Hope?

This summer has been refreshingly football free.  Maybe I've finally lost my passion for my Bungals. After all, this is the first time in 20 years I didn't buy my beloved Lindey's Pro Football annual.  The day that sucker used to come out was practically a holiday for me.  I spent many hours pouring over it during my summer job as shop boy and tar baby during my time at the Red Lake County Highway Dept.

But now, I paged through it at Hugo's and thought, why bother?

The Bungals have 2 winning seasons in those 20 years.  Will it really make a difference if I buy the magazine or not.

No.

But there is a tiny sliver of hope. 

One of the Bungals biggest failings - and blame falls squarely on their frugal owner, Mike Brown - is that they are cheap.  They never pay for big name (quality) free agents.  They also mangle contracts and rarely ever re-sign their own quality free agents (this goes all the way back to 1992 when they let their all-pro guard Max Montoya take a huge pay day in Oakland.  Many signal that as the straw that broke the camel's back and turned the Bengals into the Bungals). 

But I just read this from ESPN

Skinny: Cincinnati is significantly under the cap, and with proposed mandatory spending, the usually reserved Bengals will be forced to be major players in free agency. The only question is will the Bengals, who have a scant front office and no general manager, make the right calls? Free-agent corner Johnathan Joseph should be back in play with more than $35 million to spend. Cincinnati also is in the market for a starting running back.

The Bungals are always significantly under the salary cap.  Why should Mike Brown spend money when because of revenue sharing, he is assured a profit no matter if they win the Super Bowl or have the number one pick in the draft every year.

Oh, Brown and the Bungals website will tell you they spend money.  But the Bungals don't spend money the way other teams do.

Every time free agency gets close, the writer for Bengals.com starts talking about keeping so many million back for the practice squad and extending contracts (which they rarely do) and signing draft picks (which they can never manage to do on time anyway).  This is all a load of crap.  After all, the website is owned by the team and the writer can't simply put down the truth - Mike Brown is a cheap ass and could care less if they win or not.

But if the league forces the Bengals to spend.  Well, that could make all the difference.  Now they won't have to low ball their own free agents or hope for basement bargain free agents that nobody else wants.

After all, if they could negotiate contracts like most teams do and extend them, they would still have TJ Houschmandezadah, Eric Steinbach, and Justin Smith.  All are players who would greatly improve this team.  Yet, they all signed much more lucrative deals elsewhere.

Still, I'm not getting my hopes up.  Maybe the lock out will continue and there won't be the NFL in the fall.  Just college football.

That is worth hoping for.