From SI.com:

The Bengals were mentioned as one team to have expressed interest in Mason, but Jacksonville and Baltimore negotiated directly with agent Peter Schaffer and appeared to be offering a great deal more money than the Bengals would.
-- Cincinnati Enquirer
I swear, you can have a highly competent head coach, but if you have a family-empire-obsessed general manager/owner who has delusions of grandeur about being a football mind in his father's tradition ... .500 seems about all you're ever going to be able to feel good about ... I don't know how many times Bengals fans will hit the wall with this before they see it plainly enough and begin to yell loudly and consistently enough.

Mike Brown is clearly the Winnebago hitched to the back of your Plamer/Lewis stock car.

The man needs a "Jerry Jones moment," ie, one where he gives up pretending and lets someone else take the wheel in the way that Jones gave it to Parcells.