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I am not a fair-weather Cincinnati Bengals fan. I was born in Cincinnati, grew up in the concrete bowl of Riverfront Stadium, and spent my childhood cheering for those pre-stripe teams of the 1970s. That loyalty has lasted more than 50 years. But after decades of watching Mike Brown and his family mismanage this franchise into familiar irrelevance, I've reached a conclusion I never thought I would: It's time to bury my Bengals fandom for good.
Between the "Lost Decade" of the 1990s and the current state of Bengals football, I will no longer support an organization that has never fully committed to winning. The Bengals have been a rudderless ship, a Titanic disaster, since Brown took over the franchise after his legendary father, Paul Brown, passed away in 1991. Need proof? It took Mike Brown's Bengals 31 years to win a playoff game.
A family business with no accountability
The Browns are one big, happy family that continues to excuse their mistakes. They stink at everything. There are no consequences for bad draft picks and mounting losses. It must be blissful to work for the organization. The only people who pay the price for the Bengals' ineptitude are the fans. If it weren't for "NFL socialism," where each franchise receives equal money from TV deals, licensing, etc., the Bengals would be out of business.
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You hear the term nepotism used most often about Hollywood children, but the Bengals organization is perhaps one of the worst examples. Mike Brown didn't earn anything; he inherited the Bengals from his father. He then abruptly ran the team into the ground, failing to produce a winning season from 1991-2004.
His coaching misfires include Dave Shula, Bruce Coslet, Dick LeBeau and Marvin Lewis. Yes, Lewis had an uphill battle trying to make the Bengals relevant again, and they did win AFC North Division titles. But in the end, the team failed to muster a playoff win. And the Bengals' current head coach, Zac Taylor, needs to be fired despite back-to-back AFC Championship appearances and almost winning Super Bowl 56. But we know what loyalty means to the Brown family.
Draft disasters, cheap contracts and wasted chances
Brown's biggest blunder was turning down the bonanza presented by the New Orleans Saints in the 1999 NFL Draft. The Saints offered the Bengals their entire draft that year, plus two future number-one picks, to move up to the Bengals' spot (the third pick) to secure Heisman Trophy-winning running back Ricky Williams. But Brown chose to stay put and picked quarterback Akili Smith, one of the biggest draft busts of all time.
If that wasn't bad enough, Brown has had a history of lowballing star players. Andrew Whitworth, one of the NFL's best left tackles, loved Cincinnati but decided to take his talents to the Los Angeles Rams after Brown refused to pay up. Whitworth won a Super Bowl with the Rams against the Bengals.
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Now, we are watching Joe Burrow, the best quarterback the Bengals have ever had, waste his career due to the Brown family's buffoonery. I'm not the only one who thought the Bengals should have prioritized building a good offensive line after drafting Burrow. Instead, the crown jewel of this franchise continues to get pummeled week after week. Burrow has missed a multitude of games because of injuries resulting from being constantly battered like a tackling dummy. It's no wonder sports pundits are comparing Burrow to former Indianapolis Colts quarterback Andrew Luck, who retired early because of the beating he took. A football player's body can only absorb so many hits.
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An organization comfortable with losing
The Bengals' family-run front office will never change. They will continue to hold this team back. That's why fans should put their loyalty on pause. Why punish ourselves week after week, year after year? If ownership isn't committed, why should fans be?
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I remember reading that former Bengals quarterback Carson Palmer pleaded with ownership to sign a top-tier free agent or two to make the team a genuine Super Bowl contender. Palmer ultimately chose to retire rather than play for a franchise he believed wasn't committed to winning.
Despite living far from Cincinnati for decades, I never stopped being a Bengals fan. The losses that once ruined my Sundays now barely register. That's how I know this is over. My kids were smart enough to skip the ritual misery altogether, and I don't blame them. So this Gen-Xer is stepping aside, passing the torch to the next generation of Bengals fans - who will, sadly, inherit the same ownership, the same cycles, and the same heartbreak.
DiVitto Kelly is a writer, artist and librarian who grew up in Indian Hilland now lives in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Cincinnati Bengals lost me as a fan. I broke the cycle | Opinion
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