Post-mortem: How your team’s 2019 season came undone
Like the great racecar driver Ricky Bobby used to say, “if
you ain’t first, your last”. There can
only be one Super Bowl LIV Champ so eventually 31 other teams will come face to
face with the demise of their 2019 season.
For some teams this will come in a celebrated blaze of glory during a shootout
divisional or championship round playoff loss, for others the end comes at the
final gun of their week 17 game like the mortal pop of a dimming incandescent
light bulb finally blowing out. Some
team’s seasons died in its infancy and they’ve been zombie walking through most
of the regular season collecting pay checks while eyeing hot new coaching
candidates and 2020 draft prospects.
With most teams’ seasons already in a body bag Bobtanney.com
is pulling our rubber gloves on to do an elbow deep autopsy on the loser teams
from the 2019 NFL season. On second
thought, nurse, scratch the rubber gloves, we’re going in bare backhands on
this one. Bring in the first victim!
This edition's cadaver is the Cincinnati Bengals
 |
| Back to their bungling ways: I wonder if all the fans who ran Marvin Lewis out of town miss him yet? |
(Subscribe or check back regularly to see what team is next
on our Autopsy table in this series)
AUTOPSY REPORT
Autopsy #: AFCnorth1-14
DECEDENT: Cincinnati Bengals
The Bengals were competitive in 4 of their first 6 games but
by their week 9 bye they were 0-8 and the minister had already administered
last rights. To make matters worse instead of trading away some vets for future
draft picks the program and their rookie head coach instead made the call to
bench their long time humdrum QB Andy Dalton (on his birthday no less – classy
move, Bengals) making them look not just inept but also inconsiderate,
furthering to the alienation of their fanbase.
The move wasn’t completely senseless, at 0-8 why not have a look-see at rookie
Ryan Finley? But after 3 weeks they saw what the rest of us saw. Ryan Finley wasn’t going to help this bad
team win any games. So in week 13 they went back to Andy Dalton and beat the
Jets to finally get off the schneid. 'HAZAA!' said the Cincinnati faithful, and then they put the paper bags over their faces again where they shall remain until the April 2020 draft.
CAUSE OF DEATH:
Lack of talent exacerbated by a green and often overmatched
rookie head coach and apathetic owner/GM.
HOPE FOR RESURRECTION?
The Bengals have locked up the 1st overall pick
in the 2020 draft which will almost certainly be a QB for all of the reasons
mentioned above. A shiny new Heisman
Trophy winning QB is always cause for future franchise hope, but don’t expect
any miracle ‘worst to first’ turnarounds from the Bengals in 2020. This rebuild will be a slow one.
By: Evan Slade AKA Kyle Orton's Chin.
The Post-mortem series will continue on bobtanney.com stay tuned to see how your favorite team screws up and lets you down!
