A couple years ago, shortly after a Dallas Cowboys kicker scored a touchdown against the Bengals, it came to attention that the two teams were in similar states of disrepair while faced with the same general impediment to development. Each team was saddled with stubborn ownership that insisted, despite repeated failures, on making key football decisions.
We wondered, at the end of the 2000 season, which of the owners would be the first to relent. The Bengals' Mike Brown, who helped put together two Super Bowl teams in the 1980s, had been unable to deliver a winning season since 1990. The Cowboys' Jerry Jones teamed up with head coach Jimmy Johnson to deliver three Super Bowl winners from nothing, making Jones way too confident in his ability to go it alone.
At the end of last season, neither team made great progress. The Bengals improved from 4-12 to 6-10 in 2001, while the Cowboys stayed steady at 5-11. Entering this season, one figured the Bengals might improve by the same amount and give themselves a chance, while the Cowboys hoped to just get a little better. Neither occurred. The Bengals lost their way from the very first snap of the year and finished 2-14, their worst season ever. The Cowboys did another 5-11.
Two years after it was first proposed, our contest might be coming to an end. It's taken Jones only three bad seasons before he popped up and said, "Maybe I can find someone who's better at this than I am." In the past two weeks, Jones has traveled to New Jersey for two long meetings with Bill Parcells, the proven Super Bowl winner who's almost every bit as mythic for his pleasure at being in demand. One can't really be in demand, of course, if he's already employed, which seems to be why Parcells sits out so many seasons.
Though Jones and Parcells are quite interested in each other, everyone knows that control issues could be their undoing. But the fact that Jones would even talk with Parcells, let alone talk to him twice, indicates that he's no longer so convinced he knows how to rebuild the Cowboys. So Jones is going right after the best football man available.
Wherever America's Team is cheered, it is remembered now that all good outcomes are possible. Jones was to fire his puppet coach early this week amid indications he won't turn to another puppet. At least, that's the hope right now. Jones could always lose his nerve and try to bring the Cowboys back with another pliant coach, but he's acting serious about handing the football operation to a professional.
Meanwhile, Bengals fans were left to pick through all the possible poor outcomes after their warriors closed out their worst season ever -- a new low! -- with a 27-9 loss in Buffalo.
A couple radio guys suggested the Bengals might be able to upgrade two or three positions at the expense of only one if they could trade Corey Dillon for multiple high draft picks. A couple callers supported the idea, saying that if the Bengals can go 2-14 with Dillon, they might as well go 2-14 without him. But a subsequent caller made the winning point against such a trade: Given the Bengals' recent draft history, what good would draft picks do?
If you're the Heisman Trophy winner, Southern California quarterback Carson Palmer, you have to be thinking of career suicide if the Bengals take you with the first overall draft pick. All your life is consumed with hope that the Bengals will take Miami's Ken Dorsey instead. If you're any quarterback, you have to be worried about that.
It's reached the point of no return for the Bengals. After 12 seasons of trying to rebuild from their last playoff team, they're 2-14. They're beginning to challenge NFL records for long-term incompetence. They've ruined two quarterbacks taken in the top six picks of the draft and it looks like they're going for the hat trick. We should be used to this by now, but we've never seen 2-14.
It sounds from time to time as if Brown might splurge and hire some scouts so the coaches can concentrate on coaching, but it's never been confirmed that Brown would hire a gun to put some urgency into the football operation. A lot of names ran through the rumor mill last Sunday afternoon, enough to arouse hope that the Bengals wouldn't hire a new coach from their own ranks. But anyone who comes from the outside will need an understanding with Brown. It stands to be an understanding we know too well.
The Bengals' sad ineptitude is further illustrated by the playoff brackets, which include the Cleveland Browns. Starting with nothing, it took the Browns only four years to reach the playoffs. In the past three years, the Browns have progressed from three wins to nine. The Bengals have regressed from four wins to two.
While the Bengals fell from contention on the first day of the regular season, all but two other AFC teams clung to playoff possibilities on the last day of the regular season. It came down to a late Sunday afternoon meeting between the New York Jets and Green Bay Packers -- one game to determine the playoff fates for six teams. When it all shook out, the defending Super Bowl champions, the New England Patriots, were out of the running. So were the Denver Broncos, early season favorites.
The NFL playoffs will begin under circumstances that hardly echo the ebb and flow of the season. Throughout the regular slate of games, a few dominant teams emerged in the NFC, while the AFC stayed tightly bunched. However, while the AFC playoff teams lack the spiffy records of their NFC counterparts, the AFC teams are the hotter teams now that the games really matter.
The Oakland Raiders and Tennessee Titans are distinguished by their strong play in the past two months. Each earned a first-round bye. The Raiders, who haven't played for the AFC championship since 1990, took the AFC top seed by winning seven of their past eight games. Though the Raiders beat only one playoff team, the Jets, in that stretch, they helped pull the curtain on five strong contenders with six victories against them. Meanwhile, the Titans won 10 of 11 after losing four of their first five.
The Pittsburgh Steelers and New York Jets must be the favorites this weekend, for the Jets have won seven of their past nine and the Steelers have won five of their past six. Should the Steelers and Jets survive the Browns and Indianapolis Colts according to form, the next two rounds of playoffs will give us four AFC teams playing at a combined 31-5 clip.
The winner from that group would have to be a respectable pick to win the Super Bowl, even as the top NFC teams are more glamorous. The Raiders right now are the most convincing team in the AFC. After struggling with their running attack due to such a useful passing attack through their first 10 games, the Raiders ran right over Kansas City to win their season finale.
The regular season ended with a bit of a thud in the NFC, where each of the best two teams lost to a New York team with home field through the playoffs at stake. The Jets swatted the Green Bay Packers, 42-17, the day after the New York Giants clinched their playoff spot with a 10-7 overtime win against the Philadelphia Eagles.
Fittingly, the Eagles will close out their infamously unplayable stadium with the home field advantage through the NFC playoffs. And though the Eagles have played without quarterback Donovan McNabb for the past six weeks, they won the first five of those games and he could be ready to play next time they suit up in two weeks.
The Giants came on strong at the end of the year, won their final four games and surged from a 6-6 puncher's chance to enter the playoffs as one of the NFC's hottest teams. The rest of the field is vulnerable lately. The Packers have won only four of their past seven games, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers have won only three of their past five, the San Francisco 49ers have lost three of their past six and the Atlanta Falcons have lost three of their past four.
Of the 12 teams entering the playoffs, only Oakland, Tennessee and Philadelphia are playing well enough to inspire real confidence. This weekend we'll learn who will be their challengers.
Maybe, we'll also hear something new about the Bengals. Maybe Mike Brown will see the light. Jerry Jones has, and no one thought that was possible, either.
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