Bengals Up To Old Tricks

The ESPN Insider rips the Bengals' front office:

At first glance, this looks like the most confusing and dysfunctional front office in the NFL, and it is difficult to analyze who has the power---but the Bengals believe in their system, and at the end of the day, that might be all that counts.

*As usual, at the top is Mike Brown, who runs the entire organization. Brown gives his coaches and advisers a lot of power in personnel decisions and will rarely go against Marvin Lewis.

*Katie Blackburn and husband, Troy, run the business side of the organization. Depending whom you talk to, they can be considered very efficient or a major roadblock when it comes to contracts and personnel -- but they do have significant power and are part of the Brown family.

*Further complicating things are the roles of Bill Tobin, John Cooper and Bruce Coslet. All three are listed as consultants and theoretically are film evaluators, but they have the ear of upper management, which adds more voices to the decision-making process.

*Pete Brown is senior VP of player personnel; Paul Brown Jr. is VP of player personnel; and Duke Tobin is director of player personnel, but most of his expertise is on the pro side. Longtime scout Jim Lippincott is director of FB operations and really the face of the muddled Bengals' front office; he keeps everything running and organized.

*There are no scouts in this organization, which means the coaches are heavily involved in player workout and personnel decisions. The way this department is set up, it gives the Bengals' coaches a lot of opportunities for film evaluation--but nothing substitutes an area scout knowing the players in his area. As a result, with coaches involved, the workout and film production becomes most important and character and intelligence are not scrutinized. There are a lot of titles here, but the power structure is most confusing.