It’s no secret the Cincinnati Bengals don’t have the best rep in the NFL. Mike Brown and Co. run an insular, smaller franchise and that has a way of potentially creating the wrong impressions in league circles.
So it’s really no surprise in a survey of agents from The Athletic’s Ben Standig that the Bengals and Brown were listed as folks those agents trust the least:
Mike Brown, Bengals owner (2 votes)
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“I just don’t agree with the way that they do things. I think they’re good people. I just think that when you’ve got four people running a staff when there are other teams with 25 to 40, it’s really hard to do your job and be 100 percent accurate on some things.”
Granted, Brown pops up again in a poll asking agents which GM/owner is the smartest:
Brown: “Just because he’s laughing all the way to the bank. He’s never made winning a priority. He would tell you winning is the most important thing but he’s never spent like that or ran his franchise like that. And yet his net profit is pretty darn good. And the equity value of his ownership is unprecedented.”
Really, this seems more like nitpicking than anything else. There’s a big difference between a team ran like the Bengals are and say, the Houston Texans, where the head coach (Bill O’Brien) is also the general manager and making odd moves like trading away DeAndre Hopkins.
Granted, Bengals fans haven’t always been thrilled with how Brown and Co. run the Bengals either. But it’s no great secret players drafted there like the organization because it always pays up. And until recently with guys like Preston Brown, the team seemingly refused to cut players who really deserved to be cut. Generally, if you land with the Bengals, you’re going to make your whole contract.
Maybe some of this supposed bad rep is because the Bengals wouldn’t host a fire sale at last year’s trade deadline. Brown voting in some archaic manners hasn’t helped either. But for all its faults, it’s weird to see the organization pop up here while someone like Bill Belichick has no qualms publicly talking up his relationship with Mike Brown.
The Bengals put down some of these narratives this offseason by spending huge on key players. As long as the trust of fans and players is there, the organization is heading in the right direction.
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