AJ McCarron says Alabama is more strict than the Bengals

AJ McCarron is on his way out of Cincinnati, and in the process, he’s making some interesting comments about his first NFL team.

McCarron recently joined ESPN’s Adam Schefter on his podcast to talk about a variety of topics. One of them was just how different the Bengals are compared to Alabama, which he believes actually ran a tighter ship than the Bengals.

McCarron also goes on to gush over Bengals head coach Marvin Lewis and the impact he’s had on his professional career.

“Coming from Bama with everything, it’s more strict, everything is set for you on your day-to-day process and coming in to coach Lewis to be able to play for him, it’s ‘be a grown man, handle everything on your own’. So I really got to see both sides of it, and really try to work my way into finding a happy medium. It was an unbelievable time for me to be able to play for Coach Lewis for those four years.”

It’s a great interview you should listen to the entirety of. McCarron sounds very humble and grateful for his time in Cincinnati. Obviously, it didn’t work out the way he had hoped for, but he understands that there was never going to be a chance for him to become a franchise quarterback for a team that already had one.

But it’s nice to see McCarron isn’t looking back at his time with the Bengals as a lost period that kept him from achieving his ultimate goal. He believes it was a good thing for him in the long run and is happy to have been a Bengal and coached by Lewis.