Sports Today: Jimmy Garoppolo trade leaves Bengals, Browns fans feeling frustrated

Credit: Tom Pennington

Credit: Tom Pennington

Maybe Jimmy Garoppolo should run for president.

After all, carrying Ohio is generally key to victory, and his trade to the San Francisco 49ers has given people across the state feeling the same way.

Everybody’s upset!

Leave it to Bill Belichick and New England to unite Cincinnati Bengals and Cleveland Browns fans.

The Patriots’ decision to send their highly-regarded backup quarterback across the country for a second-round draft pick is harder for Browns backers to swallow because they hoped to get him last spring, and now it appears they could have had him without giving up a king’s ransom.

I would still be happy with getting DeShone Kizer in the second round, but maybe that’s just me.

Beyond that, this move has created another front for folks to fight the Hue Jackson vs. the front office war.

Jackson, the former Bengals offensive coordinator, has hinted that sub-par personnel is a major part of his 1-23 record as coach of the Browns.

Some fans don’t want to hear that, choosing instead to side with the probably football-illiterate suits over a man who has had multiple successful stops in a long NFL coaching career.

Jackson is far from perfect, but there’s no denying the roster is awful. The guys who put it together admitted that was part of the plan last year.

Whether or not the team wins one game or three doesn’t matter much in the long run. In fact, you could argue if the ceiling is last place in the division, winning more games is worse because of draft status.

Of course, the Browns have not shown any progress from last season. I get that.

They’ve passed on multiple chances to take quarterbacks like Carson Wentz and Deshaun Watson, and now it looks like they could have had an older, already-trained signal-caller for relatively little if they wanted him.

I guess that makes the current plight of the Bengals seem kind of trite. 

Better to be in football purgatory than hell, right? I may change my mind eventually, but I’m not there yet. Nothing is worse than the 1990s were for the Bengals — except, of course, perhaps now for the Browns.

News of the Garoppolo trade hit Southwest Ohio, too, where people are wondering if a Bengals team with offensive line troubles should have been more proactive in shopping their own backup, A.J. McCarron.

›› Bengals make a change with Burfict

I was firmly in the Keep McCarron camp last winter and spring because I figured he would be more valuable as a backup to the Bengals in 2017 than whatever they got in return.

Of course, then I thought both Andy Dalton and the team as a whole would look better than they have so far this season.

The offensive line is in such dire shape, I can get behind the idea moving McCarron now for help could have made sense.

The problem with trading for players in the middle of the season, of course, is there has be a partner.

I'm not going to get too worked up about a deal that wasn't made without knowing what was truly realistic, but I will continue to wonder how this team gets better in the short term.

It probably won't be by drafting more receivers

The Dayton Flyers' 2018 recruiting efforts continued this week with the news a combo guard from Louisville, Ky., is still considering Anthony Grant's team.

Chance Moore is a top-300 recruit who is in prep school in West Virginia.

RELATED: 2018 guard puts UD in his final four

With a bunch of big guys in the gym already and a top point guard committed for next season, it will be interesting to see how Grant is able to build up the talent on the wings now…

News the Cincinnati Reds have hired Buddy Bell to a job in the front office garnered quite a reaction on our Facebook page.

I like the move. Bell and general manager Dick Williams explained it as a way of beefing up the baseball side of things in the front office, which makes sense given that Williams has no playing or managing experience.

They talked about Bell concentrating on development at the major-league level, perhaps acting as a bridge between the minors and the top level of competition.

READ MORE: Cincinnati native joining Reds front office

If you’ve watched this team closely over the last few years, that seems to be an area they can use some help.

Perhaps Bell can help unlock the potential in Jose Peraza and get Billy Hamilton to the next step, not to mention make sure Jesse Winker is as ready as he can be for a larger role next season.

This is also encouraging because it would seem for the second year in a row they have identified an organizational weakness and tried to do something about it.

Last year, it was working on leadership training to try to stem the tide of losing throughout the minor leagues, something they obviously hope pays dividends at the major-league level eventually.

There was some immediate success in Dayton, where the Dragons had a great first half and won a playoff series.

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