The Cincinnati Bengals lost yet another game they should have won. They went into the bye week at 3-6. The only move they made at the NFL Trade Deadline was sending Logan Wilson off to the Dallas Cowboys for a seventh-round draft pick.
There seems to be no real direction for what the plan is to fix the defense. Fans are growing frustrated with this organization, and rightfully so.
You can make the argument that Al Golden and his defensive staff need to be fired. I don’t disagree with that.
Golden has
never been an NFL defensive coordinator prior to this year. The players seem to have no respect for him. His positional coaches were not the most inspiring hires before the season began. There were a lot of holdovers from the previous staff, which is something I will never understand. When you give up 39 points to the Jets and 47 points to the Bears in back-to-back weeks, you should no longer have a job.
You can also make the argument that Zac Taylor needs to be fired. I don’t disagree with that, either.
This will be the third straight season without making the playoffs. When you have the offensive talent this team does, that is unacceptable. He should not get a pass for Joe Burrow being out. Joe Flacco has played lights out, yet this team is still losing.
If you want to argue that Zac doesn’t coach the defense, I get that. However, he is the HEAD COACH of the team. He is responsible for both sides of the ball. He went out of his way to say that the decision to let Lou Anarumo go was entirely his decision. He was squarely in the conversation about the next hire for that job. He helped choose his neighbor and former linebacker coach, Al Golden, to be the new defensive coordinator. The results are a defense that is on a historically bad pace for the 2025 season.
Another person who needs their walking papers is Duke Tobin. Tobin has been the de facto general manager and director of player personnel since 1999. The Bengals seem to only hit on draft picks when they have a top-five selection. Winning teams are getting quality starters in the middle rounds consistently. We are drafting players who are inactive or not even on the team after a couple of seasons in those rounds.
This man is responsible for making selections like Jackson Carman, John Ross, Cedric Ogbuehi, and so many other terrible selections over the years. The Bengals have selected defensive players with 10 out of their last 13 selections in the top three rounds.
What are the results of that? A last-place defense, with DJ Turner seeming like the only player who could see a second contract. Dax Hill had his fifth-year option picked up, but his performance has been up and down throughout the year. That pick is actually decent in comparison to the others.
Who were the other 8 players selected during that time? Cam Taylor-Britt, Zach Carter, Myles Murphy, Jordan Battle, Kris Jenkins, McKinley Jackson, Shemar Stewart, and Demetrius Knight. That kind of poor drafting is the biggest reason this defense continues to be in the situation that it is.
Even with all of that said, there is still an underlying larger problem. That problem is Mike Brown, Katie, Troy Blackburn, and the rest of the family that owns this team. They cannot get out of their own way when it comes to running this team.
Our Vice President of Player Personnel, or Duke Tobin’s theoretical boss, is Paul Brown Jr. Have we ever heard this man speak to the media? What does he actually do? A guy who holds a title like that, yet never has to show any accountability?
That seems like a problem to me.
What has Troy Blackburn done to be the Vice President of the entire football operation? He married Mike’s daughter. That is it. Katie Blackburn often wants to haggle over every penny in a contract negotiation, instead of actually improving the team and keeping locker room leaders.
Wouldn’t it be refreshing to see them step away from the football side of running the Bengals? They need to actually hire a president of football operations and a general manager from outside the organization. Allow those people to be fully in charge of running the football side of things. They would still have plenty to do, day to day, running the business side of it all. They need to keep their influence out of the decisions on player personnel.
No more retaining assistant coaches out of loyalty. Let a general manager have complete control of hiring a new head coach. That way, they are attached to that. They have accountability. No more just keeping a job for 26 years in that role, because the owner and your father were close friends.
Once a head coach is in place, they should have the power to hire their entire staff. Top to bottom, no more keeping this guy and that guy as holdovers. They need real changes throughout the organization. It is time for the family to take a step back from the day-to-day football side of things.
Is it likely that we get any of those real changes from this family? Probably not. I believe they want to win, it is just always on their terms. They have to be the ones taking the credit when a Joe Burrow and Ja’Marr Chase land in their laps. Yet, after two miserable losses and so much locker room drama, where are they to be held accountable for how they have built this roster? They should have to speak to the media more than once or twice a year when they are the ones who have a hand in every football decision that is made.
This fanbase deserves better. It deserves the people with the titles to be held accountable by the media. It deserves a winner. If the family can’t get out of their way, this franchise may never see a Lombardi trophy.
