The Cincinnati Bengals and there fans have been through a few rough weeks. Losing to the San Diego Chargers the way they did, losing offensive coordinator Jay Gruden, who is now the Washington Redskins head coach and of course recently losing defensive coordinator and guru Mike Zimmer to the Minnesota Vikings where he is now the head coach.
The Bengals were quick to fill in those two positions with Hue Jackson taking the offensive job and Paul Guenther takes the defensive job, both hirings were within the organization and already know the players and the systems.
Hue Jackson as some of you might remember had a brief stint as the Oakland Raiders head coach; he was also the QB coach for the Baltimore Ravens from 2008-2009. Most fans were not as upset with Gruden leaving for the Redskins and a lot of people feel he’ll be good for Andy Dalton and the Bengals offense, which if he can help Dalton with some of his issue, including in the playoffs the fans will be very happy with the change.
As for Paul Guenther, who has been with the team since 2005, he inherits the third best defense last season. He will have players like Vontaze Burfict, a healthy Geno Atkins, Rey Maualuga and many more good defensive players to deal with. The problem is Guenther will be under a lot of pressure to have his defensive perform the way they did under Zimmer, many fans including myself are not happy with the loss of Zimmer, which means Guenther could be under the microscope for a while.
Fans are still really annoyed that Zimmer was let go a lot of people wanted Lewis fired and Zimmer given the position of head coach so he could stay with the team. I felt that Mike Brown should give Lewis the title of GM and ask him to step down as coach and again let Zimmer take the starting job. In the last five seasons the Bengals have made the post season 4 out of 5 times, but they haven’t won a playoff game with Lewis as the coach and many of the post season losses have been lopsided. It is time for a change and if these Bengals next season can’t make the playoffs, or can’t win their first game in the playoffs, then I think it’s time for a change in the head coach position.
Mike Brown gets a lot of flack as an owner, especially with the fact that the Bengals are one of the last teams to not have a general manager, but at one point, or another the fans will stop going to the regular season games even if it’s a winning season, because if they won’t win a playoff game what is the point in the end?
Hopefully Guenther won’t disappoint and the defense will be fantastic again, hopefully Hue Jackson can help Dalton with some things, which leads to Andy becoming an even better QB and hopefully we will see some results in the playoffs, because right now the fans are getting restless in the jungle.
But that’s a lot of hoping.
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