Williams: Good on Bengals executive Duke Tobin for taking questions. But his answers did nothing to give fans hope for change after disastrous season.
Good on Duke Tobin for stepping into the spotlight and answering nearly 50 questions in a professional manner during an hourlong press conference Jan. 9.
Cincinnati Bengals fans needed to hear ASAP from the franchise’s long-time top roster architect by title after a disastrous 6-11 season and the club missing the playoffs for the third straight year.
What Tobin said, however, was incredibly disheartening for a fanbase that has been longing, praying, pleading and begging for change.
The big takeaway: The Bengals, who've never won a Super Bowl, are going to continue to do things the way they've always done them.
No surprise, of course. But the fanbase held out hope ahead of a much-anticipated press conference that Tobin would at least say the Bengals will make some type of internal process changes to fix the roster and go all out to win a Lombardi Trophy while Joe Burrow is their quarterback. Some clarity on who's ultimately responsible for each draft pick and free-agent signing would've been helpful, too.
Instead, Tobin went as far as to double down on the comments he made last offseason, when he said he believed "our football team can win a championship" in 2025.
"We still have a championship team in my mind," said Tobin, the Bengals' player personnel director since 2002.
The Bengals finished with the league's second-to-worst defense, a drop off from ranking a paltry 25th in the NFL in 2024. They took a big step back in 2025 after spinning their wheels the previous two seasons.
I showed up to Tobin's presser with one main question in mind. Why do you believe you should still be in the job?
Tobin's response:
"If your question is, 'Do I have confidence in myself?' I do. But most importantly, I have confidence in the people here. I really do. I have confidence in the processes that we have here. And I have confidence in our ownership. I have got confidence in the players we have. We have good players.
"It is not up to me to determine whether I am here or not. I have been doing this my whole life. It is my life. NFL football has been a part of my life since I opened my eyes. That is what I do. I believe I know this game. I believe I know players. And I know for a fact that nobody works at it more than me. It doesn’t occupy anybody’s mind more than it occupies my mind. I’ve seen it. I’ve seen it at high levels. We’ve had success here. I’ve seen it at other places. I know what it looks like.
"But it is not about me. It’s about what I have seen in our group, not only in the personnel area, but in the coaching area as well – and what we have in the locker room right now."
Everything Tobin said in the first local, postseason press conference of his career reaffirmed the laundry-list of things that has exhausted fans – and made many of them say they're not coming back to Paycor Stadium this fall.
∎ The Bengals are holding firm to their run-it-back mentality, clinging to the belief that since Burrow and a handful of other players took them to a Super Bowl in the 2021 season, that they can do it again.
"Why do I believe in them?" Tobin said. "Because they have shown that they can do it. ... They've been there before."
∎ The front office continues to believe the Bengals are close, an indication ownership may not go all out to fix the defense this offseason.
A couple of one-score losses could be chalked up to a fluke or a few bad breaks here and there. But Cincinnati has 12 one-score losses the past two seasons, mostly because the defense has been unable to get key stops. It's a major indictment on the talent problems on defense, a result of several poor draft picks and a decision to go cheap in free agency since the Super Bowl run.
"When we take the field against any team in this league, we can win, and that team we're playing knows it," Tobin said. "We don't go out there and get pummeled. We are in it and a lot of times (we) should win it and then don’t."
∎ There are no plans to expand the NFL's smallest scouting department.
"I think the collaboration is better at that size," Tobin said. "We have never lacked for information on a player. There's never been a player selected that we didn't know anything about."
∎ Fans will continue to be left in the dark about who is ultimately responsible for the roster. Confusion about who to hold accountable for poor draft picks and underperforming free agents has long been a sticking point for fans.
"I don't know that we've ever defined that to any degree," Tobin said. "We always come to a collaborative approach. Ultimately, this is Mr. (Mike) Brown's team and he is the owner. If he or somebody in the ownership group wants to step in, (they can). But it never happens. It doesn't need to happen. We find solutions together."
Contact columnist Jason Williams at [email protected]
This article originally appeared on Cincinnati Enquirer: Duke Tobin still thinks Bengals 'championship team'
Category: General Sports
