Doc: Predicting Bengals-Browns; comparing Indians & Reds
The Sunday Men prediction from Paul Daugherty. The Indians are good, why not the Reds?
Doc: Predicting Bengals-Browns; comparing Indians & Reds The Sunday Men prediction from Paul Daugherty. The Indians are good, why not the Reds? Check out this story on cincinnati.com: http://cin.ci/2ew8dI3
The Morning Line
Paul Daugherty, pdaugherty@enquirer.com Published 9:44 a.m. ET Oct. 20, 2016 | Updated 11:03 a.m. ET Oct. 20, 2016
Bengals running back Jeremy Hill dives for extra yards during a 31-10 Cincinnati victory on Nov. 5, 2015. (Photo: Sam Greene)
Seemingly overnight, the woods behind the palatial estate are alive like a five-alarm blaze. Yellow and orange with slashes of red. The brevity of the beauty only enhances its impact.
Trees give their all in the fall. I watch them shimmy in a small breeze. I'm lucky I can touch type.
Poetry, Doc? Really?
Oh, yeah. Sorry.
The Men will win Sunday. They're playing an injured team that wasn't going to be good if it were healthy. A good thing about the Indians is, they take fans' minds off the Browns. The Browns fired Belichick, moved to Baltimore, returned and have been sad ever since.
We moan justifiably about what I generously called The Lost Decade. (It was actually 12 years, 1991-2002.) The Browns are right there with that. Since 2003, they're 66-148, a winning pct of .308. During the Tragic 12, The Men were 55-137 (.286).
The QBs are a rogue's gallery of disasters.
Browns: Kelly Holcomb, Charlie Frye, Colt McCoy, Brandon Weeden, Jeff Garcia, Josh McCown, Tim Couch. And those were the starters.
Bengals: Blake, Mitchell, Frerotte, Smith, Klingler, Hollas, O'Donnell.
The Browns have had eight coaches since '03. Absolutely none left Cleveland and became better. Let's hear it for Mike Pettine and Rob Chudzinski. There is no reason to believe Hue Jackson won't look back at his choice to leave the Bengals for the Browns and wince for about a year.
Had Hue stuck it out here, he'd have been next in line to Marvin's throne. The likely scenario, told to me by multiple sources, had Lewis coaching this year and next, then turning it over to Jackson. Hue didn't want to wait.
Jackson talking about it this week:
"That's Marvin's football team. Been there a long time," Jackson said Wednesday. "I think it's hard to ever replace a best friend that way and be there waiting behind. I didn't think it was the right thing for me to do. I didn't think it would be right their team.
"Obviously, I will always be in debt to the Bengals, but I think I'm where I'm supposed to be right now."
Understandable. But in the rearview, lamentable.
The Browns can turn it around. Maybe they will. Their history of futility suggests it'll be like parking a Lincoln in a phone booth.
What's a phone booth, Doc?
First look: Bengals vs. Browns
Cleveland's current mindset seems to be, lose a lot, stockpile high picks and hope Jackson's touch is magic. It could work, or it could be the 90s Bengals. They had high draft picks, too.
It's too bad. Because if ever a town deserved a good NFL team, it's Cleveland. We made our bones here with the Reds. We have a far friendlier climate and far more interesting geography. We don't look like a football place. Cleveland looks like it couldn't be anything else.
It's snow and soot and Jim Brown at frozen Municipal Stadium, a steely-eyed man in a fedora stalking the sidelines. That's football, bubba.
The coldest I've ever been was walking out of the new stadium several years ago, at about 6:30 on a December night. It was a sunny day, but the gametime temp was like 5 degrees. It was 10 degrees less than that, and dark and windy, when I left. Cold that hurts down to the essence.
That's Cleveland to me. Oh, and the Browns lost to the Men. That's Cleveland, too.
As for Sunday: It really doesn't matter how the Bengals choose to attack the Browns. They're 29th in points allowed and 27th against both the run and the pass. Joe Haden is hurt, so AJ Green could have a fun time.
On offense, Cleveland can run some (11th in the league) but it's on about its 4th QB already, Cody Kessler. He's the third rookie the Bengals will face, if you count 2nd-year newbie Trevor Siemian. Kessler had nice numbers in his third start last week v. TN (336 yards, 2 TDs, no picks, 105.3 rating) but some of that owed to the Brownies being down 28-13 in the 4th. Lotta underneath stuff easily available. Plus, his line is a disaster. Cleveland essentially has no center. Hello, Mr. Atkins.
Bengals look to get after Browns' battered front
Let's call it Men 30, Kids 10.
ONE DEBATE OBSERVATION: If we have a problem with everyone talking at once, why don't we just give the moderator the ability to turn off the mic of the candidate not called upon to answer the question?
THE LEAGUE FINED 55 $75Kfor something Lewis said he didn't do. It's not perfectly clear that VB stomped on L.Blount, but he suffers from his rep, which is well earned.
Maybe Lewis or his mates call out VB in private. Publicly, their defense of him does him no favors. Enabling lousy behavior won't change it.
DID THE CUBS TURN THE CORNER? As we hail the Tribe (at least I do) the fun keeps happening in the NL. One day, we write about the Cubs' silent bats, the next we say the tide has turned. The Cubs are dead. Long live the Cubs.
Meantime, Terry Francona might not be revolutionizing pitching. But he's making people think. What if there were a world with no starting pitchers?
From ESPN.com, on Indians starter Ryan Merritt:
49 pitches in his 4⅓ scoreless innings: 22 fastballs, 12 cutters, eight changeups and seven curves. Thirty-three of the pitches were strikes, including seven pitches out of the zone that he got the Jays to chase. He did a great job moving the ball around -- outside, in, up and down -- and only two pitches missed in the middle of the zone.
Someone asked manager John Gibbons about Merritt, before the game. "Lefthander,'' he said. "All I know.'' Jose Bautista said Merritt would be "shaking in his boots'' pitching to the Jays lineup.
Merritt worked 4 1/3 scoreless before being lifted. He'd thrown 11 big-league innings before that. And we thought the Cubs were destined.
BTW, the Indians' Opening Day payroll was $96 mil, just $6 mil more than the Reds. Forbes values the Cleveland franchise at $800 mil. The Reds are at $905. Money reasons for losing sometimes wear thin.
SPEAKING OF MONEY. . . The Reds re-upped with Fox Sports. They were quick to say that while the increase in fees was nice, it's lunch money compared with larger markets.
Reds COO Phil Castellini to the TM's Zack Buchanan:
"We had a dip in attendance, and as such a dip in revenue," Castellini said. "So it's not quite the windfall we hoped it would be, but as we progress back up the competitive ladder, as you all know we budget this team to break even. We don't pull any money out of the franchise.
"So we will continue to reinvest all topline revenues back into the product, and we define the product as player development, scouting and the major-league payroll, everything that goes into what (general manager) Dick (Williams) does to put the team on the field as well as the game-day experience at Great American Ball Park. The partnership with Fox is really going to help us continue that work."
I don't know what "topline revenues'' means, and because the Reds are privately owned, we have to take their word that they budget to break even. And if the Thickwallets keep spending based on their own revenues, the Reds are treading water.
But as we said, the Indians are in the World Series with a similar payroll.
AND NOW, A FEW WORDS FROM OUR –ESPONDENTS. . .
Beer-boy Dave says bring on the crazy beers:
At the risk of upsetting my boss, I felt compelled to address last week's editorial. I get it, Budweiser is making an IPA, which is terrible by the way. The feeling is that we have gone too far, into a space where every single brewery seemingly makes every style of beer to appeal to the masses. No way am I going to dispute what Doc said about every damn brewery making a Radler fruit beer or Jingle Bells Milk Stout. But, I will say there is a reason the same Cincinnati based breweries constantly come up in conversation. They realistically do make 4-5 consistently excellent brews that can be enjoyed nearly year-round. I believe these breweries have earned the right to experiment with our taste buds. They don't always hit the mark, but once in a while a potentially strange idea becomes a delicious reality. For example, the Listermann Brewing Nutcase Porter or Mad Tree Rubus Cacao. My suggestion is to figure out which breweries best fit your palate. Buy what you like, and ask the super knowledgeable staff at your local store or growler shop to guide you towards something similar. You may end up circling back to the Mt Carmel Nut Brown Ale time after time, but it is worth giving something new a shot along the way.
THE WEEKEND, ACCORDING TO FUN-ESPONDENT PATRICK:
We've got some incredible music coming down the line this weekend. If you haven't heard, Ubahn Fest is in town featuring the likes of Nas, Girl Talk, Jon Bellion, Murs and much more. It's essentially a two-day underground music festival, so I'm not sure you can really go wrong with that one. Grab your tickets here.
Or, you can go check out Beats Antique at Bogart's on Saturday. Grab your tickets for that one here.
If you've ever read or watched Alice in Wonderland, you know that it's pretty out there, especially the book. But, if you're looking for something a little different this weekend, check out the play at The Taft Theatre on East 5th Street. Purchase tickets.
The Bengals have a big one on Sunday and the team is going to need us. What better way to get started than a Sunday Funday Brunch and Taproom Tasting Tour down at Taft's Ale House. There's an optional brunch, a taster board of 4 oz beers, MadTree, Rhinegeist and more. See you there?
TUNE O' THE DAY. . . One from The Man, slow-dancin' roun' my haid this AM.
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