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5 Moves (Barnwell)


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http://www.espn.com/nfl/story/_/page/Barnwell5Moves2017AFCN/bill-barnwell-five-moves-afc-north-team-make-2017-nfl-offseason

1. Re-sign O-linemen Andrew Whitworth and Kevin Zeitler.The Bengals had one of the best offensive lines in football during their standout 2015 campaign. Last season, the line slipped, owing mostly to dismal play at right tackle. 2015 first-rounder Cedric Ogbuehi was a mess in his debut season as a starter, and it was telling that the Bengals frequently went to veteran Eric Winston as his replacement in lieu of 2015 second-rounder Jake Fisher. With a quarterback as sensitive to pressure as Andy Dalton, the Bengals can't afford to skimp on their offensive line.

 

 

Whitworth and Zeitler were the best parts of the Cincinnati offensive line last year, and they're both unrestricted free agents. The Bengals unquestionably drafted Ogbuehi to be their left tackle of the future and take over for the 35-year-old Whitworth. So far, it hasn't worked. It's dangerous to assume Whitworth will continue to play like an upper-echelon left tackle, but right now, the Bengals don't really have much of a choice but to believe. The Bengals might not want to commit a lot of money to guards after signing Clint Boling to an extension, but unless they think Fisher will settle inside, there isn't an obvious replacement for Zeitler on the roster.

2. Bring back CB Dre Kirkpatrick. The Bengals have two first-rounders already at cornerback in Darqueze Dennard and William Jackson III, but Dennard has struggled mightily early in his career, while Jackson missed his entire rookie year. Marvin Lewis also loves to bring his corners along slowly and plays in a division with the Stealers, so the Bengals need all the cornerbacks they can get. Kirkpatrick has been inconsistent, but he also has been the best cornerback the Bengals have had the past two seasons. They might also move on from Adam Jones, who was charged with felony harassment this offseason. Cutting Jones would free $6.3 million in cap space, though the Bengals already have $45 million in room heading into the offseason.

3. Lock up TE Tyler Eifert. The former Notre Dame star is in the fifth-year option of his rookie deal, and while he'll still be a bargain at $4.8 million, Cincinnati will face a conundrum after this year. Eifert produces like a superstar when he's on the field, but injuries have compromised his value. He has missed 27 games in his first four seasons in the NFL, 26 of which have come over the past three years.

Tight end Tyler Eifert comes with injury concerns ... and undeniable talent. Andrew Weber/Getty Images

The closest comparison to Eifert would be Travis Kelce, who has stayed relatively healthy while having the specter of rookie-year microfracture surgery hanging over his future. Kelce signed a five-year, $46.8 million deal with the Chiefs before his fourth season. That included $21 million in new money over the first three years of his contract. Eifert likely will be looking for something in that range. The Bengals would pay $28 million or so over that time frame if they went year-to-year with Eifert while losing the ability to use the franchise tag on someone else. It's difficult to commit long term to a player with Eifert's injury history, but Cincinnati really has no choice but to give him two guaranteed years as part of a multiyear deal.

4. Address the defensive line in the draft. In a draft that seems relatively deep with contributors up front, the Bengals are probably best using their draft resources on pieces along the defensive line. Both starting defensive tackle Domata Peko and rotation lineman Margus Hunt are free agents, and though the Bengals can still bring either one back, it's probably time to start refreshing the well behind the big three of Geno AtkinsCarlos Dunlap and Michael Johnson. With Cincinnati expected to pocket four compensatory picks in this year's draft, the Bengals can replenish some of the weaker spots on their roster.

5. Target some of the wide receivers released by other teams. The Bengals are set with a top wideout in A.J. Green, and Tyler Boyd showed some promise as a rookie, but the team began to look pretty limited on offense last year with Green injured and Eifert less than 100 percent. The Bengals are famously loath to target free agents and cost themselves compensatory picks, but they can go after wideouts who were released by other teams without running the risk of losing any selections.

Will any of those guys be useful? Perhaps. Danny Amendola, Mike Wallace and Torrey Smith could all be cap casualties, but the one to look out for is the same player I suggested might make sense for the Ravens: Brandon Marshall. The Bengals have taken plenty of chances on players who have worn out their welcomes in previous destinations, and Marshall would be a huge upgrade over Brandon LaFell. If the Jets choose to move on from Marshall after two seasons, the Bengals could justify making a rare plunge into the free-agent market.

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Agree with 1, 2 and 4 if they can make the money work. If it costs over $30M+ combined for those 3, cap gets pretty tight.

Wouldn't mind #3, but I think Burfict should be the extension priority over Eifert if we can only do one deal this offseason. Both are in the final year of their deals, but Burfict has been more valuable. The Franchise tag is also going to be ~$15M at LB (due to the 3-4 pass rushers) while the tag at TE should be quite a bit cheaper. 

Completely disagree with #5. An old, head case WR like Marshall would be the last type of guy I'd spend on. We can get WRs with speed in the draft and LaFell was a solid secondary option who should be brought back over some other vet.

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Lol. Brandon Marshall is 1 year removed from putting up 1,500 yards and 14 TDs with Ryan Fitzpatrick at QB. He's going to be more expensive than the type of free agents we go after.

Another LaFell-esque 1-2 year "prove it" deal for a cap casualty under $3 million per year seems to be where we'll end up again. LaFell will likely get a pay raise by another team for having a solid 2016 and we aren't paying Brandon Marshall what he's going to want even if it's just a 1 year rental.

I agree with the article that signing our 3 top UFAs should be a big deal, we have some huge holes if we don't re-sign even 1 of them, and looks like Zeitler is most likely to be the odd man out.

Definitely agree with you about Burfict being much more important than Eifert to lock up long term. He's extremely valuable, especially at a position that we're weak at as a whole. It would be nice to see Eifert stay healthy for more than 5 minutes before inking him to a big guaranteed contract.

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12 minutes ago, MichaelWeston said:

Instead signing a LaFell like player. WHY NOT just sign LaFell who already knows the offense

He may have priced himself out from the Bengals showing that he's a capable receiver if put into the right system. I wish they'd have come to terms on a 2-3 year deal last offseason instead of just 1 for this exact situation. LaFell may have been the one that wanted it to be just a 1 year contract though.

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43 minutes ago, happyrid said:

The Franchise tag is also going to be ~$15M at LB (due to the 3-4 pass rushers) while the tag at TE should be quite a bit cheaper. 

The article itself says that we could go year-to-year with Eifert for only slightly more than what he'd ask for a long-term contract. I don't think that the inability to use the franchise tag in those years is a big deal. I like Eifert just fine, but the reality is that he hasn't played all 16 games in any of the 4 seasons we've had him. Over the past 3 years, he's played in less than 50% of our games. (22 out of 48)

He's coming off back surgery this year. Before that it was neck, elbow, ankle... To be kind, the guy is snakebit. How long before all of these things add up to a guy who just can't play anymore?

I'd much rather see him prove he can stay on the field for 16 games before making him the highest paid TE in the game. It's not like his price goes through the roof even if he has a great year.

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36 minutes ago, omgdrdoom said:

He may have priced himself out from the Bengals showing that he's a capable receiver if put into the right system. I wish they'd have come to terms on a 2-3 year deal last offseason instead of just 1 for this exact situation. LaFell may have been the one that wanted it to be just a 1 year contract though.

I think that it is in LaFell's best interest to come back to the Bengals unless the money is significantly better somewhere else.  He has a chance to shed the journey-man label and stick in Cincy as a core part of the offense.  He has already proven that he can be successful here.  If he leaves he will enter an unknown situation and further solidify himself as a career journey-man.  

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11 minutes ago, BlackBengal said:

I think that it is in LaFell's best interest to come back to the Bengals unless the money is significantly better somewhere else.  He has a chance to shed the journey-man label and stick in Cincy as a core part of the offense.  He has already proven that he can be successful here.  If he leaves he will enter an unknown situation and further solidify himself as a career journey-man.  

I'm thinking he tests the market to see what other teams will offer. I could be wrong but I don't think he'll sign a 3+ year deal here on the cheap-ish until he sees what else is out there. It's all about the guaranteed money nowadays so if a team throws a few bucks to him that the Bengals aren't offering, I could see him leaving over a small difference in annual average salary.

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8 hours ago, LostInDaJungle said:

The article itself says that we could go year-to-year with Eifert for only slightly more than what he'd ask for a long-term contract. I don't think that the inability to use the franchise tag in those years is a big deal. I like Eifert just fine, but the reality is that he hasn't played all 16 games in any of the 4 seasons we've had him. Over the past 3 years, he's played in less than 50% of our games. (22 out of 48)

He's coming off back surgery this year. Before that it was neck, elbow, ankle... To be kind, the guy is snakebit. How long before all of these things add up to a guy who just can't play anymore?

I'd much rather see him prove he can stay on the field for 16 games before making him the highest paid TE in the game. It's not like his price goes through the roof even if he has a great year.

Agreed. I would rather go year to year on Eifert than on Burfict.

Need to get the Burfict deal done this offseason. I'm fine with an Eifert extension if it's relatively team friendly, but it wouldn't be a top priority.

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Agree with 1, 2 and 4 if they can make the money work. If it costs over $30M+ combined for those 3, cap gets pretty tight.
Wouldn't mind #3, but I think Burfict should be the extension priority over Eifert if we can only do one deal this offseason. Both are in the final year of their deals, but Burfict has been more valuable. The Franchise tag is also going to be ~$15M at LB (due to the 3-4 pass rushers) while the tag at TE should be quite a bit cheaper. 
Completely disagree with #5. An old, head case WR like Marshall would be the last type of guy I'd spend on. We can get WRs with speed in the draft and LaFell was a solid secondary option who should be brought back over some other vet.


Lafell was garbage had less than 400 yards in 10 games including 4 games with a combined 32 yards. That's horrible. Meanwhile Marshall is one year removed from a 1500 yard season and 2300 over the last 2 years. Give me him over lafell any day of the weak and twice on Sunday. Heck give me any number 2 over lafell. As far as eifert or burfict, those are our only 2 big free agents next year we really don't have anyone else next year. But I would resign eifert this year. Burfict is a pariah nobody wants him between his injuries and on field play they won't risk it. Also burfict is like paulie g son they love each other and he has a guaranteed coaching job after his career. He's not going anywhere. I would resign eifert bc you can get him for 6-7 per year now but next year if he stays healthy it will be more like 10-11 million.

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The article itself says that we could go year-to-year with Eifert for only slightly more than what he'd ask for a long-term contract. I don't think that the inability to use the franchise tag in those years is a big deal. I like Eifert just fine, but the reality is that he hasn't played all 16 games in any of the 4 seasons we've had him. Over the past 3 years, he's played in less than 50% of our games. (22 out of 48)

He's coming off back surgery this year. Before that it was neck, elbow, ankle... To be kind, the guy is snakebit. How long before all of these things add up to a guy who just can't play anymore?

I'd much rather see him prove he can stay on the field for 16 games before making him the highest paid TE in the game. It's not like his price goes through the roof even if he has a great year.

He will get gronnk 11-13 if he stays healthy and has another 13 tds or so. Lock him up now when u can get him for 7

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I think that it is in LaFell's best interest to come back to the Bengals unless the money is significantly better somewhere else.  He has a chance to shed the journey-man label and stick in Cincy as a core part of the offense.  He has already proven that he can be successful here.  If he leaves he will enter an unknown situation and further solidify himself as a career journey-man.  

He has not proven he can be successful. He has proven he can get yards when aj is out. That's it. An average of 9 yards per game for half the games that aj was in? Come on. And that's when u were the second option. What happens when he's the third?

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Agreed. I would rather go year to year on Eifert than on Burfict.
Need to get the Burfict deal done this offseason. I'm fine with an Eifert extension if it's relatively team friendly, but it wouldn't be a top priority.

I would rather be eifert at 7 million. Burfict isn't leaving we all know that.

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5 hours ago, Jpoore said:


He has not proven he can be successful. He has proven he can get yards when aj is out. That's it. An average of 9 yards per game for half the games that aj was in? Come on. And that's when u were the second option. What happens when he's the third?

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8 hours ago, Jpoore said:


He will get gronnk 11-13 if he stays healthy and has another 13 tds or so. Lock him up now when u can get him for 7

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If you check the rumormill, the Bengals are already going to need to make Eifert one of the top paid TE's in the game just to get a long term extension done.

Specifically, Spotrac estimates Eifert's value at five years, $46,970,202, with an average yearly salary of $9,394,040. The Franchise tag for a TE is $9.8 Million.

If he stays healthy... Past performance and future results. Eifert's injury history looks like a game of Operation. Smart money would be on him being injured again this year. If not, you Franchise the guy. If he plays all 16 for 2 years straight, give him Gronk money. 

The risk-reward scenario is this: You either have to make room for a superstar in 2 or 3 years, or you take a chance on having $10M in cap space eaten up by a guy who isn't on the field for a long time.

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8 hours ago, Jpoore said:

 


Lafell was garbage had less than 400 yards in 10 games including 4 games with a combined 32 yards. That's horrible. Meanwhile Marshall is one year removed from a 1500 yard season and 2300 over the last 2 years. Give me him over lafell any day of the weak and twice on Sunday. Heck give me any number 2 over lafell. As far as eifert or burfict, those are our only 2 big free agents next year we really don't have anyone else next year. But I would resign eifert this year. Burfict is a pariah nobody wants him between his injuries and on field play they won't risk it. Also burfict is like paulie g son they love each other and he has a guaranteed coaching job after his career. He's not going anywhere. I would resign eifert bc you can get him for 6-7 per year now but next year if he stays healthy it will be more like 10-11 million.

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Sporting Charts has LaFell at 64 receptions, 107 targets, and 1 drop. FBO has him with 3 drops. That's as good or better than the top WRs in the league. He's very sure handed. LaFell didn't fumble in 2016. The dude runs solid routes and doesn't need to be burning DBs to catch passes. He ranked 22nd in both of FBO's DVOA and DYAR statistics, and that's out of 93 qualified WRs from 2016. So he ranked higher in those advanced metrics than some team's WR1 to put that into perspective.

You run around every Bengals message board bashing LaFell with that stupid stat about 4 games with a combined 32 yards. First of all, that's not even accurate. Do you mean to say he's had 4 games EACH having 32 yards or less? That's accurate, so you should start saying that instead. Anyway, would you like some context to those numbers or does context not matter? In 1 of those games, Eifert and Green both completely went off and combined for almost 20 receptions, multiple TDs, and accounted for almost all of the team's receiving yards by themselves. In 2 of those games, Andy barely threw for 200 yards TOTAL in each game and barely completed half of his passes. Should we just ignore the context of a QB having a rough game or two when looking at basic receiving statistics?

#1 WRs "disappear" sometimes. #2 WRs "disappear" even more often because they're usually not as centralized to a team's game plan. It's the NFL, it happens. Sometimes guys aren't getting the targets because yes, they aren't open. Other times it's the gameplan. Go watch the All 22 tape from 2016 on LaFell and then tell me how much "garbage" he was.

Julio Jones had 4 games with 35 yards or less in 2016. He's garbage, sad!

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Sporting Charts has LaFell at 64 receptions, 107 targets, and 1 drop. FBO has him with 3 drops. That's as good or better than the top WRs in the league. He's very sure handed. LaFell didn't fumble in 2016. The dude runs solid routes and doesn't need to be burning DBs to catch passes. He ranked 22nd in both of FBO's DVOA and DYAR statistics, and that's out of 93 qualified WRs from 2016. So he ranked higher in those advanced metrics than some team's WR1 to put that into perspective.
You run around every Bengals message board bashing LaFell with that stupid stat about 4 games with a combined 32 yards. First of all, that's not even accurate. Do you mean to say he's had 4 games EACH having 32 yards or less? That's accurate, so you should start saying that instead. Anyway, would you like some context to those numbers or does context not matter? In 1 of those games, Eifert and Green both completely went off and combined for almost 20 receptions, multiple TDs, and accounted for almost all of the team's receiving yards by themselves. In 2 of those games, Andy barely threw for 200 yards TOTAL in each game and barely completed half of his passes. Should we just ignore the context of a QB having a rough game or two when looking at basic receiving statistics?
#1 WRs "disappear" sometimes. #2 WRs "disappear" even more often because they're usually not as centralized to a team's game plan. It's the NFL, it happens. Sometimes guys aren't getting the targets because yes, they aren't open. Other times it's the gameplan. Go watch the All 22 tape from 2016 on LaFell and then tell me how much "garbage" he was.
Julio Jones had 4 games with 35 yards or less in 2016. He's garbage, sad!

No I'm saying he had 4 games with a combined 32 yards. As in he averaged 8 yards per game. So ur saying bc eifert and green go off or bc Andy has a bad game he can't get more than 9 yards? That's bs. He also doesn't go up for passes like a number 2 does. Show me one play all season where he went up over a corner to catch a pass. Go ahead I'll wait.

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If you check the rumormill, the Bengals are already going to need to make Eifert one of the top paid TE's in the game just to get a long term extension done.

Specifically, Spotrac estimates Eifert's value at five years, $46,970,202, with an average yearly salary of $9,394,040. The Franchise tag for a TE is $9.8 Million.

If he stays healthy... Past performance and future results. Eifert's injury history looks like a game of Operation. Smart money would be on him being injured again this year. If not, you Franchise the guy. If he plays all 16 for 2 years straight, give him Gronk money. 

The risk-reward scenario is this: You either have to make room for a superstar in 2 or 3 years, or you take a chance on having $10M in cap space eaten up by a guy who isn't on the field for a long time.

See I think if u get a deal done now when he's missed over 50 percent of his games u can get him for 6-7 million. The Bengals can point to that when doing contract negotiations. Bc they won't offer him a mega contract.

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10 minutes ago, Jpoore said:


No I'm saying he had 4 games with a combined 32 yards. As in he averaged 8 yards per game. So ur saying bc eifert and green go off or bc Andy has a bad game he can't get more than 9 yards? That's bs. He also doesn't go up for passes like a number 2 does. Show me one play all season where he went up over a corner to catch a pass. Go ahead I'll wait.

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Don't wait too long.... 

 

 

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You can't penalize a dude for consistently getting under the secondary and gaining separation on DBs. You just can't. I couldn't give a fuck less if he doesn't have a bunch of contested catches since he's finding ways to get open. You have to realize getting that half step or more on a CB/S in huge in the NFL where every single second counts. There are some very nice catches in that video, but again, you should really watch the All 22 and check out what he's doing on a lot of his routes if you think he's "garbage".

Stop saying he had 32 yards in 4 combined games. He didn't. What planet are you living on where you repeat the same incorrect statistic over and over on multiple boards? Stop it.

Why did you ignore my comment about Julio Jones? He had 1 reception on 7 targets for 16 yards in a game last year. He had 2 rec, 29 yards in a game. 3 rec, 29 yards. 4 rec, 35 yards. If it's "bullshit" and "garbage" for Brandon LaFell to have low yardage games, then what the fuck is it when the guy considered to be the best WR in the entire NFL has low yardage games? Shouldn't we be holding Julio to a higher standard or nah because that wouldn't fit the narrative?

Yes. The QB's performance and other WR/TE/RB performance can absolutely, unequivocally have a HUGE impact on a WR2's statistics. If you say otherwise, then you clearly don't belong in this conversation.

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24 minutes ago, Jpoore said:


See I think if u get a deal done now when he's missed over 50 percent of his games u can get him for 6-7 million. The Bengals can point to that when doing contract negotiations. Bc they won't offer him a mega contract.

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His agent is going to take $20 million less over 5 years instead of waiting for Free Agency? Where are you hearing that Eifert would re-sign for 7 Million because he knows he's damaged goods?

And frankly, if Eifert's thought process is "I'm going to be injured a lot over the next few years, might as well take a discount..." Is he someone you want to sign long term?

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