sparky151

Getting doubled up by the Browns is embarrassing.

They clearly didn't want to pay Higgins. They tagged him but didn't negotiate an extension with him so it was supposed to be a 1 year rental. They had drafted Yoshi as his replacement, a tall, fast guy who plays outside. Then Burton as well. Then GM Burrow intervened and Tee became a package deal with Ja'marr.

Yeah, I bet the league is a bit sheepish about this one. The highly rated owners aren't complaining about the union scoring them. So a few cheapo or incompetent owners pushed for this and the rest went along to shut them up.

That grievance isn't going anywhere but it's a good opportunity to mock the owners pushing it. Woody Johnson, Mike Bidwill, Mike Brown, et al.

How can the head coach evade all responsibility for a terrible defense? This is the 3rd year in a row it's gotten worse.

Nah. They dragged their feet on extending Chase and Higgins last year, not in hopes they would get cheaper as time went by but to remove any pressure to bring in good players from other teams. They could have gotten those deals done 3 weeks earlier but then people would expect them to spend to the cap at the opening of free agency and they don't want to do that.

I think those chances are if we win the final 5 games in addition to 1 of the next 3. That would get us to 9-8. Needless to say, winning the final 5 games isn't a given. The Athletic's model gives the Bengals a less than 1% chance of making the playoffs.

At least Lee was a 7th round flyer. Ogbuehi was a first rounder who they thought had "fallen" due to his injury history.

Lee was highly rated by Gridiron Grading and I think also by Goodberry and Liscow. That's probably driving the fan interest in him. He played 5 years in college so by the end he was facing guys 2 or 3 years younger and dominating them. But he wasn't able to bulk up much so he's light by NFL standards. Might be a high floor-low ceiling prospect. But he has great tape and tested well athletically so let's see what he can do.

Rapoport said the best offer for Trey was a 4th rounder.

It's their idea of a "value" pick, buying from the scratch and dent bin without wondering why other teams passed on him several times.

He's sort of the anti-Stewart, lots of college production. I think he's worth a flyer.

It's not just a drafting problem, they have a pro personnel evaluation problem. There were plenty of middle class free agents available last year who could have been signed for under $10 mil each and who would be upgrades over our current roster. Bengals spent about $25 mil for Ossai, Slaton, and Hill. But being proactive early in free agency goes against their preferences. Building the best roster they can isn't actually a priority for the team. They probably have operating profits in the 50-100 mil per year range. For a 4 billion dollar business, that's not a lot. But they also get several hundred million dollars a year in unrealized capital gains on the value of the franchise. Yes, the Bengals are probably the most comparable team to Green Bay. It's the smallest market in the league but likely has higher revenues than the Bengals. The Packers pay for their stadium improvements while the Bengals get publicly subsidized. Yeah, the Brown family are beneficiaries of socialism. They certainly aren't capitalist "creative destructors" building something new.

Yeah, the next Bengals HC should be a defensive specialist who gives his OC a free hand.

Frankie Luvu did a hip drop yesterday for the Commanders and got fined $100K, his 3rd of the season.