From Jason Williams' inbox: Nothing changes until enough pressure is put on Bengals ownership to invest in more scouts. Pressure from where?
Ask columnist Jason Williams anything − sports or non-sports – and he’ll pick some of your questions and comments from his inbox and respond on Cincinnati.com. Email: [email protected]
Subject: Cincinnati Bengals need pressured to hire more scouts
Message: Agree with Dennis Doyle (of The Enquirer Board of Contributors). There are no moral victories. Until enough pressure is put on the Brown family to invest in a scouting department, nothing changes. Please don’t be complicit in extending this considering what the taxpayers have ponied up. We deserve better.
Reply: Respectfully, Mr. Doyle missed the sarcasm in my column after the Bengals’ loss to Green Bay on Oct. 12, when I wrote they’ve "reached the moral victory stage of their lost season." I was poking fun at the fact the Bengals at least didn’t get blown out this time.
Anyway, I’m not interested in a tit-for-tat with op-ed writers. They're entitled to criticize my columns anytime they want.
My question to you: Where is that pressure going to come from? The Bengals' woefully understaffed scouting department has been a problem for decades. Fans and some media have called it out, including this columnist. Nothing's changed.
The Bengals and Hamilton County just went through a stadium lease negotiation process a few months ago. Few taxpayers said anything. Nothing changed. The Bengals got another sweetheart deal.
Accountability has to come from within. That's never happened with the family-owned Bengals. They're not alone in their immunity to accountability. The NFL answers to no one. It's popularity, monopoly and business model ensure that. Each team made $433 million as part of the NFL's revenue-sharing last season, according to Sportico. The Bengals make that money whether they go undefeated or 0-17.
The Bengals' understaffed scouting department was a big storyline in the 1990s and early 2000s. Remember when the Bengals hired former Ohio State coach John Cooper as a part-time scouting consultant in early 2002 following the franchise’s 11th consecutive non-winning season? Yes, that was the Bengals’ solution to try to improve player evaluations – hiring an unemployed former college coach who had no previous NFL experience.
The Bengals did add a few scouts earlier this year, but they still have the smallest scouting department in the NFL and have about one-third the staffing of most teams.
The Bengals will never win a Super Bowl or even have sustained success until they invest in their scouting department the way the Chiefs, Ravens and Steelers do. The Bengals occasionally have good seasons because they are gifted high draft picks such as Joe Burrow and Ja'Marr Chase.
Burrow, when healthy, would win anywhere. He's that good. And with Burrow currently sidelined by a toe injury, all the Bengals' problems are being exposed.
Contact columnist Jason Williams at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Pressure Bengals ownership to hire more NFL scouts
Category: General Sports
