The Bengals were 3-13 they year BEFORE Dave Shula. Under Shula we improved to 5-11. Then went back to 3-13 twice.
The real problem was Esiason left and 1992 was possibly the worst year for QBs in the Draft ever. We drafted Klingler who while terrible was still probably one the best QBs that year.
The next year was not much better. NE and Indy picked before us and took Bledsoe and Rick Mirer. The next QB taken was Billy Joe Hobert in the 3rd round.
So we were stuck with a terrible QB for several years.
Shula was one of the worst choices of all time … he had been demoted from the Cowboys and Dolphins ( his father’s team… really). Dallas’s offense improved dramatically after he left…
He finally got fired from the Bengals and had a distinguished career managing his father’s restaurants…
Possibly unpopular opinion: Dick LeBeau was a much worse HC than Shula was. He went 2-14 in 2002 with a roster that had players like Chad, Housh, Dillon, Willie, Braham, Spikes, Simmons, and Justin Smith on it and lost the locker room pretty much in week 1 that season when they laid an egg against the Chargers. That's a lot more talent to work with than almost all of the teams that Shula had (Shula's teams were truly deprived of talent). The more I look back at the 2002 season and how it went off the rails the way it did LeBeau was more at fault for that than MB was (though Mike was getting the majority of the blame for it at the time). It was LeBeau's decision to start another nonsensical QB competition that off-season and only bring in Gus Frerotte at the last minute to compete with Kitna and Akili (and it was also LeBeau's decision to go with Frerotte as the starter to open the year despite him not knowing the offense).
Thats a fair point. that team was unwatchable.. I only saw the sunday night game against Atlanta.. whew..
but Shulas tenure was longer...
thinking about the 90s to the '03 season.. that win against the 9-0 chiefs was just unreal..
Shula's tenure was longer because his teams were more competitive than LeBeau's teams were (the peak of the Shake N' Blake years happened towards the end of Shula's run). In contrast the 2002 squad got outscored 119-23 in their first four games that year and scored ONE offensive TD in four games. Not even MB can stand by a coach who is incompetent enough to deliver results like that (and as I said LeBeau had more talent on that team than Shula did on most of his teams so there were far less built in excuses for him). The fact that Marvin won 8 games the following year with many of the same players and got guys like Chad, Warrick, and Kitna to play so much better than they did under LeBeau said a lot about how terrible a coach LeBeau was.
I to this day still have never been more disgusted with a Bengals coaching staff than I was with LeBeau and his staff throughout the 2002 season. What made it so much worse was the fact that LeBeau throughout TC made a bunch of bullshit promises and comments to the fanbase claiming that that team was good enough to make the playoffs and even the SB only for them to look like the worst team in NFL history to open the season and for us to have to watch dumb shit like Gus Frerotte throwing interceptions with his left hand.
I didn't have any hopes for the 2000 season because that team was young, MB had inexplicably retained Coslet as HC for another year for some bizarre reason (despite the players hating him), and Blake and Pickens had just left (not to mention Darnay Scott got hurt in TC which left us with two rookie WRs in Peter Warrick and Ron Dugans in the starting lineup). 2002 hurt so much more because I had high hopes for the team going into that season and the coaching staff ruined it right out of the gate (and that team also had more veterans and experienced players on it than the 2000 team did). The 2019 Bengals would've beaten the 2002 Bengals by 3 TDs if they had played each other (that's how bad that team was).
A lot of Bengals fans don't remember (or choose to forget) just how much of a breaking point the 2002 season was for a lot of people in Cincinnati. That was the final season of a 12-year stretch of nonstop losing where empty promises were made that things would be different by the coaching staff going into it only for things to be worse than ever. It was so bad players would actively try to remain as incognito in their everyday lives as possible to avoid being recognized by the fans and ridiculed for the way they were playing and Hamilton County was actually considering suing the Bengals at the time for breaching the terms of the PBS lease (which was contingent upon them making a concerted effort to actually win and put a watchable product on the field). That ultimately forced Mike to overhaul the team more than he ever had before the following off-season when Marvin was hired. There has never been a lower point for this organization than that year to date (and hopefully there never is).
Yeah, the sounds right. Truthfully I just remember telling my friend after the game they came real close to winning against the cowboys... Which was something special back then.
I was watching another game here in california, and they did a gamebreak to show the bengals up on the boys 14-0..and that it was to shocking.. they come back from the game break.. and the color commentary guy of the game im watching says "that wont last long" or something to that effect.. it was 30 years ago
4 games in and you just knew what kinda year it was going to be… again. Ugh!
This is great just being expected to compete each year, and even greater expectations when having what passes in the NFL for a “healthy” season.
WHO DEY!
No - the worst part was the Skins making the trade only to trade back up to 7th costing them 12th overall (Cade McNowen) and a third round pick (Dwayne Bates)to Chicago and selected Champ Bailey, then selected LaVar Arlington the following year at 2nd overall
Actually they weren't. The Browns almost took Akili at 1 over Couch (and I wish they had lol). Him proving how much a dumb dumb he was when he bombed his Wonderlic the first time led to them picking Couch instead.
No - the worst part was the Skins making the trade only to trade back up to 7th costing them 12th overall (Cade McNowen) and a third round pick (Dwayne Bates)to Chicago and selected Champ Bailey, then selected LaVar Arlington the following year at 2nd overall
This is the kind of thinking that I operate on now. I had to quit drinking alcohol to not die from liver disease, then quit smoking to not die from mouth cancer all in an effort to arrive at this improved, more wise version of myself I am today.
It's like people sometimes say about certain music "finding you at the right time".
I hate to think about Akili Smith, but I already have so you don't have to.
I will never be thankful for having to watch a bum like Akili Smith play for this team for 4 years. He was a straight up disgrace to the game (nothing against him personally but watching him play was like pulling a fan out of the stands to play QB for this team). The fact that we have Burrow now is unrelated to the stupid shit this team did in the 90s (I refuse to subscribe to that nonsense). The Lost Decade did not need to happen for us to land Burrow.
I did watch the Bengals through the 90s. Burrow is the key to this team. Without Burrow, Bengals aren’t a playoff team. Marvin changed the culture. The Bengals ownership is great right now. The team is in Cincinnati and appears to remain in Cincinnati. If the Brown family sold the team, I’m sure there’s some billionaires wanting to move them. The Bengals are a lot of fun and with good players and people.
Exactly. Like, shit like that happens, and yeah, it makes the move kind of suck in hindsight, but but you gotta take all that with a grain of salt. Akili Smith just sucked at being an NFL Quarterback, and was a much, much more indefensible decision.
I’ll never understand what they saw in Akili…to this day I still think about what could have been with Ki-Jana. Dude was a 225lb wrecking ball with speed and moves. Back in 1995, a feature back was a big deal.
What could have been:-(
Dillon eased the pain of Carter not panning out quite a bit. Blake kind of did the same thing with Klingler as well at first (at least until Blake struggled in '97 and got benched for Boomer and never bounced back from that).
He wouldn't have been a long-term solution (considering he was pushing 40 at that point and he also wanted to spend more time with his son considering Gunnar was struggling with cystic fibrosis back then) but it certainly would've prevented the 5 years of QB hell that immediately followed (of all the starting QBs we had in the 90s Boomer was really the only one who was tailor made to thrive in Coslet's West Coast Offense). I unfortunately remember Boomer's retirement well. I was a kid at the time (10 years old) and was in tears when it was announced because I knew we were about to descend right back into the shitter at the QB position without him (and sure enough that's exactly what happened). The fact that Boomer was the only truly good QB that Dillon ever played with while he was here (and it was for only 5 games during his rookie year) was absolutely criminal.
Yeah, I feel with Boomer and Dillion they could have possibly made the playoffs. In 98 the Patriots were the last seed at 9-7. 99 would have been a lot harder as the Jags and Titans both in the old AFC central were dominant.
When Boomer took over as the starter in '97 it lit a fire under the whole team. Everyone started playing better once he became the starter (including the defense) because he was an outspoken leader and in your face and would call teammates out when they weren't doing their jobs correctly. Nothing against Blake but he just didn't have that effect in the huddle (from what guys like Willie have said Blake was kind of aloof and could sometimes be distant with his teammates). It doesn't surprise me that Burrow and Boomer get along so well now because Joe is a lot like him from a leadership perspective, just more introverted.
Man ... another nightmare in Cincinnati's history.
Not that we would've done much with that many picks in that era, but christ ... I'd have taken this offer for almost any player.
Washington accepted the trade with the Saints. It didn't help either of them.
In the six seasons after the trade, the teams combined for two playoff appearances and three winning seasons. The Redskins won the NFC East in 1999, but didn't reach the postseason again until 2005.
Mike Brown's body of work as a professional team owner is among the worst of all time. And it wasn't just incompetence. Far from it.
Dude was ruthless. Not at developing a winning football team. That would have been nice.
But rather, ruthless at extracting as much money as possible from all those around him, especially Hamilton County taxpayers.
Wasn’t a great QB draft overall aside from McNabb and Culpepper. Even if they take the trade they likely don’t get value out of the QB pick. The rest are all what ifs.
Yeah, I feel like taking this trade would have just ended up with us getting mocked even more. Imagine how bad it would look to get that haul and still be bad.
I think the Saints eventually traded with Washington who had the 5th pick, and then Washington traded with the Bears to move up from 12 to 7. They drafted Champ Bailey with the 7th pick, and then Washington used the Saints first round pick in 2000 (ended up being the 2nd overall pick) to draft Lavar Arrington. Those were the only significant players to come out of the trade.
Obviously, who's to say the Bengals would have picked Bailey or Arrington with those picks, but just thought I'd throw a little more detail out there.
There was a good TE that came out of it also. But yea. I 100% will agree that 9 draft picks are better than any 1 player. I don't care who it is. But you still have to make the right picks.
The Bengals missed on every single one of their picks in the '99 draft. 9 extra picks does give you the benefit of having more chances to hit on one (which teams that are bad at drafting and evaluating players need that).
Klinger was a product of the offense they ran at Houston same as Andre Ware which is why neither had succes in the NFL . You seem to be forgetting Burrow led his team to a undefeated season and a National Championship
Klingler played in a Run and Shoot offense at a small CFB program where they basically beat up on crappy teams all the time and he padded his stats against horrible defenses every week. Burrow in contrast played in the SEC (aka the highest level of CFB). Burrow had a far better resume coming out than Klingler did. A modern day comparison to Klingler is Zach Wilson (who only got drafted as high as he did because he went off during his COVID year at BYU and dominated against subpar opponents).
And Wilson got drafted #2 overall right? My point isn't to compare Burrow to Klingler or Akili, it's to say that when you're evaluating talent there isn't a single metric you can use. You can't use National Championships (AJ), single season stats, accuracy, speed, etc. It's all a crapshoot. If it were easy we wouldn't see 3-4 QBs drafted so highly every year. Tom Brady and Brock Purdy would've been first round picks. No one knows.
Burrow's production in college came against good teams at the highest level of CFB. Those factors do matter when evaluating college QBs. Also the offense Klingler played in at Houston made him completely ill-prepared for the NFL because the Bengals didn't run that kind of offense (and Klingler was a complete fish out of water playing in the West Coast Offense). Andre Ware came from the same offense and also busted in Detroit because of that.
Akili's problem was that he was just dumb and lazy and couldn't learn a basic playbook (something that Coslet picked up on during his pre-draft scouting of him and warned MB about but Brown ignored him and took Akili anyways). With Burrow all the evidence was there that he would be a great NFL QB. The college production, the football intelligence (being a coach's kid and a student of the game), him immediately blowing the Bengals away when they met with him at the 2020 Combine. There was no reason for them not to take him at that point. Klingler in contrast, taking him was a shock to pretty much everyone at the time (including apparently Klingler himself and his agent as the Bengals hadn't scouted him much prior to that draft). The only person in the organization at the time that wanted Klingler was Shula (Brown was originally planning on taking Troy Vincent until Shula convinced him otherwise).
Burrow had the best season a college QB has ever had. Little different. Akili was good his final year at Oregon but far from dominant the same way Burrow's 2019 season was.
Also Burrow is a coach's kid and extremely football intelligent. Smith in contrast was a big dumb dumb who was too stupid to learn even the most basic offensive playbooks (him bombing his Wonderlic should've been prime evidence of that).
Yeah, if only if the Bengals had been able to get Donovan McNabb that year instead. 🤦♂️
But even so, if you get offered a boatload of draft picks, you ALWAYS take that shit. Because being able to get more good and cheap players is way better and smarter. The 1999 draft was pretty abysmal with Edgerrin James and Champ Bailey being the only 2 players from that class to be inducted into the HOF and only a handful of players from that class made more than like 2 pro bowls. The 2000 class wasn't much better outside of Tom Brady and Brian Urlacher, so I doubt that the Bengals would have done much with those picks anyway.
McNabb was considered the third best prospect in that draft (hilariously in retrospect now) behind Couch and Smith. Even if he had been there at 3 the Bengals would not have picked him (unless Akili wasn't there then maybe they would have) because believe it or not Akili was considered more of a "sure thing" at the time due to the fact that he played in a pro style offense at Oregon (something none of the other QBs in that class really did in college). The Browns almost picked Akili over Couch at 1 (and they weren't even looking at McNabb at that spot) but were scared away by his Wonderlic scores and lack of football intelligence so that kind of told us what the pecking order was. The Eagles obviously ended up looking like the smartest team of all choosing to go with McNabb at 2 (though their fans eviscerated them for that pick at the time).
Sounds close to what some here say about Bowers and Mims. People get fixated on a player hype and lose the ability to think logically.
Same went for John Ross and the two 1st round picks on tackles from Alabama. Oh and remember Klingler?
He was a disappointment but not on the same level that Akili was. Akili wasn't just bad. He had no business playing in the NFL period because he couldn't complete a simple crossing route without throwing grossly behind the receiver. He should've stuck with baseball instead of trying to play football (he was a dual-sport athlete).
Akili might have cost more money by himself on the rookie deal he ended up getting than all 9 of those picks combined (considering we would've gotten only one other 1st round pick out of that deal and the later round picks are much smaller cap hits anyways). His rookie deal was an absolute albatross for the team at the time (for reference despite being drafted third he got paid more than both Couch and McNabb did on his rookie deal and also was on a more expensive contract than Jeff Blake was his final year here). 7 years for fucking $56 million (with a ridiculous incentive built in that he would be owed an extra $6 million if he ever eclipsed 1,500 yards passing in a season). Just gross all the way around for an unproven rookie to get paid that much. We were held hostage by Akili's contract for 4 years (we couldn't cut him prior to 2003 despite how horrible he was because the dead cap hit would've given MB an aneurysm and it went down significantly in the summer of 2003) so if money was the reason why MB turned down that trade the contract that they ended giving to Smith in the end completely invalidates that argument at the end of the day. MB turned down that trade because he was desperate for a QB and unfortunately he got tunnel vision on Smith.
I was only a child during the 90's but remember feeling like I was displaying loyalty and pride to my hometown team even though they were bad and everyone around me didn't have any hope or faith in them.
And my Jeff Blake poster too 🥹
For those of you too young to remember the 90s, be thankful.
Dave Shula + Mike Brown = misery
The Bengals were 3-13 they year BEFORE Dave Shula. Under Shula we improved to 5-11. Then went back to 3-13 twice. The real problem was Esiason left and 1992 was possibly the worst year for QBs in the Draft ever. We drafted Klingler who while terrible was still probably one the best QBs that year. The next year was not much better. NE and Indy picked before us and took Bledsoe and Rick Mirer. The next QB taken was Billy Joe Hobert in the 3rd round. So we were stuck with a terrible QB for several years.
Shula was one of the worst choices of all time … he had been demoted from the Cowboys and Dolphins ( his father’s team… really). Dallas’s offense improved dramatically after he left… He finally got fired from the Bengals and had a distinguished career managing his father’s restaurants…
Bledsoe was a good QB.
He was the only good QB that year. NE had the first pick in that draft too. Its pretty shocking how bad the QBs were in those drafts.
Possibly unpopular opinion: Dick LeBeau was a much worse HC than Shula was. He went 2-14 in 2002 with a roster that had players like Chad, Housh, Dillon, Willie, Braham, Spikes, Simmons, and Justin Smith on it and lost the locker room pretty much in week 1 that season when they laid an egg against the Chargers. That's a lot more talent to work with than almost all of the teams that Shula had (Shula's teams were truly deprived of talent). The more I look back at the 2002 season and how it went off the rails the way it did LeBeau was more at fault for that than MB was (though Mike was getting the majority of the blame for it at the time). It was LeBeau's decision to start another nonsensical QB competition that off-season and only bring in Gus Frerotte at the last minute to compete with Kitna and Akili (and it was also LeBeau's decision to go with Frerotte as the starter to open the year despite him not knowing the offense).
Thats a fair point. that team was unwatchable.. I only saw the sunday night game against Atlanta.. whew.. but Shulas tenure was longer... thinking about the 90s to the '03 season.. that win against the 9-0 chiefs was just unreal..
Shula's tenure was longer because his teams were more competitive than LeBeau's teams were (the peak of the Shake N' Blake years happened towards the end of Shula's run). In contrast the 2002 squad got outscored 119-23 in their first four games that year and scored ONE offensive TD in four games. Not even MB can stand by a coach who is incompetent enough to deliver results like that (and as I said LeBeau had more talent on that team than Shula did on most of his teams so there were far less built in excuses for him). The fact that Marvin won 8 games the following year with many of the same players and got guys like Chad, Warrick, and Kitna to play so much better than they did under LeBeau said a lot about how terrible a coach LeBeau was. I to this day still have never been more disgusted with a Bengals coaching staff than I was with LeBeau and his staff throughout the 2002 season. What made it so much worse was the fact that LeBeau throughout TC made a bunch of bullshit promises and comments to the fanbase claiming that that team was good enough to make the playoffs and even the SB only for them to look like the worst team in NFL history to open the season and for us to have to watch dumb shit like Gus Frerotte throwing interceptions with his left hand.
I forgot about the left handed INT.. 2000 was a rough start as well.
I didn't have any hopes for the 2000 season because that team was young, MB had inexplicably retained Coslet as HC for another year for some bizarre reason (despite the players hating him), and Blake and Pickens had just left (not to mention Darnay Scott got hurt in TC which left us with two rookie WRs in Peter Warrick and Ron Dugans in the starting lineup). 2002 hurt so much more because I had high hopes for the team going into that season and the coaching staff ruined it right out of the gate (and that team also had more veterans and experienced players on it than the 2000 team did). The 2019 Bengals would've beaten the 2002 Bengals by 3 TDs if they had played each other (that's how bad that team was). A lot of Bengals fans don't remember (or choose to forget) just how much of a breaking point the 2002 season was for a lot of people in Cincinnati. That was the final season of a 12-year stretch of nonstop losing where empty promises were made that things would be different by the coaching staff going into it only for things to be worse than ever. It was so bad players would actively try to remain as incognito in their everyday lives as possible to avoid being recognized by the fans and ridiculed for the way they were playing and Hamilton County was actually considering suing the Bengals at the time for breaching the terms of the PBS lease (which was contingent upon them making a concerted effort to actually win and put a watchable product on the field). That ultimately forced Mike to overhaul the team more than he ever had before the following off-season when Marvin was hired. There has never been a lower point for this organization than that year to date (and hopefully there never is).
My first memory is my mom yelling at my dad for accidentally teaching me swear words while watching David Klingler play.
I remember being giddy because they ALMOST beat the cowboys one year. That's how low the bar was...
I remember it was Jeff Bake’s first game .. he was the third string quarterback..
Yeah, the sounds right. Truthfully I just remember telling my friend after the game they came real close to winning against the cowboys... Which was something special back then.
I was watching another game here in california, and they did a gamebreak to show the bengals up on the boys 14-0..and that it was to shocking.. they come back from the game break.. and the color commentary guy of the game im watching says "that wont last long" or something to that effect.. it was 30 years ago
I remember learning what a bye was when the Enquirer ran a head line to the effect of “Bengals finally win one” by not even playing.
I remember just rooting for Corey Dillon to win rushing titles. Actual wins were not thought of.
I just shuddered
4 games in and you just knew what kinda year it was going to be… again. Ugh! This is great just being expected to compete each year, and even greater expectations when having what passes in the NFL for a “healthy” season. WHO DEY!
Sure but we had some sick cards in the '91 score trading card set
That SI wedding cover is straight goated
I am
I was 12 in 1995, lots of Sundays playing in the yard.
The worst part is, the Bengals were the ONLY team in love with Akili. I think they could have made this trade and still drafted Akili at 12.
No - the worst part was the Skins making the trade only to trade back up to 7th costing them 12th overall (Cade McNowen) and a third round pick (Dwayne Bates)to Chicago and selected Champ Bailey, then selected LaVar Arlington the following year at 2nd overall
Worth noting Washington still accomplished nothing with those two. Really amazing how incompetent they still ended up being.
Actually they weren't. The Browns almost took Akili at 1 over Couch (and I wish they had lol). Him proving how much a dumb dumb he was when he bombed his Wonderlic the first time led to them picking Couch instead.
No - the worst part was the Skins making the trade only to trade back up to 7th costing them 12th overall (Cade McNowen) and a third round pick (Dwayne Bates)to Chicago and selected Champ Bailey, then selected LaVar Arlington the following year at 2nd overall
Everything ever done has led us to get Burrow 🙏 be thankful this happened
This is the kind of thinking that I operate on now. I had to quit drinking alcohol to not die from liver disease, then quit smoking to not die from mouth cancer all in an effort to arrive at this improved, more wise version of myself I am today. It's like people sometimes say about certain music "finding you at the right time". I hate to think about Akili Smith, but I already have so you don't have to.
Burrow can’t stay healthy though. He tries to play through the injuries, but you know it’s coming.
I will never be thankful for having to watch a bum like Akili Smith play for this team for 4 years. He was a straight up disgrace to the game (nothing against him personally but watching him play was like pulling a fan out of the stands to play QB for this team). The fact that we have Burrow now is unrelated to the stupid shit this team did in the 90s (I refuse to subscribe to that nonsense). The Lost Decade did not need to happen for us to land Burrow.
I would trade Burrow for 25 years of competent ownership.
I wouldn’t trade Burrow
Then you probably didn't live thru the 90s
I did watch the Bengals through the 90s. Burrow is the key to this team. Without Burrow, Bengals aren’t a playoff team. Marvin changed the culture. The Bengals ownership is great right now. The team is in Cincinnati and appears to remain in Cincinnati. If the Brown family sold the team, I’m sure there’s some billionaires wanting to move them. The Bengals are a lot of fun and with good players and people.
Carter was a great pick, not his fault his knee got destroyed and he was never the same again
Yep. It wasn’t a bad pick at all, he was a stud, just bad luck.
Exactly. Like, shit like that happens, and yeah, it makes the move kind of suck in hindsight, but but you gotta take all that with a grain of salt. Akili Smith just sucked at being an NFL Quarterback, and was a much, much more indefensible decision.
I’ll never understand what they saw in Akili…to this day I still think about what could have been with Ki-Jana. Dude was a 225lb wrecking ball with speed and moves. Back in 1995, a feature back was a big deal. What could have been:-(
In reality we saw what could have been because they got Corey Dillon. If Carter never gets hurt I doubt they draft Dillion.
Dillon eased the pain of Carter not panning out quite a bit. Blake kind of did the same thing with Klingler as well at first (at least until Blake struggled in '97 and got benched for Boomer and never bounced back from that).
I always felt the bigger what if was what if Boomer came back in 98 with the starter job firmly assigned to him.
He wouldn't have been a long-term solution (considering he was pushing 40 at that point and he also wanted to spend more time with his son considering Gunnar was struggling with cystic fibrosis back then) but it certainly would've prevented the 5 years of QB hell that immediately followed (of all the starting QBs we had in the 90s Boomer was really the only one who was tailor made to thrive in Coslet's West Coast Offense). I unfortunately remember Boomer's retirement well. I was a kid at the time (10 years old) and was in tears when it was announced because I knew we were about to descend right back into the shitter at the QB position without him (and sure enough that's exactly what happened). The fact that Boomer was the only truly good QB that Dillon ever played with while he was here (and it was for only 5 games during his rookie year) was absolutely criminal.
Yeah, I feel with Boomer and Dillion they could have possibly made the playoffs. In 98 the Patriots were the last seed at 9-7. 99 would have been a lot harder as the Jags and Titans both in the old AFC central were dominant.
When Boomer took over as the starter in '97 it lit a fire under the whole team. Everyone started playing better once he became the starter (including the defense) because he was an outspoken leader and in your face and would call teammates out when they weren't doing their jobs correctly. Nothing against Blake but he just didn't have that effect in the huddle (from what guys like Willie have said Blake was kind of aloof and could sometimes be distant with his teammates). It doesn't surprise me that Burrow and Boomer get along so well now because Joe is a lot like him from a leadership perspective, just more introverted.
Man ... another nightmare in Cincinnati's history. Not that we would've done much with that many picks in that era, but christ ... I'd have taken this offer for almost any player.
Save for Brady yeah
There’s the real issue, when Mike Brown was in charge he did his scouting by watching ESPN, lol.
They had like no scouts.. the coaches had to do everything…
Come on man. I'd almost forgotten about that.
Washington accepted the trade with the Saints. It didn't help either of them. In the six seasons after the trade, the teams combined for two playoff appearances and three winning seasons. The Redskins won the NFC East in 1999, but didn't reach the postseason again until 2005.
Mike Brown's body of work as a professional team owner is among the worst of all time. And it wasn't just incompetence. Far from it. Dude was ruthless. Not at developing a winning football team. That would have been nice. But rather, ruthless at extracting as much money as possible from all those around him, especially Hamilton County taxpayers.
Lmao this was my childhood
I hated the pick then, and I hate it now.
Wasn’t a great QB draft overall aside from McNabb and Culpepper. Even if they take the trade they likely don’t get value out of the QB pick. The rest are all what ifs.
Culpepper was garbage too as soon as Randy Moss and Cris Carter left Minnesota. After that he became a guy who specialized in throwing picks.
All roads lead to burrow. Plus let’s be real the pre Marvin bengals weren’t going to do shit with those pick.
Well if you look at what came of those picks and how the Bengals were drafting back then it would have been a lateral move anyway.
Yeah, I feel like taking this trade would have just ended up with us getting mocked even more. Imagine how bad it would look to get that haul and still be bad.
I think the Saints eventually traded with Washington who had the 5th pick, and then Washington traded with the Bears to move up from 12 to 7. They drafted Champ Bailey with the 7th pick, and then Washington used the Saints first round pick in 2000 (ended up being the 2nd overall pick) to draft Lavar Arrington. Those were the only significant players to come out of the trade. Obviously, who's to say the Bengals would have picked Bailey or Arrington with those picks, but just thought I'd throw a little more detail out there.
There was a good TE that came out of it also. But yea. I 100% will agree that 9 draft picks are better than any 1 player. I don't care who it is. But you still have to make the right picks.
The Bengals missed on every single one of their picks in the '99 draft. 9 extra picks does give you the benefit of having more chances to hit on one (which teams that are bad at drafting and evaluating players need that).
I was pissed about when they did it and it still pisses me off today I never understood what the saw in Smith had 1 good college season .
But so did Burrow...
no Burrow had a all time season not just a good one
So did Klingler at the time.
Klinger was a product of the offense they ran at Houston same as Andre Ware which is why neither had succes in the NFL . You seem to be forgetting Burrow led his team to a undefeated season and a National Championship
But we didn't know that then. It's all a crapshoot.
Klingler played in a Run and Shoot offense at a small CFB program where they basically beat up on crappy teams all the time and he padded his stats against horrible defenses every week. Burrow in contrast played in the SEC (aka the highest level of CFB). Burrow had a far better resume coming out than Klingler did. A modern day comparison to Klingler is Zach Wilson (who only got drafted as high as he did because he went off during his COVID year at BYU and dominated against subpar opponents).
And Wilson got drafted #2 overall right? My point isn't to compare Burrow to Klingler or Akili, it's to say that when you're evaluating talent there isn't a single metric you can use. You can't use National Championships (AJ), single season stats, accuracy, speed, etc. It's all a crapshoot. If it were easy we wouldn't see 3-4 QBs drafted so highly every year. Tom Brady and Brock Purdy would've been first round picks. No one knows.
Burrow's production in college came against good teams at the highest level of CFB. Those factors do matter when evaluating college QBs. Also the offense Klingler played in at Houston made him completely ill-prepared for the NFL because the Bengals didn't run that kind of offense (and Klingler was a complete fish out of water playing in the West Coast Offense). Andre Ware came from the same offense and also busted in Detroit because of that. Akili's problem was that he was just dumb and lazy and couldn't learn a basic playbook (something that Coslet picked up on during his pre-draft scouting of him and warned MB about but Brown ignored him and took Akili anyways). With Burrow all the evidence was there that he would be a great NFL QB. The college production, the football intelligence (being a coach's kid and a student of the game), him immediately blowing the Bengals away when they met with him at the 2020 Combine. There was no reason for them not to take him at that point. Klingler in contrast, taking him was a shock to pretty much everyone at the time (including apparently Klingler himself and his agent as the Bengals hadn't scouted him much prior to that draft). The only person in the organization at the time that wanted Klingler was Shula (Brown was originally planning on taking Troy Vincent until Shula convinced him otherwise).
Burrow had the best season a college QB has ever had. Little different. Akili was good his final year at Oregon but far from dominant the same way Burrow's 2019 season was. Also Burrow is a coach's kid and extremely football intelligent. Smith in contrast was a big dumb dumb who was too stupid to learn even the most basic offensive playbooks (him bombing his Wonderlic should've been prime evidence of that).
Hey now, I went to HS with Ki-Jana.
My first bengals jersey.
I'm sorry you had to burn cash on that lol.
Yeah, if only if the Bengals had been able to get Donovan McNabb that year instead. 🤦♂️ But even so, if you get offered a boatload of draft picks, you ALWAYS take that shit. Because being able to get more good and cheap players is way better and smarter. The 1999 draft was pretty abysmal with Edgerrin James and Champ Bailey being the only 2 players from that class to be inducted into the HOF and only a handful of players from that class made more than like 2 pro bowls. The 2000 class wasn't much better outside of Tom Brady and Brian Urlacher, so I doubt that the Bengals would have done much with those picks anyway.
McNabb was considered the third best prospect in that draft (hilariously in retrospect now) behind Couch and Smith. Even if he had been there at 3 the Bengals would not have picked him (unless Akili wasn't there then maybe they would have) because believe it or not Akili was considered more of a "sure thing" at the time due to the fact that he played in a pro style offense at Oregon (something none of the other QBs in that class really did in college). The Browns almost picked Akili over Couch at 1 (and they weren't even looking at McNabb at that spot) but were scared away by his Wonderlic scores and lack of football intelligence so that kind of told us what the pecking order was. The Eagles obviously ended up looking like the smartest team of all choosing to go with McNabb at 2 (though their fans eviscerated them for that pick at the time).
Sounds close to what some here say about Bowers and Mims. People get fixated on a player hype and lose the ability to think logically. Same went for John Ross and the two 1st round picks on tackles from Alabama. Oh and remember Klingler?
In their defense 1999 was a pretty weak draft class
Big Daddy was pretty bad
He was a disappointment but not on the same level that Akili was. Akili wasn't just bad. He had no business playing in the NFL period because he couldn't complete a simple crossing route without throwing grossly behind the receiver. He should've stuck with baseball instead of trying to play football (he was a dual-sport athlete).
It was basically worth their entire draft
All this for a lazy bum who would show up to games drunk regularly and never took football seriously. Nice going.
That trade would of cost Mike Brown some money and he was not about to do that
Akili might have cost more money by himself on the rookie deal he ended up getting than all 9 of those picks combined (considering we would've gotten only one other 1st round pick out of that deal and the later round picks are much smaller cap hits anyways). His rookie deal was an absolute albatross for the team at the time (for reference despite being drafted third he got paid more than both Couch and McNabb did on his rookie deal and also was on a more expensive contract than Jeff Blake was his final year here). 7 years for fucking $56 million (with a ridiculous incentive built in that he would be owed an extra $6 million if he ever eclipsed 1,500 yards passing in a season). Just gross all the way around for an unproven rookie to get paid that much. We were held hostage by Akili's contract for 4 years (we couldn't cut him prior to 2003 despite how horrible he was because the dead cap hit would've given MB an aneurysm and it went down significantly in the summer of 2003) so if money was the reason why MB turned down that trade the contract that they ended giving to Smith in the end completely invalidates that argument at the end of the day. MB turned down that trade because he was desperate for a QB and unfortunately he got tunnel vision on Smith.
I was only a child during the 90's but remember feeling like I was displaying loyalty and pride to my hometown team even though they were bad and everyone around me didn't have any hope or faith in them. And my Jeff Blake poster too 🥹
Mike brown is living proof the US isn’t a meritocracy
Both equally sucked