re: Joe Burrow: So Sad he's Cincinnati Bound

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What about all the kids in Athens County waiting for Big Joe to come home and make South Ohio proud?

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Here's how bad it is working for Brown: His best and most honorable player, Pro Bowl quarterback Carson Palmer, is vowing to walk away from $46 million rather than work another day in Brown's prison stripes.

"Carson just finally got fed up," says a close friend of Palmer. "He's just sick of the same 5,000 mistakes the franchise repeats every year. He's tired of wallowing in mediocrity. He won't ever talk about it, but that's how he feels. He's a very tolerant guy, but when he gets pushed over the line, he gets mad and doesn't go back. He'd love to play, he's dying to play, but he's never going to play there."

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Brown makes four people do the work of eight. Most teams have four or five scouts; Brown keeps one or two. One time in the 1980s -- before the Internet -- I flew in and asked to see the newspaper clip files on a few players. "We aren't quite caught up on our clip files," the weary PR guy said, "but you could go through those." He was pointing to three 12-foot stacks of unopened Cincinnati Enquirers. 

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Mike Brown is the owner. Mike Brown is also the GM and President.

Pete Brown,  the Senior VP of Player Personnel, is his brother.

Katie Blackburn, the Executive VP, is his daughter.

Troy Blackburn, the Vice President, is his son-in-law.

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The Bengals franchise has been abysmal the last 20 years (give or take the last two) because Mike Brown has bad judgment and no one with enough power seems to call him on it. Mike Brown has adopted this role very similar to Jerry Jones in Dallas. Brown not only signs the paychecks as owner, he also operates as General Manager and oversees the player personnel decisions. Along with that, he’s also the President, so he has to oversee the day-to-day operations of the franchise.

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When Palmer wasn’t really ready to come back the next season and take the Bengals back to an AFC North title, Mike Brown grew impatient. When Carson Palmer showed his distaste for being a Cincinnati Bengal, Mike Brown took the attitude of “holier-than-thou” and let him walk away. Mike Brown sat back and watched the Cincinnati Bengals lose all-star talent on both sides of the ball, because he was never willing to give the players what they deserve. For the first time in a long time the Bengals were sitting near the top of the competitive AFC North, and Mike Brown threw it all away over pride and frugality. 

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Brown refuses to build a practice bubble. You would think that, after all the money he saved by having the county build his stadium, that he could build his own practice bubble.

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The 1999 draft is what. The Bengals had the third overall pick. On the board at this point were Edgerrin James, Brandon Stokley, Torry Holt, and Ricky Williams. How could they screw this up? These were four damn good football players. Who did they choose? Akili Smith.

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