.. Mike Brown will freakin live to 100!!
I am finding a different team to root for..why waste my life knowing Mike Brown treats Bengals fans like Dirt!!
Anon 2:47 I understand your point however you must remeber that this is Mike Brown. He does not care about winning or superbowls or first place trophys. This is a man that only cares about one thing and that is cold hard cash. He loves Cincinnati b/c he can take the city for every dime he wants. As long as the stadium continues to get filled he won't change. As well we are talking about a corporation owned and run by one man. No amount of media pressure or bad publicity is going to cause him to change and put a winner on the field if he can make huge sums of money doing and spending the bare minimum. I understand that you don't want to give up your seats b/c when Mike Brown dies there might be a winning team again. I hope though that others don't do as you do and don't show up in the coming years.
Hi Mark - I live in DC, and run an official Bengal bar with 4 friends here. At the beginning of the year, we'd get 200+ fans (no joke). Now we're getting 30-40. So what does voting with our wallets entail, since the stadium is already sold out for the rest of the year? here's an example: if we already bought tix for the thanksgiving game against the Titans, and if i decided to not invest any money, then the only folks that would be hurt are the downtown hotel (where i would stay) and bars (where i would drink ceaselessly, to dull the pain).
i agree with the logic in your blog, but i am wary of hurting an already suffering downtown. Cincy needs some sort of economic engine downtown, and aside from the Aronoff Center and new Contemp Art Center, the bengals are about it for the fall and winter. Not just this year, but every year. The worst sight used to be going downtown on a sunday in the late 90s. It was barren except for a few fans down by the 4th st... And its taken years to get downtown back to a semblance of success.
I agree with you in the end tho. if we don't make drastic changes to the front office, and fire marvin lewis & breshnahan, i personally won't be buying tix before the season for any games in 2007-2008. I will also not buy tix to the ravens game this upcoming week. I don't need to suffer through being in baltimore and dealing with their obnoxiously senile and stupid fans.
I certainly will not give Mike Brown any of my money by attending Bengals games. Not that I could afford to anyway! The Bengals organization will never be a serious championship club with Mike Brown calling the shots. If the Bengals 2002 2-14 season didn't convince him to hire a GM, nothing ever will. Bad publicity doesn't bother Mike Brown at all.
There will be accountability in the Bengals front office eventually. Marvin is going to say something and risk his own job and future to make something happen here in Cincinnati. The Bengals are too important to the city to allow this misery to continue. We needed a winner 10 years ago and it has become absurd that the Brown nepotism still feels they can produce a winner. Like a corporation that continues to put out a bad product that people have no choice in buying, we'll find another product. Or someone will find a quality control measure to instill and force them to find an objective football person to straighten the odds. We witness a personnel problem falling just short in one way or another each year. WE KNOW WHY IT FALLS JUST SHORT EVERY YEAR! MIKE BROWN DOESN'T CARE ENOUGH ABOUT HIS FANS TO PROVIDE ENOUGH SUPPORT TO THE TEAM FOR WINNING!! IT IS STILL 1967 IN THE BENGALS FRONT OFFICE AND THESE CHEAPOS WON'T CHANGE WHILE THE BUSINESS PAYS FOR ITSELF. WHY SHOULD THEY? PRIDE? WINNING JUST MEANS THEY'LL HAVE TO KEEP IT UP. HOW CAN FAMILY BE HELD ACCOUNTABLE FOR LOSING???????
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