Window of Opportunity Meets Sense of Urgency?

Nonsense. As long as Bengals have healthy Burrow, they have a chance

Welcome back to FreeForAll Wednesday, when all this incalculable wisdom and wit comes at you for nothin’. If you like it, it’ll cost ya 8 bucks a month, about the same as a CAO Lambada cigar at Party Source. Except the cigar only lasts an hour. Thanks to all the new Mobsters brought in by my recent appearance on the Enquirer’s That’s So Cincinnati podcast. Enjoy.

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It’s a mistake to paint this Bengals season in stark, must-win tones. Life and football (one and the same in some outposts) are not black and white but rather shades of gray. The by-now nauseating phrase “a sense of urgency’’ supposedly looms over the team and its fans. The theory is that this is The Year, and if the Bengals don’t win the Super Bowl this year, well, they might never win one, at least not in this Age of Mahomes.

Yeah? Why?

As long as the Bengals have Joe Burrow, they have a chance. He’s that good. His talent, his temperament, his unusual ability to see/read/react on the fly. Burrow is 1A in the pantheon of NFL QBs. I think we all know who’s 1, don’t we?

The best NFL teams have a talent for instant and constant re-invention. The Chiefs won a Bowl with Tyreek Hill one year. The next year they won another, without him. (Be careful what you wish for, Ja’Marr Chase.)

With Ben Roethlisberger, the Steelers were annual shoo-ins for the postseason. They’ve been anything but without him. Take Lamar Jackson from the Ravens, they’re .500 at best. The Browns story since they returned from dormancy has been one long search for a capable QB.

The Bengals have proven nimble in restocking around Burrow, on both sides of the ball. The Sense of Urgency nonsense doesn’t apply to teams with a very good QB and a smart front office.

In 2024, the Men have a better chance to reach the Bowl than they did in Feb. 2022. Easier schedule, seasoned players in their primes, Burrow included. With Burrow healthy, there is no Beginning or End here, in terms of competing for rings. There is only Middle.

Burrow said as much, when asked awhile back about the Bengals “window of opportunity’’ another hack phrase popular with hack media. Burrow responded, paraphrasing, “Every year I play is an opportunity’’ to win a championship.

Burrow is right about most things. That thing included.

The Bengals start whatever you’d like to call this season at home, against the New England Patriots, who aren’t good and won’t be anytime soon, certainly not on Sunday.

No Belichick, no Brady, no semblance of the dynasty. One sure sign of a bad team is when all the talk about the team centers on a player that isn’t expected to play. That sums up the Patriots and Drake Maye, their rookie QB and top draft pick.

The Pats figure they won’t be playing in February, so the season — at least the first month or so of the season — will be given to Jacoby Brissett, so as not to wreck Maye’s mojo and body before Halloween. New England has a terrible O-line and receivers known best by their mothers. DeMario Douglas led them last season with 561 receiving yards.

New coach Jerod Mayo is not going to serve up his kid quarterback under those conditions. (That’s another bad thing, by the way. A rookie head coach working his first actual game. The game moves fast for new coaches, too, same as players.)

And there is no Bill Belichick designing defensive game plans. Bill’s brain was worth several points a game.

The only troubling thought for BengalsFan is that I’m picking them to win. I’m an idiot when it comes to picking football games. Longtime Perusers know this. If I made a living picking NFL winners, I’d be broke by 11:30 and it’s 11:15 now. Forewarned is forearmed, Mobsters.

Regardless, let’s please shove the dire, must-win wisdom, OK? If Burrow be Burrow, every year offers some Super hope. Dude’s generational. As for Sunday?

Men 30, Minutemen 17.

Now, then. . .

DEGENERATE NATION, UNITE. This from ESPN.com:

“The American Gaming Association says the $35 billion estimate is a roughly 30% increase from the amount bet on the NFL last year and is based on data released by some states on the amount wagered on pro football.’’

Whoa.

Thirty-five billion dollars.

That’s more than the GDP of Honduras in 2023, which checked in at $34 billion.

Did you know this? Of course you didn’t.

In your wildest dreams, could you have even imagined it? I could not have.

People might watch start watching a game because they’re interested in who wins. They’ll keep watching to see who covers. Degeneracy is a huge reason we love the NFL.

Which brings us back to Sunday’s opener. The Men are 8.5 or 9-point favorites to beat the visiting Patriots. At the moment, it’s the highest spread of the week and reflects how little Vegas cares about the matter of Family-V-Chase.

We watch the point spreads intently week after week, because the sharps are uncannily (and frighteningly) accurate. I don’t know exactly how they do it. I don’t want to know. Better to believe nothing hinky is going on. Nine points is a huge spread. Even against a team with a rookie coach not named Belichick and a starting QB who travels more than Willy Loman. (Lookimup, kids.)

(Forbes)

Even if Jacoby Brissett did beat the Bengals the last time he faced them, Oct. 31, 2022, leading the Browns to a 32-13 home thrashing. Brissett went 17-22-278, with a TD and no picks. Even Willy Loman made an occasional sale.

Will the Pats cover? Don’t bet on it.

BOBBLEHEADS. WHY? We’ve had this discussion here over the years. I love bobbleheads. Same as you do. I have no idea why. Also same as you. My collection is tiny. I even tossed several during our last move. (I’m still very sorry about that, Wily Mo.)

On my office windowsill rest five members of the 1971 Pittsburgh Pirates and a big-haired Franchester Martin Brennaman. (Not Amanda, regretfully. I bumped her for Manny Sanguillen. Nothing personal.)

Just last week, I made the find of all finds. At the Loveland Goodwill (I like rummaging at Goodwills, shut up) I found a Sister Rose bobbler. I said five Hail Marys or whatever and bought her for $2.99.

Yeah, that Sister. Rose Ann Fleming, Xavier’s academic advisor for athletics. Known by Bob Huggins as “that F-in’ nun.’’

I couldn’t wait to get Sister on the sill. . . right next to Huggs. For all eternity.

What’s your favorite bobbler?

AND FINALLY. . . One of my Substack brethren, Michael Weinreb, writes a newsletter called Throwbacks. It’s outstanding. TML sez ckitout.

This one is about Dabo Swinney’s admirable loyalty. . . and how it’s killing Clemson football:

Swinney seems to be struggling to function in a system that’s utterly different from the one he grew up with. He’s still clinging to that need for control.

He is relentlessly earnest, which is more than can be said for a lot of other football coaches, but now, in a sport that’s more focused than ever on zero-sum results, Swinney’s earnestness has arguably become his biggest weakness.

You don’t have to like all that’s happened to college football in age of player empowerment. But Swinney has gone full-on ostrich in this moment, by largely refusing to recruit transfer students and by using his name, image and likeness collective largely to retain the athletes he already has, rather than to expand his reach.

Swinney. . . wants to focus on the players he recruits and develops himself, and to see them through to graduation. He doesn’t want to become what he calls a “catch-and-release place.

Noble, Weinreb suggests, but also disastrously anachronistic, as evidenced by Clemson’s 3-34 L to Georgia last weekend.

TUNE O’ THE DAY. . . Never heard of these folks until a year ago. Another cool tune from Little Steven’s Underground Garage, the best station on Sirius. These cats are groovy.