The Cincinnati Bengals, no longer simply a local frustration, are now a national laughingstock. Bengals rulers are blatantly inept, making decisions so obviously wrong that young children can predict negative consequences. The Bengals disaster would not have surprised the great American revolutionary Thomas Paine, who had contempt for “hereditary succession.”
In Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense,” which helped ignite the American Revolution, he declared: “We cannot conceive a more ridiculous figure of government than hereditary succession, in all its cases.” While Paine ridiculed King George III, “all its cases” for Bengals fans include the hereditary succession of Bengals rulers whose governing mocks merit and accountability.
There are countless examples of the bungling Bengal monarchy, but one area of farcical decision making is the Bengals offensive line. Any football fan knows that offensive line blocking is crucial to running and passing the ball, but Bengals offensive line decrees have alternated between stupidly stingy and financially reckless.
In 2017, after the Bengals refused to pay team leader offensive tackle Andrew Whitworth the money he was worth. Whitworth signed with the Los Angeles Rams, earned his fourth Pro Bowl selection and helped the Rams to the Super Bowl.
This year, the Bengals mystified the football world by signing offensive tackle Bobby Hart to a $16.15 million, three-year contract, even though Hart’s 2016 and 2017 seasons with the New York Giants and his 2018 Bengals performance were substandard (as measured by the industry standard Pro Football Focus), making Hart’s 2019 dreadful performance predictable to a 12-year-old. Add all this to pitiful first and second-round draft picks in recent years (think Cedric Ogbuehi, Billy Price and Jake Fisher), and the offensive line is only one chapter in a sad Bengals book.
Bengals founder Paul Brown, to take a quote from Paine, “might deserve some decent degree of honors of his contemporaries, yet his descendants might be far too unworthy to inherit them.” Think Paul Brown’s son, current Bengals President Mike Brown, and Mike Brown’s daughter, current Bengals Vice President Katie Blackburn. Less arrogant NFL owners hire general managers who know football, but the Bengals have no GM.
Empty seats keep increasing at Paul Brown Stadium (PBS) for Bengals home games, however, attending fans are not necessary for NFL team owners to rake in money. NFL owners have created a system of “socialism for the wealthy.” Specifically, even if nobody attends a Bengals game, the Brown family collects their share of NFL national revenues. Each team’s share in 2016 was $244 million – we know this because one NFL team, the Green Bay Packers, is a publicly owned nonprofit and thus obligated to make annual financial disclosures.
Beyond misery for fans, with fewer people going downtown to attend games, the Bengals monarchy has created pain for Cincinnati downtown businesses. And for those of us who pay taxes, the Brown family has added insult to injury.
Under 1990s threats by the Brown family to move the Bengals elsewhere unless a new stadium was built, Hamilton County residents were stuck with an increased sales tax to fund the stadium, and according to the Brookings Institution, the bond issues used to finance construction cost federal taxpayers $182 million. While the Brown family did not take care of Whitworth, they did reward Bob Bedinghaus, the Hamilton County commissioner crucial to that sales tax increase, who was hired by the Bengals in 2004 and is currently the Bengals’ director of business development.
The Bengals-PBS lease is up for renewal in 2026, and Bengals fans are readying themselves for another round of Brown family threats to move from Cincinnati (the NFL would like a team in England). Isn’t it time for a revolution that Thomas Paine would be proud of?
Eminent domain has been used in Hamilton County to force homeowners and small businesses to sell for the purposes of giant developments, but eminent domain need not be limited to real estate property. When NFL owners threatened to move their teams from Baltimore and Oakland, the public’s use of eminent domain came close to succeeding in seizing these NFL teams.
There is no shortage of clever and cunning legal minds in Hamilton County, some of them Bengals fans. Perhaps they can learn from previous failed efforts and succeed in seizing the Bengals from the Brown monarchy and keep the team in Cincinnati. Then let’s take on the NFL and get what Green Bay Packer fans have – public ownership and a well-managed team.
Bruce E. Levine is a Linwood resident, psychologist, and author of several books, including the recently published “Resisting Illegitimate Authority.”
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