As the Bengals try to break a string of three straight one-and-done playoff runs, the latest chapters in a stretch of postseason futility that extends 24 years, offensive coordinator Hue Jackson hopes to change the narrative via a deliciously mixed metaphor that conjures images of a tusked head spinning 360 degrees.
“We have to exorcise the elephant in the room,” offensive coordinator Hue Jackson tells Peter King of TheMMQB.com.
Jackson’s words come at a time when coach Marvin Lewis has instructed players not to answer questions about the protracted playoff drought. That apparently doesn’t apply to Jackson, who is using the postseason trip to Indy as a way to apply a little pressure to the quarterback who was toddling around Katy, Texas with a clump of red hair the last time the Bengals scored more points than their opponent in a single-elimination setting.
“The contract was given [to quarterback Andy Dalton] by the organization with the expectation that we would be back here, in the playoffs, again, and not just for one year,” Jackson said. “Now is the time we really need to earn our keep. Marvin Lewis and [owner] Mike Brown have put a lot of faith in us. The guy who signs our checks, Mike Brown, deserves a return on his investment. I mean, you have to acknowledge that. You can’t let it go. We have to validate all the work we’ve done this year on Sunday.”
The beauty of the playoffs is that every team enters with the same goal of justifying a playoff-worthy season by advancing. For the Bengals, however, that urgency has yet to translate into victory in the last three season, during Marvin’s 12-year tenure, and all the way back to the week before Bo Jackson’s football career ended in a division-round game against the Bengals.