Introducing the Cro-Mags?

[Ickey44]

Sitting in February 2009, would you as a GM have decided that you were certain the O-line could carry us to the playoffs and elected to pass on fixing it for '09 (again, the holdout made Smith a 2010 pick)?

I can't speak for Mikey, but I was a lot more confident in this oline than last year's simply because I saw how well this line played at the end of last year without Levi and Andrews. We knew Whitworth was good and we knew Williams was good. We knew an OT would be the first round pick (I'm sure they didn't plan for him to hold out THAT long). Collins and Livings play extremely well down the stretch. The only real question mark was center. They obviously knew what they had in Cook.

I'm not quite sure why you think they just got lucky this year. Most of the success on the oline was starting to form in the last few games of last year. They built on that success.

[TJJackson]

What i am hearing between the many lines here is that the more Mike has backed away and let the coaches make decisions, the more successful those decisions have been

So, I will give Son-of-a-Genius credit for choosing to let others - those more capable of making good decision - make those decisions for him.

Less SoaG = Better team

So there - props to SoaG - for (bottom line) doing less

I am left to wonder if even less involvement bu SoaG would have led to an even BETTER overall W-L record, as the curve on the graph of x=SoaG involvement y=WINS indicates (hint - the curve looks like the lower left quadrant of the number 0)

[HairOnFire]

To give management credit for foresight in that regard, they needed to be confident the line was solid when they had other opportunities to fix the line and didn't. That's my point - by not getting any significant FA (and forcing the Smith holdout) they were holding pat on the line for 2009.

But they most certainly didn't stand pat. Because last years O-line was built around the overpaid and underperforming tandem of Levi and Stacy, and was anchored in the middle by a center who didn't have nearly enough sand in his butt. Furthermore, the Bengals drafted Andre Smith forewarned about the potential of a long holdout, thereby signaling their willingness to plan and draft for the future....and for the now. And I say that because Andre Smith is coming on right now, at exactly the moment the Bengals need him most. And with him comes a huge bump in overall talent, thereby addressing Kid Shula's biggest complaint, and the ability to play more traditional pass blocking sets, thereby addressing the biggest complaints of the brotherhood known as the Bastard Sons of Paul Brown.

Sitting in February 2009, would you as a GM have decided that you were certain the O-line could carry us to the playoffs and elected to pass on fixing it for '09 (again, the holdout made Smith a 2010 pick)?

Again, they didn't stand pat. They blew the sucker up. And by no means is Andre Smith a no-show for this season. He's playing now, and they've got a month of games remaining to further tinker.

To give Mike credit for 9-3, that's the question you have to answer in the affirmative. I think it's a huge gamble, but to his credit, it did pay off.

Yeah, to his credit.

I hereby declare we need another horse to beat into glue. How 'bout them Steelers?

No thanks. The Steelers are so last year.

So, how 'bout dem Bengals!?!

[HairOnFire]

So there - props to SoaG - for (bottom line) doing less

Hater.

[TJJackson]

Hater.

hehe, so be it :-)

put Ocho NoShow on the 'hated' list as well