I’ve never been to an A&W, but here’s what I know about them. They serve root beer and they serve hot dogs.
I love those two things.
Here’s what I know about the Cincinnati Bengals. They have Andy Dalton and they have A.J. Green.
Like hot dogs and root beer, Green and Dalton should be one of the most feared duos in the league. We should talk about them the same way we talk about Tom Brady and Rob Gronkowski or Matt Ryan and Julio Jones or Ben Roethlisberger and Antonio Brown.
But we don’t.
And you know why we don’t talk about those two the same way we talk about other great quarterback-wide receiver combinations? Because Marvin Lewis is still their head coach.
A&W should be a major fast food chain in America. There should be an A&W on every corner, the same way there is a McDonald’s on every corner. Yet, the closest A&W to me resides in an airport. Upon further research, this particular location has a one star rating on google. That’s bad. Do you know how bad you have to be to have a one star rating on google? You have to be “no playoff wins in 15 years” bad.
I blame the branding. A&W is a great root beer, but a lot of people only know it as a root beer. They don’t know that it’s also a fast food chain that serves hot dogs. A&W needs to rebrand and call itself R&H. That stands for Root Beer and Hot Dogs, in case you didn’t get it. A simple rebrand could do wonders for this chain.
The same way a simple coaching change could do wonders for the Bengals. But both franchises are content with mediocrity.