Paul Daugherty: Sorry Bengals fans, Mike Brown isn't changing

Mike Brown shouldn’t talk publicly anymore to people like me. His handlers in the Bengals PR department should consider insisting on that. I say this in all sincerity and, believe it or not, with a certain affection for the team’s president. He isn’t helping himself.

Mike Brown is pleasant, caring and principled. He’s a terrific conversationalist. He knows a lot about a lot. If I weren’t in this job, I’d like to think we’d be friends.

And here comes the biggest However in the history of Howevers:

In print, Brown comes off as an arrogant dictator who cares nothing about his fans except that their checks cash.

This isn’t a new thought, and that’s the problem. The diligent interview conducted last Friday by the Enquirer’s Jim Owczarski hit all the relevant topics. It was needed, given Brown chose not to appear at the press conference with Marvin Lewis, on the day the team rehired the coach.

More: Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown explains why Marvin Lewis is back as head coach

It was also like talking to a brick, the difference being a brick cracks on occasion. Doing a state-of-the-state Q&A with Brown is like participating in a time-travel experience. It could be last Friday, or 10 years ago, or 20, or 1991. Do we need to get better? Yes, we do. After three decades, it’s starting to make my brain hurt.

Mike Brown will never understand fans. He will never see them as anything but butts in seats. He will never understand that passion can come with an expiration date, and that date in Cincinnati is here. To Brown, you are cash flow.

Is that harsh? Is it? How can it be, when you, loyal fan, have been saying the same thing for 30 years?

People still say what a “great businessman’’ Brown is. Really? You mean the guy who never marketed his team in Columbus and points north when Cleveland didn’t have the NFL? Whose idea of maximizing profit is raising ticket prices after losing seasons?

What if Procter & Gamble were like the Bengals, from its beginnings? We make soap. We like our soap. We like how we make our soap. We are, in fact, the only soapmaker in town. Why should we change anything? Why should we add different products? Just to make our customers happy?

Said Brown last Friday, “I have to just do what I think puts our team in the best position to win. Even if it is a short-term issue with our fans."

A short-term issue? A short-term issue?!? Oh, boy. Brown believes that all it will take to pack his publicly funded, $330 million-at-least playpen is a rousing 9-7 or 10-6. “They’re going to come when we win," said Brown.

No, they’re not. Unless winning somehow is redefined at PBS, as something grander than complete playoff failure.

Meantime, doesn’t that make you feel special, BengalsFan? They win, you return. I was taken for granted less by my kids when they were in high school, asking for money every weekend. Brown doesn’t work to earn your trust. He abuses it.

And then he said this:

“It is not anything more than banter, to use some of the formulae that you hear mouthed by different people. Part of our job, I guess, is just to sit back and listen and then go about our business, which is one step at a time."

Oh, the arrogance.

The Bengals have never professed even the slightest awareness or acknowledgement of your loyalty.

“In some ways, ours is a hard market," Brown said. “Our people are judgmental about us. They are often easy to condemn when it doesn’t go to their standards."

Their standards? What about your standards? Someone please hand Brown a towel in which to weep. Have the taxpayers pay for it. When Brown says these things month-after-year-after-decade, you can’t help but wonder if he really is that oblivious.

“I don’t think we’re far off. I think we can make the changes that we need to make and quickly rebound to the level where we were a couple years ago."

The level where you were? Losing your first game in the playoffs? That level?

“We have to do better in certain areas. We’re going to try to."

There is no try, Yoda. There is only do.

“We’re coming off a run of playoff years and (fans) began to see that as the bare minimum. Well, maybe for them it is. For most people in this league, it’s a pretty solid achievement."

That sentence is all you need to hear. Solid achievement equals no playoff wins in 27 years. Fans should shut up and be happy with that. Be like “most people in the league." After all, Brown kept the team here. Stop griping and start genuflecting.

“A lot of this talk, to me, is sort of a dance," he said.

Couldn’t agree more, Mr. Brown. Thirty years of the same dance. Our knees hurt.