Cowher to the Bengals?

I think not. Over the last few weeks, due to Marvin's ineptitude and starting a franchise tying worst 0-7, I have heard rumblings about the possibilities of one Bill Cowher coaching in Cincinnati. Not only would hell have to freeze over, but the Devil would have to look something like this. Bill Cowher coaching in Cincinnati has about the same chance that a bunch of Ewoks have against a battalion of stormtroopers. Uh oh, bad example! But seriously this is a ridiculous thought there is no chance, 0%, of this happening. That is not to say that I don't have wet dreams about it, I do, but there are too many forces against this happening and only one good reason that I can see him actually doing it. Cowher has stated that he wants a team with an above average quarterback, when he said that I think that blind, deaf and dumb Cincinnati fans everywhere said, "hey, we have that!" Yes we do, but we have a multitude of issue that are working against us too.

1. The Mike Brown factor. There is no way Bill and Mike could work together. Bill had the run of the show in Pittsburgh for years. Dan Rooney was that cool dad that handed you the keys at 16 and said "Have fun son!" For all intents and purposes it was your car, as long as you filled it up (drafted well), washed it (kept the players out of trouble), and kept up on the insurance and payments (won). And Bill did all of those things while driving that car in Pittsburgh. Mike Brown is like a bastard step father that you can never earn his trust or respect enough to sleep in the house, let alone drive the car. The closest you will ever get to driving the car is if you sneak in the drivers seat and pretend in the middle of the night, better clean off the prints though. The evidence of this was no more clear than when Mike Brown went behind Marvin's back and brought back Chris Henry. Clearly Mike does not care about the team or his coaches opinion. Mike could never handle giving up control, if he could then he would do the smart thing and hire a general manager to run this team and make personnel decisions.


2. The ego factor. Bill was loved in Pittsburgh. Loved, revered, and borderline worshipped. He left that city a Super Bowl winning coach and had left Mike Tomlin a great team that Cowher had meticulously built. he had built that program so that he was never rebuilding, he was always reloading. So, to think that he would want to come to Cincinnati and deal with this mess is a little silly. I know that coaches are always looking for a new challenge, but I just don't see an established coach that went out on top to want to deal with this train wreck. Couple that with the fact that the Steelers and the Bengals HATE each other. Hate like Hatfields and McCoys, Veronas and Capulets, Democrats and Republicans, or the general public and porn-staches. There is no way Bill Cowher could coach a team, that he just as recently as three years ago, made fun of the who-dey chant. You vary rarely see coached, especially ones that quit on their terms, come back and coach in the same division, especially against a very heated rival. I mean it still has to be ingrained into Cowher to hate the Bengals right?


3. The Marvin Lewis factor. I know there are few loyalties in the NFL and coaches, but Bill did give Marvin is start in Pittsburgh as a linebackers coach, and I know they still talk. I don't think they are best friends, but I don't know if Bill would feel right coming into a job that a man he gave a start to was just fired or forced to quit from. Plus knowing that they still talk, Bill has to know the giant pain in the ass Mike is to work under.


4. The Money factor. This might be the most important reason and the driving factor for this not happening. There is no way Mike Brown will open his pocketbook and pay a head coach the money he deserves. Because Mike is delusional he thinks that he can find hidden talent anywhere and turn it into gold. For examples see; Chris Henry, Odell Thurman, Akili Smith, Jeff Rowe, and Jerome Simpson just to name a few. Marvin Lewis was no exception. He thought that he had discovered gold at the price of Formica. Sadly this is what he will do again when he decides that Marvin has cost him too much money. The irony, of course being, that it is Mike who is costing himself money. He will try to pluck some obscure coach out of nowhere that probably had a stacked roster and looked like a better coach than what he was instead of hiring someone with a track record and who is proven. Why? Because that would cost too much money. In looking at a variety of coaches and what I could find on their contracts I almost laughed a out loud as to what I think it would take to sign Bill Cowher here. Tony Dungy is making 13 million a year in Indianapolis. Mike Smith, a first year coach in Atlanta, is getting 8-10 million a year for 4 years. Of course he does have the luxury of Arthur Blank as an owner, who will throw money around like it is going out of style. Marvin is making somewhere close to 2 million a year and I doubt that Mike wants to pay too much over that for a head coach. In my estimate Bill would need at least 10-15 million to coach this team and as I stated before Mike would sooner lick a dog turn off Chad Ocho Cinco's shoe than spend that money on a head coach.

So there you have it, four great reasons, and I am sure there are more, as to why Bill Cowher can never coach in Cincinnati. Well, never is a strong word, perhaps if Mike Brown dies and Lord Godell re-organizes the divisions so that the Steelers and Bengals are no longer in the same division, then perhaps then Bill Cowher would consider coaching in Cincinnati.