Filed under: Bengals, AFC North, NFL Coaching
For those who follow these sorts of things, listening to a Marvin Lewis press conference is like watching a grown man tell a child about Santa Claus. You know he's full of crap and you are just waiting for the moment where he says something that isn't based in reality.
In Marvin's latest press conference, he was asked, "Have you had a chance to look at the Browns on tape yet this week?" His response:
I have not. But I know it's the big game and we can talk about that. It's a divisional and rival game for us. Our fans will be here and be loud. Loud! We need to have a better output than the Tennessee game, from us playing and everybody in the stands. It should be a hard day and a loud day for the Cleveland Browns to try to communicate, just like we've had on the road for the past two weeks. I think that's the key. It's the Battle of Ohio, the southern version this week.
So Lewis is telling the fans that they need to be louder to help them win. As local radio host Mo Egger pointed out on his show at Cincinnati's 1530Homer, the fans were booing quite loudly.
Egger also pointed out that fans get loud when you score touchdowns. Or you get a big sack. Maybe pick off a pass. A big play. A huge hit. Wins. Those are things that get fans cheering loud. When you can do any of those things, fans do tend to sit on their hands.
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To bring up how quiet the fans were during the home loss to Tennessee was a bit bad, since many of the people in Paul Brown Stadium that day went back to homes with no power and property damage (a wind storm produced from remnants of Hurricane Ike struck the Greater Cincinnati area all morning and afternoon that Sunday).
This is the NFL ... not college football. A coach can do that "we need our fans cheering loud" speech in college because, well, it works. Not so much in the NFL.
Unless Marvin has a time machine that can take everyone back to 2005, you might have to coach your players do perform on the field in order to get that loud crowd noise.
Or, like Egger said, those boos will have to do.
