Quote:
Originally Posted by Hillsdale87
One difference is that the playing field is far more level in football. It's one thing in baseball when your limited by your market and payroll limitations keep you from consistently competing. It's still frustrating, but I think fans are a little more understanding. In football though, fans see Mike Brown as the cheapest owner in the game not due to market limitations, but his own stubbornness and greed. It's true that the Bengals have been average, but he refuses to invest what is necessary to push them beyond that.
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This is only partially true. There is still a dirty little secret that gets very little publicity about money some NFL franchises generate for various reasons that is off-the-books for salary cap purposes, but is still used to lure free agents. The funny part of it is that two orgs., Washington and Dallas, that I know of who have these types of resources are struggling to field a playoff team, while two teams in "small" markets, such as Buffalo and Cincinnati, figure out how to field playoff teams in this environment. The only press this issue got that I've seen was when Brown and Ralph Wilson got out of step with the ownership cartel and started talking about this issue and voted against something a few years ago.
But so many Bengals fans can't let go of the pre-Marvin Bengals that they can't see that this franchise is no more dysfunctional than all but a few NFL orgs.