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UPDATE: Marvin Lewis Should Have Been Fired Upon End Of Disappointing Season


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1 hour ago, omgdrdoom said:

Let's be realistic. When do the Bengals fire coaches, assistants, or well...anybody?

The Bengals don't completely suck, everything they do isn't 100% incorrect, but it's a perfectly reasonable gripe that we have to expect more accountability in Cincinnati. Not every good organization runs around firing people left and right, but I don't think anyone is clamoring for that to happen here.

We have a head coach that has broken records of tenure without postseason success, we have assistants that have been here since what seems like the beginning of time, and we've seen some pretty damn lazy hires internally as of late. The Bengals give their staff more leeway than the average team, you aren't guaranteed to get fired if the position you're in charge of coaching has a couple below average years. It's just the way it works around here, it seems like the Bengals operate more like a family than a business. I don't believe it's one of the illegitimate things that fans tend to complain about, there are definitely arguments for hoping the team would be a bit more liberal with firing staff members.

Very good, sensible, measured response.  You understand.  Thank you.  In other news....

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer's Paul Dehner "continue(s) to feel confident" the Bengals will not retain free agent RG Kevin Zeitler.

Based on what he's heard, Dehner expects the Bengals to prioritize re-signing free agent LT/LG Andrew Whitworth and let Zeitler walk. It's a curious approach -- to be kind -- considering Whitworth is in steep decline at age 35 while 27-year-old (in March) Zeitler is one of the best young guards in football. Dehner believes there's only a "30 percent chance" Zeitler returns to Cincinnati. Zeitler is Rotoworld's No. 1-rated free agent interior offensive lineman.
 
HMMMMM..............
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5 hours ago, SouthPaw said:

Very good, sensible, measured response.  You understand.  Thank you.  In other news....

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer's Paul Dehner "continue(s) to feel confident" the Bengals will not retain free agent RG Kevin Zeitler.

Based on what he's heard, Dehner expects the Bengals to prioritize re-signing free agent LT/LG Andrew Whitworth and let Zeitler walk. It's a curious approach -- to be kind -- considering Whitworth is in steep decline at age 35 while 27-year-old (in March) Zeitler is one of the best young guards in football. Dehner believes there's only a "30 percent chance" Zeitler returns to Cincinnati. Zeitler is Rotoworld's No. 1-rated free agent interior offensive lineman.
 
HMMMMM..............

Lol "we want to keep our own!"

 

until they get good good and expensive and then we see them leave. 

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6 minutes ago, Madieu Superstar said:

Lol "we want to keep our own!"

 

until they get good good and expensive and then we see them leave. 

Yeah just like how we let our last 2 franchise QBs walk and refused to sign them to big contracts.

Or that A.J. Green guy that doesn't currently have the highest average salary among WRs in the league or anything.

Or that All-Pro DT we didn't pay.

Or Bernard, Boling, Dunlap, Leon Hall, Iloka, Williams, Burfict, etc. etc. etc.

I'm just as upset as the next guy that we keep bringing Maualuga and Peko back instead of actively trying to replace them with better players, but can people please knock the shit off that we don't re-sign or extend our good players? We rarely let our own drafted, above average starters walk. I've said it in another thread about this, if you're going to bitch and complain, bitch about them not signing OUTSIDE free agents.

The Bengals are at least average in the drafting category. Unless you never, ever develop good players, there's no possible way to retain EVERY single homegrown talent in a salary cap league. As much as it's going to suck if and when Zeitler is inevitably gone, it's likely going to be because he chose to get paid a mega guard contract elsewhere. I don't think it will be the Bengals being "cheap", just not willing to break the bank for an interior lineman that isn't a regular All-Pro candidate or anything extraordinary. He's a good RG though and considered the best RG on the UFA market, so he's going to get paid by a needy team. It takes 2 to tango in free agency, even if we offer him a fair contract he could end up elsewhere. We shall see.

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I can't remember the Bengals ever paying top dollar for a guard.  If Zeitler is going to get big bucks it doesn't surprise me they will let him walk.  They have to sign Whitworth.  You can't go into the season knowing your QB is going to get killed by plugging in Oogie Boogie.  

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17 hours ago, SouthPaw said:

Very good, sensible, measured response.  You understand.  Thank you.  In other news....

 

The Cincinnati Enquirer's Paul Dehner "continue(s) to feel confident" the Bengals will not retain free agent RG Kevin Zeitler.

Based on what he's heard, Dehner expects the Bengals to prioritize re-signing free agent LT/LG Andrew Whitworth and let Zeitler walk. It's a curious approach -- to be kind -- considering Whitworth is in steep decline at age 35 while 27-year-old (in March) Zeitler is one of the best young guards in football. Dehner believes there's only a "30 percent chance" Zeitler returns to Cincinnati. Zeitler is Rotoworld's No. 1-rated free agent interior offensive lineman.
 
HMMMMM..............

Whit is in "Steep decline"????

Was he watching the same guy I was last year????

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23 minutes ago, Jason said:

Whit is in "Steep decline"????

Was he watching the same guy I was last year????

 

Yes and Zeitler is "one of the best (60) young guards in football", which must be why our interior OL look like refried shit all year.  Of course panic is pretty much the default setting for Bengals fandom.

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3 hours ago, T-Dub said:

 

Yes and Zeitler is "one of the best (60) young guards in football", which must be why our interior OL look like refried shit all year.  Of course panic is pretty much the default setting for Bengals fandom.

To be fair, he was between an improved Bodine (which still isn't good) and a walking turnstile for most of the season. He's a good RG, but he's probably going to get paid like an All-Pro when he isn't at that level.

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On 2/9/2017 at 11:15 AM, omgdrdoom said:

Let's be realistic. When do the Bengals fire coaches, assistants, or well...anybody?

The Bengals don't completely suck, everything they do isn't 100% incorrect, but it's a perfectly reasonable gripe that we have to expect more accountability in Cincinnati. Not every good organization runs around firing people left and right, but I don't think anyone is clamoring for that to happen here.

We have a head coach that has broken records of tenure without postseason success, we have assistants that have been here since what seems like the beginning of time, and we've seen some pretty damn lazy hires internally as of late. The Bengals give their staff more leeway than the average team, you aren't guaranteed to get fired if the position you're in charge of coaching has a couple below average years. It's just the way it works around here, it seems like the Bengals operate more like a family than a business. I don't believe it's one of the illegitimate things that fans tend to complain about, there are definitely arguments for hoping the team would be a bit more liberal with firing staff members.

You know it's harder to fire folks when you are losing them to promotions to higher positions.  In the last five years, we've had two guys leave to be D-Cords, and three to be head coaches,  plus we've turned almost every coaching position on the D side, as well as WRs, RBs, and QB in the last 5 or 6 years.  I wonder how many of you would like to work somewhere with the pressure of being fired over your head, the way you want it hanging over someone else's?

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On 2/10/2017 at 7:05 PM, Jamie_B said:

 

 


it means DeCastro....whom we could have drafted ...is the better guard

Sent from my SM-G920P using Go-Bengals.com mobile app
 

 

 

This is correct.

Whether he was actually the better prospect OR that he was developed better is something we'll never know though.

On 2/11/2017 at 0:28 PM, kennethmw said:

You know it's harder to fire folks when you are losing them to promotions to higher positions.  In the last five years, we've had two guys leave to be D-Cords, and three to be head coaches,  plus we've turned almost every coaching position on the D side, as well as WRs, RBs, and QB in the last 5 or 6 years.  I wonder how many of you would like to work somewhere with the pressure of being fired over your head, the way you want it hanging over someone else's?

It's awesome that the Bengals have a few "coaching tree" guys that are now HCs around the league, but can we not pretend that the Bengals organization with Mike Brown in charge has only been around for 5 years?

Listen, I don't think the Bengals should just start firing everybody left and right, I don't think they should clean house every time they miss the playoffs, I'm not one of those fans. I think my post was reasonably objective and thought out. It seems like you should be taking these kinds of arguments to the extreme fan that constantly complains for every coach we have to be fired anytime there's a rough patch of football.

Bengals coaches typically are given more rope than the average coach on the average team. Do you honestly disagree with that? I'm not even making that statement to belittle OR praise the team, it's just a general, objective look at the rate at which coaches get fired around here. There are arguments to be made on both sides of whether it's a good thing or not for coaches to get more comfortable without the fear of being fired constantly, but you can't really argue against the statement that we generally DON'T fire coaches that 90% of other good teams would. We just don't.

Marvin Lewis is the big name to talk about here (also happens to be who the thread is about). He's made history with tenure without postseason success. That's an indisputable fact. He would have been fired from 31 other NFL teams. Whether you love or hate Marvin, if you can take any realistic look at the situation here and remove yourself from Bengals bias for a minute, I'm sure you can acknowledge that 31 other teams would have fired the guy by now. It seems all we have left is to just say "omg it will be the 90's again if he leaves!!!" to somehow justify his current employment status.

Speaking of the 90's...why are there still ANY coaches around from a time period that is widely seen as one of the most embarrassing decades in all of sports history? Why? That has NOTHING to do with anyone leaving to become coordinators, NOTHING to do with anyone becoming head coaches, and NOTHING to do with turning over other position coaches recently.

The last question you ask is a dumb one, in my opinion. It's not like these guys got coaching jobs without knowing how coaching at the highest level works. Do you think I'd get a job in a specific field without understanding the job security? If you would jump into a specialized position without looking into the details of it first, that's on you. These guys know exactly what they got into, so no, I don't feel bad for any of them being fired when they don't do their job at the level their employer asks. If you're coaching in the NFL, you know what comes with the territory, period.

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On 2/11/2017 at 0:28 PM, kennethmw said:

You know it's harder to fire folks when you are losing them to promotions to higher positions.  In the last five years, we've had two guys leave to be D-Cords, and three to be head coaches,  plus we've turned almost every coaching position on the D side, as well as WRs, RBs, and QB in the last 5 or 6 years.  I wonder how many of you would like to work somewhere with the pressure of being fired over your head, the way you want it hanging over someone else's?

Most people do work in those environments, there called at will employment which means you can be fired at the will of your employer for whatever them deem necessary, as long as it isn't illegal. If you have a sales job and you consistently didn't meet your sales goal, eventually you would be fired. Same for CEO's, they understand the high pressure nature of the job and either they excel and exceed expectations or they get fired, it's the nature of the beast. 

If I consistently underperformed on my job wasn't able to achieve a level of success after that my organization is expecting me to reach after 15 years on the job, I would be fired as would most people employed in corporate America.

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On 2/10/2017 at 8:07 PM, Jamie_B said:

 


in addition to watching both play

Sent from my SM-G920P using Go-Bengals.com mobile app
 

 

Yeah... but that take is not in line with the rest of the NFL. Most sites rate DeCastro and Zeitler right around the same. DeCastro with a better run block, Zeitler better in pass pro. Kevin Zeitler was the only RG in 2015 with 500 or more pass-blocks and no sacks allowed (per PFF). Pretty incredible stat. He also has not missed a snap for the Bengals in 6 years. Durability is worth something.

http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/07/13/nfl-position-rankings-guards-marshal-yanda-trai-turner

Zeitler #8, DeCastro #9.


However, that's  not the issue - The issue is that this is Zeitler's contract year, not DeCastro's. And right now, if you have a hole on the line, you're willing to pay Zeitler. Much like Dre Kirkpatrick is going to get paid less because there's a ton of good CB's in FA this year, Zeitler is going to benefit from the guard class being thin. Google the news on him, and about half of the league is licking their chops hoping to get him. 

That said, we paid the guy $8M for last season already. So, don't forget to factor that into your cap numbers. We could probably resign him for last year's cap plus Domata Peko. (Or Maualuga, or Vinny Rey, or...) Call me crazy, but I'd take Zeitler over Westerman and Peko. (DeCastro signed for 5 years, $50M. Should be a ballpark figure...) It is incredible to me, when I look at the cap numbers, Adam Jones is our 4th highest paid player. We have $44M in cap space, 12th in the league, and 4 roster spots to fill. If you factor out previous year adjustments (Cleveland is carrying $50M of cap space forward from last year!) we're in an even better position. Previous year adjustments don't help you fit multi-year deals under your cap.

Chances are that Zeitler will command a hefty salary this offseason. I hesitate to use the term "more than he's worth", but more than he would get in a more crowded market. The Bengals have already gone through a round of negotiations with him last year and he's still not signed. My big concern is that a team like Cleveland will throw crazy money at him. Like, how do you even start spending $110M in cap space with 65 guys already on the roster? They could be in a good position to offer him a big chunk up front too.

IMHO - There's a reason that he's going to get big money, and it's because quality guards don't grow on trees. If it was as easy to move an underperforming tackle or just draft a guy in the 4th round as some might think, teams would do that instead. If he's less than $11M a year, we'd be insane to let him go.
 

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9 hours ago, LostInDaJungle said:

Yeah... but that take is not in line with the rest of the NFL. Most sites rate DeCastro and Zeitler right around the same. DeCastro with a better run block, Zeitler better in pass pro. Kevin Zeitler was the only RG in 2015 with 500 or more pass-blocks and no sacks allowed (per PFF). Pretty incredible stat. He also has not missed a snap for the Bengals in 6 years. Durability is worth something.

http://www.si.com/nfl/2016/07/13/nfl-position-rankings-guards-marshal-yanda-trai-turner

Zeitler #8, DeCastro #9.


However, that's  not the issue - The issue is that this is Zeitler's contract year, not DeCastro's. And right now, if you have a hole on the line, you're willing to pay Zeitler. Much like Dre Kirkpatrick is going to get paid less because there's a ton of good CB's in FA this year, Zeitler is going to benefit from the guard class being thin. Google the news on him, and about half of the league is licking their chops hoping to get him. 

That said, we paid the guy $8M for last season already. So, don't forget to factor that into your cap numbers. We could probably resign him for last year's cap plus Domata Peko. (Or Maualuga, or Vinny Rey, or...) Call me crazy, but I'd take Zeitler over Westerman and Peko. (DeCastro signed for 5 years, $50M. Should be a ballpark figure...) It is incredible to me, when I look at the cap numbers, Adam Jones is our 4th highest paid player. We have $44M in cap space, 12th in the league, and 4 roster spots to fill. If you factor out previous year adjustments (Cleveland is carrying $50M of cap space forward from last year!) we're in an even better position. Previous year adjustments don't help you fit multi-year deals under your cap.

Chances are that Zeitler will command a hefty salary this offseason. I hesitate to use the term "more than he's worth", but more than he would get in a more crowded market. The Bengals have already gone through a round of negotiations with him last year and he's still not signed. My big concern is that a team like Cleveland will throw crazy money at him. Like, how do you even start spending $110M in cap space with 65 guys already on the roster? They could be in a good position to offer him a big chunk up front too.

IMHO - There's a reason that he's going to get big money, and it's because quality guards don't grow on trees. If it was as easy to move an underperforming tackle or just draft a guy in the 4th round as some might think, teams would do that instead. If he's less than $11M a year, we'd be insane to let him go.
 

I appreciate the assessment, nice to see some well thought out posts. I agree with some parts and believe others are flawed.

1. Your article trying to prove them as equals is from the summer of 2016. There have been 16+ NFL games played by each of these guys since then, and DeCastro has solidified himself as a top tier NFL RG over the last couple of seasons. 1 writer's opinion on Sports Illustrated doesn't change that. You claim "most sites rate DeCastro and Zeitler right around the same", so let's see those sites. One guy has had a 1st team and 2nd team All-Pro nod in 2015 and 2016 respectively, and the other guy hasn't made an All-Pro team in his career. Also, that no sacks allowed is subjective. There's another analytics website that gave Zeitler 2 sacks in 2015. That number is huge because according to PFF, he had given up less than DeCastro, according to STATS (per your link) he was given 2, which is more than DeCastro in 2015. I'd like to all of your sources that are "in line with the NFL" and "most sites" having them rated as near equal guards.

2. Zeitler is absolutely THE hot commodity of the entire OL UFA list. I agree with you there. What do you mean by "don't forget to factor that into your cap numbers" when regarding the $8 million though? I'm not sure what you're trying to suggest with that. Our cap space available is what it currently is right now, that money is already off the books. It's already factoring into what everybody knows about our cap space. We have about $45 million available and the only way we have more is if we cut guys that you mentioned like Pacman and Maualuga loose. If I missed your point, I apologize, but it didn't seem clear as to why you'd mention it as if that $8 million we paid last year is relevant in 2017 going forward.

3. $45 million isn't a ton of cap space when you have players to pay, and we certainly have more than 4 roster spots to fill. LT, NT, WR2, CB1, SAM, RG, RT2, ST captain, 3 rotational d-linemen, and RB3 are all free agents this year. That's not even getting to how the Bengals like to extend their top guys ahead of time with Hill, Eifert, and Burfict all to be considered for extensions over the next year. The Bengals ALWAYS keep money for a "just in case" due to injuries, so put away a few million for that. Rookies need signed, you have to figure at least 4 will be in our top 51 for cap purposes with 1 of them being a top 10 pick. There's an easy $5+ million to put away right there. Whoever we don't re-sign has a hole to fill, plus are you really content with rolling into this coming season with the identical roster that we just missed the playoffs for the first time in 6 years with? I'm not. Changes need to be made. We need to see a couple of outside FAs brought in, and those guys cost money even if it's just a couple million here and couple million there. I'm not trying to sound like Geoff Hobspin here, but $45 million isn't nearly infinite money when you're dealing with an offseason with 3 of your better players becoming UFAs, at least 1 or 2 guys needing extensions, and fielding a roster that missed the playoffs with obvious holes in it.

4. I agree with basically everything I didn't touch in those points. Zeitler is going to get PAID, whether it's by us or not. That's kind of why I feel like it's not going to be us. You mentioned that we've gone through a round of negotiations with him already so it's clear we don't want to give him what he wants. It takes 2 to tango, so I don't think we see Zeitler in stripes next year even if we offer him a "fair" contract. Cleveland, as you said, could easily throw a truck of money at him and have a huge guarantee attached. There are other guard needy teams with cap space as well. It's definitely not as easy as moving a young tackle or drafting a guy late to fill the hole, but what do you honestly think the Bengals are going to do once Zeitler walks? You already mentioned how the guard pool is thin this offseason, so unless we go RG in rounds 1-2, look out for a youngster on the roster to take his spot or for the team to try to shift guys around on the line like Jake Fisher. I'm not saying that's what I WANT to happen, just what I can see coming once we let Zeitler walk. Regardless of that 1 guy in Sports Illustrated a year ago saying Zeitler and DeCastro are on the same page, I don't think Zeitler is DeCastro's equal, but in this current market I'm not going to be surprised to see him land a bigger contract. The kid is definitely a great player and has a lot of upside as he's still young, it'll suck to see the 1 side of our line become Bodine, ???, Ogbuehi.

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