Wednesday, December 23, 1998Brown, Coslet expect peaceful powwow
BY GEOFF HOBSON
The Cincinnati EnquirerNext week's Spinney Summit looks like it won't be so historic.
Bengals President Mike Brown huddles with head coach Bruce Coslet next Tuesday for their end-of-season meeting, but he isn't planning for a stop-the-presses day.
“I don't expect anything major out of the meeting with Bruce,” Brown said this week.
Which is a clear indication Coslet and his staff are going to be invited back for at least another year despite the team's 3-12 record and eighth straight non-winning season.
Still, Bengals' fans know a meeting can start one way and end up another.
They only have to look at “Christmas Lea-Eve” 1991. That 3-13 season ended with bewildered head coach Sam Wyche walking out of a Dec. 24 Riverfront Stadium meeting without a job after what was supposed to be a harmless get-together.
Brown claimed Wyche resigned. Wyche claimed he was fired with two years left on his contract. They later settled, but the shadow always hangs over every Bengals' postseason meeting.
Coslet has already said he'll never resign and Brown has already said he sees no major changes, so if something big happens Tuesday it won't be planned.
Neither was Wyche's departure, but it's hard to com pare '91 to '98. Brown was upset with Wyche's season-long bizarre postgame behavior (“There's golf to be played and tennis to be served up”) and Wyche went in demanding more say in personnel and a beefed-up scouting department.
On the other hand, Coslet has handled Sunday's postgame media autopsies cleanly and at times brusquely, but there have been no national blowups.
Although Coslet and Brown don't always see eye-to-eye, those close to Coslet say he won't push the envelope as far as Wyche did. Plus, Coslet has a give-and-take relationship with Brown grounded in a 30-year association as a player and assistant coach.
Coslet has been upbeat about the meeting, saying only with a smile, “I've got my list.” Plus, Coslet and Brown are bound to be on the same page after the just-completed debacle.
Some potential topics they could discuss are off-season workouts, the five-man unprotected list for the expansion Cleveland Browns, the quarterback situation, possibly adding a wide receiver's coach, and, one of Coslet's favorites, replenishing the offensive line.
“We've already talked about the workouts and we'll talk some more to nail down exactly what we're going to do,” Brown said.
Coslet has endorsed the idea of an off-season program that brings the players to Cincinnati, pointing to the program he had with the Jets in New York.
Brown urged the signing of free-agent quarterback Neil O'Donnell back in July, but more and more he has indicated he's sliding into the Jeff Blake camp because Blake's mobility seems to be a better fit behind the offensive line.
“I don't know if you can say I was ever against Blake,” Brown said. “When we weren't winning last year, I thought we should try something different and it worked. This year, we could never get untracked. Believe me, if we find a guy we can win with, I'm for him.”
Brown continues to say he's looking at making changes in the football operation, but he won't say what or how big the scope. He said he'll take a look at the structure of top management, but doesn't envision a big change.
“I'm going to do what's best for the team. I won't be swayed by the talk shows,” Brown said. “There'll be some changes. How people assess that, I don't know. For the lack of a better term, there are people who want me to be a head hunter. I'm just not that way.”
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