It Gets Worse

I agree. Dalton looked like a clumsy high school QB in that playoff loss to the Chargers and Lewis should have been sent packing ten years ago. 

Adam Jones should not be on this team. Besides being arrested numerous times, Jones has been a negative influence on Dre Kirkpatrick and other young players. Other than Jones, there are only two other players on the team with questionable backgrounds in Vontaze Burfict and Joe Mixon. However, Burfict was a model citizen last year and Mixon made one bad decision at the age of 18 but none since. Keeping Jones away from these two players is paramount in giving both of them the best environment to grow into a complete football player. It was nice to see the Bengals finally part ways with Paul Dawson prior to the season opener. One down, one to go. 

Lastly, the coaching staff should allow the players to pick their roommates. The coaches should assign roommates at all times. This will allow them to keep Jones away from Kirkpatrick, Mixon, Burfict and other young players. Assigning Jones to room with his opposite number in A.J. Green would be a smart move. Other rooming suggestions: Kirkpatrick/Erickson, Bodine/Atkins, Boling/Billings, Fisher/Dunlap, and so on. With all the problems facing this team, this strategy would help the team in bonding and uniting as one. Sam Wyche did this back in the '80's and it worked great. Unfortunately, we have a coach that is unaware of such strategies and too afraid to implement them. 

Good article. The better teams in the league are simply incapable of falls from grace like we have witnessed in such short order. But to do nothing about it is what bad teams do. That you have these side by side realities in the organization even winning runs are dysfunctional and championships a perpetual impossibility. As a resident of the city and with a Bengals need instilled in you from the time you were a kid, you try to break things down to it's basic passion and just love your hometown team and it's players. Ultimately we are at the mercy of this rich man who's own faults affect it all for all. And in an age where the rich white man is hated beyond reason I am surprised by the lack of pressure put on him. In the back of my mind I always had a sense of escapism and have imagined having a fall and winter that is free of football. I have never taken myself up on that. But being this latest fall from grace, a 50 year celebration of mediocrity at best maybe it is time to consider letting it be. If only for the freedom from anguish for a few seasons.