Cincinnati Bengals: How they could still make the 2018 Playoffs
By Kenn Korb
Spoiler: You Don’t Want This To Happen
None of this is likely to happen of course, and while a late-season charge into the playoffs sounds fun in theory, few fans out there probably would actually want to see it. In reality, it would in fact hurt the future of the franchise to randomly pull out the wins and lucky breaks needed now to make the postseason.
Should they make it, they would likely be playing either Houston or New England; either is another sad playoff loss for a franchise with far too many in the past 15 years. It also may give already-conservative owner Mike Brown some reasoning (flawed, but plausible for someone searching for it) to keep Lewis around yet again. Even now, he may not get rid of Lewis with a losing-out effort. Grabbing a playoff spot out of nothing wouldn’t help the large “Fire Marvin” crowd’s ambitions.
The worse the Bengals do, the better for 2019 and beyond. Cleaning house is necessary. Getting rid of every coach involved here is the only way to remove the musty, stagnant feeling ingrained in from the top down in Cincinnati. Brown isn’t leaving, but everybody else must to make progress. The worse the record, the better the draft picks in 2019 too, by the way, and this team is in dire need of talent upgrades in every single position group.
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As fun as the ideal of trying to reach the playoffs, even now, would be for any team, the less victories Cincinnati manages to find in this final stretch, the better the much-maligned franchise will be set up for a strong turnaround — and a much better shot at true contention in the near future.