After Disappointing 2016 Season, Bengals Must Consider Life Beyond Andy Dalton

To say the 2016 season hasn't gone according to plan for the Cincinnati Bengals is one whopper of an understatement. A campaign that began with hopes of a sixth straight playoff trip and first postseason win in over two decades sits in tatters at 3-7-1.

As disappointment sinks in in the Queen City, so has the realization that the team needs a new plan. Things that seemed inconceivable only a few short months ago are now real possibilities.

Odds are as good as not that Marvin Lewis will be shown the door at season's end. While the Bengals are mulling whether the NFL's second-longest-tenured head coach is the man to lead the team from the sidelines, there's something else they need to consider:

Maybe quarterback Andy Dalton isn't the guy to do so between the lines either.

After the Bengals fell 19-14 in Week 12 (the fifth loss in their last seven games), Lewis allowed to reporters that every Cincinnati player is undergoing an evaluation as the team plays out the string this year.

"I think with professional football, the players realize their jobs are never really secure," Lewis said. "That's why they are what they are. They have to perform each and every time out. They're always being evaluated. Their job is to play as well as they can and win football games."

A year ago at this time, had I mentioned that Dalton was potentially playing for his supper, the comments section of this article would have been filled with suggestions that I seek professional psychiatric help—among other things.

Dalton signed a six-year contract extension in August 2014, and he posted the best season of his NFL career in 2015. His completion percentage, yards per attempt and yards per completion were all career bests. So was his 106.2 passer rating—nearly 20 points higher than his career average.

Andy Lyons/Getty Images

More importantly, the Bengals won their first eight games and spent much of the season looking like the AFC's best team.

Then disaster struck. In a Week 14 tilt with the Pittsburgh Steelers (because of course it had to be the Steelers), Dalton broke his right thumb. Just like that, his season and any real hopes the Bengals had of a deep playoff run were dashed.

Dalton hasn't been the same player since.

Playing under a new offensive coordinator in Ken Zampese and behind an offensive line that took a significant step backward this season, Dalton's production has plummeted in 2016. His numbers are down nearly across the board, and the 29-year-old has thrown only 12 touchdown passes in 11 games.

Year	G	Comp. %	PYPG	TD	INT	Rating	QBR
2015	13	66.1	250.0	25	7	106.2	73.1
2016	11	63.5	276.6	12	6	89.7	64.5

At this point Dalton's defenders will point to a line that's allowed the fourth-most sacks in the NFL, a new offensive scheme and the injuries that have hit players like wideout A.J. Green, tight end Tyler Eifert and tailback Giovani Bernard as reasons for Dalton's drop-off. Call him a prisoner of a bad situation. Say it's not all his fault.

That was essentially the argument Zampese made while speaking with reporters this week:

"

He's played pretty well. This past game, we had our ups and downs through the course of the game. I just know that he battles and he works so hard and he wants to be so right all the time. So when you've got it like that, you know you're going to get the best out of the guy every week. What we do get is we get the best effort out of that guy every week. Not every week goes the way we planned. But what he puts in goes exactly how he planned.

"

The thing is, in the land of so-called "franchise" quarterbacks, everything is their fault. It's the flip side of getting the huge paycheck and all the credit when things are going well.

Dalton's critics have long said Green has held him up throughout his career. Last week at least, with Green out with a bad hamstring, it's an argument that appeared to have merit. And in the early part of 2016, with Eifert on the shelf, Dalton and the Bengals had all sorts of problems in the red zone.

Franchise quarterbacks like Tom Brady and Aaron Rodgers have the ability to put a team on their backs and will them to victory if that's what it takes. We're seeing flashes of that from youngsters like Derek Carr and Marcus Mariota in 2016.

This is Dalton's sixth NFL season, and we're still waiting.

Franchise quarterbacks also put up their best performances in the most pressure-packed games.

Dalton, to this point in his career, has done the exact opposite.

Cincinnati's Week 10 loss to the New York Giants dropped Dalton's career record in prime-time games to an abysmal 5-10. He's completed less than 60 percent of his passes once the sun goes down and posted a passer rating south of 80.

Dalton's numbers in the playoffs are even worse.

Much worse.

G	Comp. %	PYPG	TD	INT	Rating
4	55.7	218.3	1	6	57.8

In four career postseason starts, Dalton has a passer rating of less than 60. He's thrown one touchdown pass against six interceptions. And the Bengals have been unceremoniously bounced from the playoffs each and every time.

The cold, hard truth with Dalton is this: He's a good NFL quarterback. You can even make the argument he's a very good NFL quarterback. But he isn't great. He's never going to be great.

In the opinion of former NFL executive Jeff Diamond, writing for Sporting News, that leaves the Bengals with tough choices to make as this disappointing season winds down:

"

If the Bengals are out of contention with two or three games to go, I suggest they give [AJ] McCarron another audition so they have a better idea if he's a viable candidate to lead the team in 2017.

In the final analysis, if Mike Brown and his executive team decide to move on from Dalton, they will be making the call that Dalton can only take the team so far; that he will never do what Ken Anderson and Boomer Esiason did for the Bengals in leading them to the Super Bowl.

And, ultimately, that's what it has to be all about for teams in judging their quarterbacks.

"

Will the Bengals go the bold route and sever ties with Dalton in the offseason? Almost certainly not, even with his contract configured in a manner that makes it relatively painless for the team to do so. It just isn't GM/owner Mike Brown's style. Given Brown's apparent love of all things continuity, it's only an even-money bet that this year's disaster will cost Lewis his job.

There's also the inherent desperation NFL teams all feel about the quarterback position. Teams that don't have one will do anything to get one. Teams that have one will do anything to keep him...including convincing themselves the signal-caller they have is better than he really is.

But if the losses keep mounting, there's no harm in giving McCarron a couple of starts to see if he can do any better with Cincinnati's depleted receiving corps than Dalton did against the Ravens.

Then the real work will begin. The Cincinnati front office is going to have to show courage this offseason. The courage to consider taking a quarterback early in the 2017 NFL draft. The courage to admit things aren't as settled at the NFL's most important position in Cincy as it hoped.

The courage to acknowledge Andy Dalton may not be the guy.

Otherwise, the Bengals are saying the occasional letdown year is OK, that one-and-done playoff trips are a success and not a failure.

That just good is good enough.

Gary Davenport is an NFL analyst at Bleacher Report and a member of the Fantasy Sports Writers Association and Pro Football Writers of America. You can follow Gary on Twitter: @IDPSharks.