Anti-Dynasty #8: 1991-2002 Cincinnati Bengals

Peak Anti-Dynasty Points: 82
Record: 55-137 (.286)
Average DVOA: -22.0%
Bottom-Five DVOA: -32.7%
Three last-place finishes in the NFL, Five last-place finishes in the AFC Central/North
Head Coaches: Sam Wyche, David Shula, Bruce Coslet, Dick LeBeau
Key Players: QB Jeff Blake, RB Corey Dillon, WR Carl Pickens, WR Darnay Scott, TE Tony McGee, T Willie Anderson, T Joe Walter, C Rich Braham, DE John Copeland, LB James Francis, LB Ricardo McDonald, LB Takeo Spikes, S Darryl Williams, K Doug Pelfrey
Z-Score: 7.69

Exhibits 1 and 1A in the "Apple Falls Far From The Tree" competition, NFL edition: Mike Brown and David Shula.

The Bengals' Lost Decade starts with the death of Paul Brown, who has to be on any short list of the most influential and innovative minds in the history of the league. The same cannot be said of his son. Mike had already taken control of the team by the late 1980s, but the elder Brown was still involved with day-to-day operations right until he died in August of 1991. Mike's first significant move after that season was to fire Sam Wyche, who had led the Bengals to Super Bowl XXIII and still holds the record for most playoff wins in franchise history. Wyche's replacement was David Shula, son of Don, the winningest coach in NFL history. David did not challenge his father's record.

Let's start with some numbers. Shula only took 69 games to rack up 50 losses, the quickest any coach has pulled that feat off. Every other coach who has 50 losses at least has 20 wins to their name; Shula sits at a healthy 19-52. Not to be outdone, Mike Brown set some records of his own. It took Cincinnati 288 games to get Brown's 100th win as an owner; no other owner has ever taken that long. Brown racked up his 200th loss after only 314 games as an owner, also a record. The Bengals' 52-108 record in the 1990s was worst in the league—and remember, this was a decade that saw two new expansion franchises come into being.

On the field, the actual problem was the defense. The Bengals averaged a 12.8% defensive DVOA throughout the 1990s. That's not just the worst mark in the decade; it's the worst 10-year stretch of defense we have ever recorded. To put that into perspective, only 140 teams have had a worse single-season defensive DVOA than that since 1977 (and, of course, seven of those teams are these Bengals). They hit one year with a 0.0% defensive DVOA, and only after two expansion teams diluted the league’s talent pool. Outside of that, they never finished higher than 24th on defense, in a league that started with 28 teams. For an entire decade! There were points where the offense was competent, even dynamic; Jeff Blake-to-Carl Pickens is more excitement than a lot of losing teams have. That's great and all, but it doesn't matter if your defense is a wet sponge. And when the offense faltered, then you get the 2000 Bengals and a franchise-worst -39.1% DVOA.

But the real problem with the Bengals wasn't with the personnel, it was with the owner, so let's get back to Brown. I said that Brown's first big move was to fire Wyche, but that's not really the entire story. Brown's first move was to announce that Wyche had chosen to resign, which came as news to Wyche, who had been fired by Brown earlier in the day. The sticking point was that if Wyche had resigned, he wouldn't be due the $1 million remaining on his contract, and Brown simply did not want to pay. While he has loosened up in modern times, 1990s Mike Brown was a notorious skinflint, to the point where he refused to provide his team with water bottles because they had perfectly good drinking fountains, and gave his players used jockstraps to wear. Many a player from this era has come out and spoke out against Brown's handling of the team, to the point where Brown inserted something a loyalty clause into many contracts, allowing them to recoup bonuses if a player publicly criticized the team—for "team cohesion," he claimed. He also tried to fine punter Lee Johnson after cutting him, which is an interesting take on exactly when a contract is enforceable.

Of course, Brown was also let down by his general manager, Mike Brown. The Bengals' drafting in this period was the stuff of legends, partially because they employed a scouting staff of one. We have talked about some horrible organizations from the 1920s and 1930s with no scouting apparatus to speak of; the fact that some pre-war teams spent more time and effort scouting players than a franchise from the 1990s is astonishing. And, man, you can tell. Firing Wyche caused Boomer Esiason to demand a trade, leading to the drafting of David Klingler. Klingler, of course, is an all-time bust and still holds the record for worst single game in our database with -302 DYAR against Houston in 1994. And Klingler begat Ki-Jana Carter (who tore his ACL on his third carry in his first preseason game), who begat Akili Smith (who never fully grasped Bruce Coslet's offense), all billed as franchise saviors, all of whom very much were not. Smith was the worst pick, though, because to take him, the Bengals opted not to accept the Ricky Williams trade—the Saints' entire 1999 draft class, plus first- and third-round picks in 2000. No one should ever be confident enough in their own drafting prowess to turn down an offer like that. And no one with that track record (add in Reinard Wilson, Peter Warrick, Lamar Rogers, Marco Battaglia, Charles Fisher…) should ever be that confident about anything in the draft. Oh, and we mentioned the major problem was the defense, right?

In 2003, Marvin Lewis arrived and convinced Brown of the necessity of entering the modern era in terms of facilities and franchise management. That turned the Bengals from laughingstock to that sort of in-between mediocrity/longshot contender position they were in for the next 15 years. Seven wild-card exits may not be cause for a massive ticker-tape parade, but it sure as hell feels good compared to this lost decade.

So why aren't the Bengals No. 1? While they are one of only eight teams on the list to be bad enough to have positive Z-scores in all six categories, they don't excel enough at any one thing to vault into the top five. The offense under Esiason and Blake was good enough to keep their overall DVOA from cratering, and the Sam Wyche and Marvin Lewis eras were "only" a decade apart. Perhaps if there was a variable for "frustration as the team ignores horrible performance and keeps everyone in charge," the Bengals would rank higher.