At Least We Aren’t The Bengals

Earlier this week our friends over at stripehype.com, the Cincinnati Bengals fan blog site on fansided.com, were threatened by a lawsuit claiming that the use of team logo’s and such were unlawful and should be removed from the site immediately.  Let me tell you, so far, Cincy is the only team to pull this crap.  As far as I can see, the rest of the NFL values its fan base and the support each team receives.

If you have the chance, please go by stripehype.com and offer your support on this subject.  This is not a slap in the face for just stripehype and our colleagues over there, but a slap to the entire blogging community.  The two gentlemen that run the Fansided network, Adam and Zach Best, do just that, their best, to bring you valuable and entertaining blog posts and an outlet for you the fan to talk about your favorite teams and the NFL in general.  I’ve been lead blogger for Raising Zona since January and although I’ve not really gotten my feet too wet yet with this awesome adventure, I can tell you that our community of bloggers are nothing but good hearted, good natured, intelligent individuals who work tirelessly to provide an entertainment outlet for you the NFL fan.  We lost our lead blogger for stripehype, Dave Howard, because of this mess.  He left on his own accord, however there should be no reason to lose a great blogger.

So the Bengals want to play hard ball with their fan base.  Let’s review a few facts:

* Cincy has had more players behind bars in the past two years than the Maricopa County Jail in downtown Phoenix.

* Cincy’s best player, Chad Johnson a.k.a. “the Ocho”, wants nothing to do with his team because he feels the Bengals front office and especially the coaching staff, disrespected him.

* Cincy took a step backward last year after making a playoff runs each of the past two seasons, actually accomplishing the feat in the 2005 season.

The Cardinals may be a lot of things at times – boring, predictable, uninspired, poor, bad player judgment at times on the field, however one thing they are not, is fickle with their fan base.  The Cardinals, especially over the past couple of years, has really gone out of its way to build a fan base.  That’s hard to do with a mediocre franchise who has not been to the playoffs since 1998, their only trip in 20 seasons in Arizona.  We call for Bill Bidwell’s head at times because of the way the team is run.  I’ve never once though questioned his love for the game and the organization’s love for it’s fans.  Sure they raise ticket prices most every year, but with rising player contracts, I can’t really blame them.

Anyways, thanks to Mike for re-capping mini-camp! Only three more months until training camp and pre-season.  I can’t wait.  Go Cards!

Scott Allen

AZScott