The Bengals were on Hard Knocks back in the Marvin Lewis Era, and the only two things I remember are; Mike Brown being in a meeting with Lewis and his coaching staff, and everyone having to deal with Mike Brown making wildly uninformed suggestions to the actual football knowing professionals about how to build out the roster for the team. Marvin deserved a humanitarian award or peace prize or at least a sash that said "VERY PATIENT" on it for not throttling Brown's bulbous head/neck structure at some point during the scene.
The second thing I remember from that season of Hard Knocks is Katie Blackburn's exasperation with one of the Bengals players asking for a better paying contract with the team. It imprinted an foundational principle on my brain about the Brown Family and the Bengals. That principle is the Brown Family and the Bengals are never going to do the right thing. They are never going to pay their players what they deserve. They don't think the athletes that have made them obscenely rich over the last several decades deserve a bigger piece of the pie. They're the worst kind of C-Suite, greedy and short-sighted and retrogressive in how they look at the world. They would rather use "sources" to influence public perception about "doing all they can" to sign Tee and Ja'Marr and Trey, when behind closed doors they're low-balling them by not offering enough guaranteed money. They have and will continue to count on enough of the Bengals fanbase not really knowing or caring that what they're offering their stars money-wise is not competitive or realistic to getting the deals done.
And I don't really care if they don't have the cash on hand to put in escrow for Burrow plus the other three. That is just not an argument I empathize with because it's a problem with a solution. The world is vexing enough as it is, super rich people gaining access to cash is not. They have myriad options to solve that problem. If they actually wanted to win bad, like really wanted it, all three of these guys would already be signed. But they aren't, and I don't think any of them ever will be. Yes, I am saying that the Bengals won't even sign Ja'Marr Chase to a long term contract. I honestly think Mike Brown and Katie Blackburn enjoy not paying these guys what they're worth. I think they brag about it to their buddies at the club. They get a kick out of how little they had to pay Ja'Marr last season. As someone who also loves a deal, they fucking love a deal, can't resist a deal. And anything that isn't a deal is anathema to them. Paying awesome players lots of money isn't a deal for them, so it won't get done.
