Is it each Bengals fan’s inalienable right to rip Mike Brown?
TO THE COACH’S BOX READERS: This is my weekly Sports Fan Coach column for the Cincinnati Enquirer and Cincinnati.com. Thanks to sports editor Jason Hoffman and the Enquirer for agreeing to share this here.
Mike Bass @SportsFanCoach1
Editor’s note: This is a weekly column from former sports reporter and editor Mike Bass. Bass will be contributing to The Enquirer by offering advice for sports fans, athletes and youth sports parents and coaches through a weekly Q&A. To ask a question of Bass for potential publication, email him at mikebass3838@gmail.com. And get the conversation going on Twitter @SportsFanCoach1.
As a career, leadership or life coach, I help clients break through what has them feeling stuck. As a sports fan coach, I do the same — including the stress you can’t get past, long after the game ends.
Bengals fans often seem stuck on one subject.
A familiar subject.
One I might have guessed even before asking the other day on Twitter.
(It doesn’t always surface immediately …)
@MongoSlade64: “The fact this franchise has failed miserably in building a solid offensive line.”
(But it doesn’t take much to unearth ...)
@SportsFanCoach1: “You and a whole lot of other Bengals fans are having a tough time getting past the state of the offensive line. Which makes sense. How often does this eat at you?”
(Here it comes …)
@MongoSlade64: “Every time I see them play. What angers me is that I’ve been screaming for at least the last three years they need to address this. If a fan like me can clearly see the issue why can’t Mike Brown?”
(Ding-ding-ding!)
There it is. Mike Brown. The patriarch/president/owner of the family business. Sometimes the answer extends to the Brown family, to include those who work for him.
@stuartmcsmith: “We don’t have the players to overcome the coaching and management’s incompetent futile flailing. Not sure the rosters from NFL’s best teams could fare better.”
@SportsFanCoach1: “How does the coaching and management incompetence you see affect your mood?”
@stuartmcsmith: “Hopeless. It seems the Brown family is happy to ride on the team’s share of the TV contract and really isn’t interested in selling out the stadium. Gut says team is leaving at end of PBS lease. Hopefully I’m wrong.
“The incremental cost of fielding a contender isn’t worth the seat revenue for 8 home games. Need an owner who has wealth from ventures other than football.”
So … the Brown family mismanages the organization, hires a coach who mismanages the team, won’t pay to field a contender and seems likely to bolt? Of course, this fan feels hopeless. Under that premise, you either suffer through a losing team, or suffer more from losing the team —while seeing an outside owner as a solution.
Brown would probably sooner pierce a body part live on YouTube than sell the family business handed down by his founding father.
He runs a franchise en route to a 30th straight season without a playoff win, that had drafted hope in Joe Burrow and failed to protect him with a proper offensive line. It’s no wonder so many Bengals fans are stuck on Brown as the immovable object of their anger and frustration.
So what do you do? You let it out.
The Brown bashing on social media is mostly healthy venting, as one longtime Bengals fan told me the other day. And why not? Blaming Brown is every Bengals fan’s inalienable right and bonding exercise. It has been going on for decades.
Is it fair? That’s your call.
Personally, I like Brown. I thought he never received enough credit as Paul Brown’s assistant general manger for the Bengals’ success in the 1980s, only the blame for its later problems. And though we sometimes clashed, I enjoyed dealing with him, finding him accessible, thoughtful, articulate and even witty. The public only saw a buttoned-down figure who lacked the color to enliven the fan base. Today, he is a grammatically correct sentence in an SMH world. And still an easy target.
He can take it — as long as you don’t go too far. He might even deserve it.
So have at it — as long as you don’t go too far. A good, harmless rant beats being stuck in anger.
@MongoSlade64: “There’s sports angry and regular angry. At the end of the day rooting for your favorite NFL team is just a recreational pass time. No big deal.”
Remember to email Bass at mikebass3838@gmail.com or reach out to him @SportsFanCoach1 on Twitter if you want to be included next week. His website is MikeBassCoaching.com.