Andrew Whitworth 'never really got the feeling' that the Bengals were all in on winning
The Bengals made five straight playoff appearances from 2011-2015.
They won the AFC North twice over that span. Analysts praised them for their yearly draft hauls.
Their regular season success never translated to the postseason. The Bengals went 0-5 in the playoffs from 2011-2015. They haven't won a playoff game since January 6, 1991. The 29-year streak is the longest in the NFL.
Former Bengals great Andrew Whitworth played in Cincinnati from 2006-2016. He believes the players and the coaches were all in on winning, but doesn't think the front office was willing to do whatever it took to have postseason success.
"You never really got the feeling that up top was as sold out as everyone else in the building in winning," Whitworth told Willie Anderson on Instagram. "If you think about it, we went to the playoffs five years in a row and won two division championships and what free agents did we sign in that entire five years? If you really thought, 'hey, we're this young and that good of a nucleus, what if we just add one guy?' Make one trade for a significant football player and now that just leaps you over. The truth is that five-year stretch was literally draft... they just hit home runs in the draft."
The Bengals selected Carlos Dunlap, Geno Atkins, A.J. Green, Clint Boling and Andy Dalton in the 2010 and 2011 drafts. Those two years helped shape the next decade for Cincinnati.
They also hit on Tyler Eifert, Mohamed Sanu and Marvin Jones in the draft, which helped give them one of the best offenses in the league during the 2015 season. They got off to an 8-0 start and finished 12-4 before losing at home to Pittsburgh in the playoffs.
"You just never added another piece," Whitworth continued. "Just one more piece that would've just sent you over the edge. And to me, that's an easy opportunity — you can get into how nice stuff was. I think everywhere is different, but just that commitment. Like hey, we'll show you guys. Not only do we think you're good and we believe in all of you, but we're going to make just one more little commitment that shows all of you that we're all committed to this thing to winning."
The Bengals' stance on free agency appeared to change this offseason. They signed six projected starters and completely remade their defense.
Whitworth thinks things could've been different if Cincinnati adopted that philosophy a few years earlier.
He signed with the Rams as a free agent in 2017 and went to the Super Bowl with Los Angeles in 2018.
Watch Anderson's entire interview with Whitworth below:
