DEAR FLEM

FLEM: Well, first of all, I think Bengals fans deserve this space as much as anyone—probably more. A columnist friend of mine in Columbus summed up the Bengals last week by calling them, "sadder than an orphanage fire for almost two decades … "

JAMIE: I think Bengaldom (or, as most of my cohorts refer to, Bengal "dumb") has definitely permeated life in general here in Cincinnati, because I saw your name in the inbox and just knew that it was one of those 7-10 business day letters you get when you've been denied the job/credit.

FLEM: When will the pain cease? I'm afraid we both know the answer to your question—and it's not good. But I'm here to help you get through it, okay? On the short term, they've got to get rid of Marvin Lewis. I mean, the team hasn't gotten any better, hasn't gotten any closer to forming an identity, hasn't improved at all on defense. He has to go. Defense was supposed to be Marvin's specialty, and, honestly, I can't think of a player he found and drafted that has gotten better under his tutelage.

JAMIE: Well, we actually like Marvin Lewis.

FLEM: Listen, I don't think I have the necessary training to deal with Stockholm Syndrome.

JAMIE: Marvin has been a blessing after the "regimes" of Dave Shula or Dick LeBeau, but it's become apparent that he's only a stop-gap between mediocrity and greatness. When you have someone like LeBeau, a defensive genius for the Steelers' organization, whose career was almost sideswiped by Cincinnati, you have no choice but to point the blame elsewhere—that being at owner Mike Brown. There will never be a coach that can be any kind of savior for Cincinnati until Brown relinquishes control of this team and our town.

FLEM: Good point, we both know the one common denominator between the Bengals and all the losing dating back almost two decades now—the owner. I wrote a while back that he seems cognitively dyslexic: when he should use his brain he thinks with his wallet, and when he should think with his wallet he goes with his heart.

JAMIE: Change is not what we need. What we need is a miracle. That's the difference between us and the rest of the NFL have-nots—they have hope in something. What do we need? Maybe a string of good draft picks that will weather the normal NFL growing pains, maybe a change of guard that won't put up with the mediocrity we are destined to have, maybe the law of averages that says what goes up must come down. But we don't have any of those things—we have Mike Brown.

FLEM: You need to vent, I can tell. So share with me the top three most disappointing events/days/games in your time as a Bengals fan. And if you need to make it five or even 10, go ahead, it's the Internet.

JAMIE: Let's see. I was born in 1978, so I don't remember the career-ending injury to Greg Cook and was only a few years old when we choked in Super Bowl XVI. I believe the three worst days in Bengal history were the weekend of Jan 20-22, 1989 Super Bowl XXIII. In a season in which they really only should have lost one game (a complete fluke against a VERY good Houston Oilers team), we were sending nine players to the Pro Bowl. I remember sitting in front of the television for two straight days, all of Saturday and all of Sunday, listening and watching the hype. Out of nowhere, rumors were flying around that one of the "key ingredients" of this team, later announced as Stanley Wilson, had been found with illegal substances and had to be suspended for the game.

FLEM: You can say it: it was a cocaine binge.

JAMIE: So there was an air of uncertainty, even though Wilson was a role player, that felt like this could really be detrimental to team chemistry. I was 10, so I actually remember thinking "I don't know what detrimental means, but that sounds bad." Of course, we came out kinda rusty. Of course Tim Krumrie would break his leg. Of course Jerry Rice would make catch after catch to prolong key fourth quarter drives. Of course Joe Montana was Jesus resurrected as a quarterback in the Super Bowl. Of course Lewis Billups would drop a game-clinching interception with only minutes to play. (My memory has become numb, so some of these details may be completely delusional.)

FLEM: Actually this is, maybe, the most eloquent, detailed fan rant I've ever read. If this kind of horrid detail is tattooed on every Bengal fans' psyche, you guys have my ultimate pity—I mean, respect.

JAMIE: I have hindsight. But as the game was being played, no one in their right mind wearing the black and orange could believe how we were self-destructing. There were glimmers of hope that day, but really they were cruel and unusual punishment for a city's psyche. All because of Stanley Wilson.

FLEM: Hmm. We haven't even gotten to David Klingler, Akili Smith, Ki-Jana Carter or Dave Shula? You, my friend, are old school.

JAMIE: Yeah, you could say that Dave Shula was a numb-nuts and that David Klingler and Big Daddy Wilkinson and Ki-Jana Carter and every other draft pick, with the exception of Corey Dillon, was to blame, but that's just too long of a list to not look elsewhere. We're talking about a man, in Mike Brown, who threatened a city with the possibility of moving in order to have a new stadium built, promising that a winning team would then follow. From day ONE, it was all about the MONEY for Mike Brown and some of the most loyal fans in the world continue to help line his pockets and, in the same breath, hurt their pride.

FLEM: This is clearly the wrong time to ask this question but I think you need to deal with this straight on: could the Bengals go 0-16? And in some weird way would that be cool to be the best worst team ever in the NFL? Would that bring change?

JAMIE: The Bengals WILL go 0-16. They have one of the toughest schedules, they have overpaid an offensive line that can't protect its greatest asset, our beloved Carson Palmer, and they have a talented defense that still, after all these years, doesn't have a leader. They keep giving money to a player who doesn't want to be here— (cough) Chad Johnson (cough)—and they won't re-sign the one player who still believes in this organization: T.J. "Who's your mama."

FLEM: So how do you keep watching and buying and hoping?

JAMIE: Somehow they create enough buzz in the off-season to give us hope in the draft, to talk up the workouts iand to sign or re-sign just enough to prepare us for the next season. I lived in Cali for the past six months, and all I could think of was "Man, I can't wait to get back to Cincinnati and watch my Bengals." We LOVE the Bengals.

FLEM: I know, but why?

JAMIE: Why, Flem, I couldn't tell ya.

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