Clovers In The Atmosphere

That the Blazers went from perhaps the most beloved franchise in professional sports to one of the most hated in the span of only ten years says a lot about their management. In the 80's and early 90's, Portland was one of the most sought-after places to play, right up there with LA and Chicago. Charles Barkley and Hakeem Olajuwon, for instance, both said that they considered Portland to be the ideal NBA city, because the fans were so supportive of the team, and because, being a relatively new city on the west coast, it didn't have the entrenched racism, ghettos, and social problems of big east-coast cities such as Boston and Philadelphia. Over the past ten years, the Blazers have squandered that goodwill, both among their fans in Oregon and among the rank and file players in the NBA. Its a shame. It would be as if the Packers ten years from now looked like the Oakland Raiders.

I don't even know where to start with the Bengals. No other franchise has so much going well, and so much going badly.