Maybe Paul Brown is Really to Blame

I have always believed that Mike Brown got his "family first" mentality from his father, and as beloved as Paul Brown is in Cincinnati, I believe he would be a colossal failure if he were an owner in the NFL today. Perhaps the ground work for what is the biggest joke of a franchise in professional sports truly was laid by Paul, not Mike, Brown.

"Enter Bill Walsh, the 47-year-old head coach at Stanford University, a man who had never steered an NFL team. The book explains how the new coach arrived with a whiff of peculiarity.

He had made his professional reputation with the Cincinnati Bengals from 1968 through 1975 under the tutelage of his mentor, the legendary Paul Brown. Mr. Walsh blossomed with the Bengals and it was widely assumed that Mr. Brown was grooming him for the head coaching slot.

But that didn't happen. Not only did Mr. Brown snub Mr. Walsh, he actively bad-mouthed him when the coach left to pursue other NFL opportunities. Mr. Harris suggests that perhaps Mr. Brown became jealous of his protégé. Because of Mr. Brown's august status and his failure to appoint Mr. Walsh as his successor, football people assumed something must have been wrong with him. Mr. Walsh instead left the NFL to coach Stanford to respectability in the always tough Pac-10 conference."

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122278676234790383.html