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OK. First the comments.
"They didn't come to the games when we were 3-0 so I don't know what I have to say to them," said Whitworth via the Cincinnati Enquirer. "That stuff's just garbage. I'm not worried about the fans or the media or any of that crap. We need to go play well and win. The same people thought Tom Brady should quit football and retire from the NFL a week ago, so I bet they don't think that now."
"Let 'em jump off," said Iloka via the Cincinnati Enquirer. "I mean we start winning, they can jump back on or not. I'm not worried about the people who jump off. We don't want them as fans anyway, so we just look to the Patriots, how they came out and lost on Monday night in prime time, all their fair-weather fans jumped off the bandwagon and they're probably back on after they beat us. So we look to them and see how they came out and we hope to do the same things on Sunday and beat the Panthers."
First point. It's obvious that both players aren't talking to the majority (so don't apply it to yourself).
Second point. Who in the hell is asking this question? Cincinnati is pacing a 12-win season, having won three of four games in the first quarter of the season. Now we're going to insist on a question that focuses on fans? We ask a player, less than 24 hours off of an emotional and embarrassing national television loss, to manufacture a storyline about bandwagon fans that suddenly exists?
Who are these bandwagon fans anyway? Did anyone see them jump off? Point them out. You? No. Maybe the guy next to you or the gal two rows up?
If the cited example is a fan who was upset with the loss, then get into this wonderful line that makes the DMV look scrawny. Let's put it this way... If there was a Bengals fan that wasn't upset after last night's game, then they're doing it wrong.
No. This is manufactured bullshit that makes fans look petty and trivial -- because we guarantee that someone will take those comments by Whitworth and Iloka and apply the general "Bengals fans sucks" label. Don't get me wrong. There are times that fans (like me) can be otherwise clueless (I miss Joe Reedy's 20 questions on twitter), but this isn't it.
[NOTE: Richard Skinner wrote the story for the Cincinnati Enquirer that we linked, but we have to be fair: There are questions asked in a crowd of reporters and considering that Bengals.com picked up the same comments, we can't attribute the question to anyone.]