sparky151

Well said. The team should try to fill as many holes as possible ahead of the draft. Zac Taylor claims the priority this offseason will be getting off to a better start at the beginning of the season. But Tobin and Blackburn's personnel plan seems to amount to "Rookies, come save us". That's incoherent. Dehner had a piece today about how they were piling it all on Golden to get improvement from last year's younger players. It looks like Hope is their strategy. We signed him to a 1 year deal last offseason so he's a free agent now. Not sure if he's retiring or planning to continue playing. We haven't yet replaced him as the veteran swing tackle. Yeah, our front office look like idiots. The CBA gives teams a pool of money to pay the players and all they really have to do is decide on how much of the pie each player gets. Other teams do it without much trouble but not Duke and Katie. No, if a player gets hurt during the season the team can put him on IR or release him with an injury settlement. If Moss had guaranteed money for 2025, the team would still owe him that (typically subject to offset) if they cut him. But he doesn't have any guarantees for 2025 so he can be released with no cap consequences other than some dead money from his signing bonus. He got 3 mil last year so 1.5 mil in dead money and 3.316 mil in net cap savings if cut.

By the time a player reaches free agency, he's at least 4 years out of college. And if he disdains the Cincinnati night life scene, he can spend the offseason in South Beach. Plenty of guys do that including Tee and Ja'Mar. Almost all the time, getting a player comes down to offering the most money. The Bengals weren't going to shop the top shelf of free agency. Nobody thought we'd be adding Milton Williams or doing a tag and trade deal for Trey Smith. But we certainly didn't need to resign 3 D-linemen from a bad D-line. We could have already re-signed Higgins, Chase, and Hendrickson. The longer the team waits, the more they will cost. It looks like the Bengals are trying to sign Teven Jenkins, who also has interest from the Giants and Seahawks. Great, getr done. Or if they are hoping he drops his price (he won't with 3 teams after him), then move on to Dalton Risner or Brandon Scherff or Will Hernandez. They could certainly sign Risner+Hernandez for less than Volson+Cappa were scheduled to make in 2025. Take the win and move on, even if you don't get better players like Jenkins and Scherff. Higgins and Chase want to play in Cincinnati. They know their market value, the Bengals just don't want to pay it, despite their lip service to the contrary.

The GM quote about a 1st being "ridiculous" probably comes from a team interested in acquiring Trey. A neutral GM whose team wasn't looking to acquire more pass rush would probably just say it's a big ask but not unreasonable, especially if there are multiple suitors. Another piece in The Athletic today said that almost any team would give a 2nd rounder for Trey. So he's worth pick 33 but not pick 32. At this point a trade looks unlikely unless the trade partner includes an impact defensive player. So the Bengals should just extend Trey. Give him say a 5 year 170 mil extension with 25 mil signing bonus and 50 mil guaranteed. That's a new money average of 34 mil per year and with his current year included would be 6 years, 186 mil or 31 on average. Make his 2025 salary the vet min so with the signing bonus he collects 26 mil this season, about 10 more than he would currently make. Pay him 24 mil next year, fully guaranteed. That completes his 50 mil in guarantees, and after that it's year by year so if the team wants to move on after 2026 or 2027, they will save quite a bit of cap space. If he keeps playing at a high level, great.

Yeah, it takes a relative of the owner to screw this up so badly. Tee publicly said he would have signed last year for the contract that Michael Pittman got from the Colts (3/70). Chase said he'd take the Jefferson contract plus a dollar last year. Now the Bengals will probably pay them a combined 12 mil per year more and take months to do it. People make fun of Woody Johnson's teenage kids having influence in the organization. Katie deserves just as much mockery.

Katie in action in 2009. https://x.com/JoeGoodberry/status/1900031898904129630 https://x.com/i/status/1900031898904129630

Of course they can cut him now without owing him any more money. He doesn't need to pass a physical. See Minshew, who failed a physical with the Raiders last week and signed with the Chiefs this week.

Then they are compounding error. Moss has a neck injury. That's not a good one for an RB to have. We can replace him easily enough on day 3 of the draft or in free agency. No reason to have him hanging around, let someone else give him a chance or let him get on with his life's work.

Trading Trey at this point means throwing in the towel on having even a merely below average defense this season. It frees up some cap space and gets us a draft pick or two. But it doesn't get us a replacement who can reach double digit sacks this season. If we were going to trade Trey it needed to be worked out before Monday when teams started committing their cap space and potential replacements starting signing elsewhere.

Yeah, it sort of shows how limited the Bengals pro personnel department is. Apparently they don't have someone to grade every player on every play on other teams. They could use PFF or ESPN advanced stats as a bare minimum. What they proclaimed as the most important offseason in team history has been a flop thus far. At most, we've upgraded the NT position despite entering free agency with 40 mil in cap space. Otherwise we are just paying the same guys more money and hoping for better results. That isn't a recipe for success.

Yeah, it's so confusing. Nobody could expect them to work it all out in only 2 months.

Yes, Slaton was a much better signing than Hill, Ossai, or Sample.

Well, the insanely low price is the source of his disgruntlement. If the Bengals had moved at the end of the regular season, I think he'd have taken 2/50 on an extension with 15 mil signing bonus and been happy. Now he wants 30+ per year with 20+ in signing bonus. The team could easily structure a deal with a nominal value of 32 mil per year but backloaded to the point he's only here 2 or 3 more years before the big numbers kick in. It would satisfy his ego for a big headline number and increase his cashflow this year with the signing bonus. Bengals could even give him a minimal salary for this season to lower his cap number and increase roster flexibility. But they won't do that because it's not their style.

Yeah, any rookie picked after round 2 is unlikely to start right away. And the Bengals don't have a good draft history. So there's that. At this point in free agency, there are lots of inexpensive players left but not many difference makers. The Bengals guards were so bad last year that there are upgrade options. Bengals have around 25 mil in cap space to spend, though they can easily create more. Adding, say Risner, Hernandez, Calais Campbell, and Kyzir White should be affordable and doable. Maybe throw in JK Dobbins or Jed Wills too. Cutting Moss would pay for Dobbins. Cutting Volson would mostly pay for Risner or Hernandez. Cutting Pratt would pay for White. It's not really that hard. The players want clarity as much as the fans and the best deal they can get. If they were in demand, they'd already have been signed.

Yeah, if he's worth a big contract, he's worth fair trade compensation. Other teams are acting like the Bengals are under pressure to trade Trey when their preference is to keep him. So he won't get dumped. Five days ago was the time to work out a trade, now it's basically too late unless there is a good player coming back to the Bengals.

I think Trey is the most likely to hold out. Tee is unsigned but will most likely sign the tender after July 15 if they don't give him a longterm deal. Asking for a 1st round pick for the league's sack leader and DPOY runner up from a team wanting to pay him 30+ mil per year isn't ridiculous. It may be more than any team will give up and no trade happens but it's not an unrealistic ask. It's probably too late to make a deal now since the Bengals won't be able to sign a good replacement with the money saved.

Yeah, it's fine to have alternatives but the team should know the asking price for the starting caliber players they are interested in. If they value say Risner at 5 mil and he's asking for 7, they should pay him 7. It's less than Cappa made and he's a substantial upgrade over what we have now. Likewise if Jenkins wants 14 and they want him because he's a better run blocker than Risner, then pay up. It's much better to get a good player, even if you have to pay a mil or more than you'd like, than to miss out at the position and have to draft starters. The team can easily create cap space by restructuring Burrow or signing properly structured extensions with Tee, Ja'Marr, and Trey. We're ok at DB going into the draft. But we still have quite a few needs elsewhere. RB2, OT3, LG1, RG1 for the offense. LDE1, DT1, and LB2 on defense. Let's get the guard spots filled soon, ideally a speed rusher or starting LB, and a swing tackle. We can find a backup RB and some pass rushers in the draft. It's much better to start rookies on the Dline than the Oline. Ideally we can find a good FS in the draft too.

Who can forget the Bengals social media proclaiming the team was "all in" this offseason? Or Tobin saying he'd make Chase the highest paid non-QB in the league? I guess he's waiting for Micah Parsons and Aiden Hutchinson to get their extensions first.

It is a good practice. Because if a player turns out to not be worth his contract, you can exit it with less damage than if you frontloaded it. Every dollar spent shows up on the cap eventually. But having more options lets a team build a better roster. Roseman described backloading contracts as getting an interest free loan. You'll notice the Eagles haven't been very active in outside free agency. They signed Barkley and Baun to big extensions and didn't make serious offers to Williams, Sweat, and Becton. They've done some cap cleanup by releasing Bradberry and Slay, now that Mitchell and DeJean have shown they can play. They are further under the cap than the Bengals for 2025 without any glaring weaknesses. They'll draft the best players they can get without having to find an immediate starter. Next offseason they will give Jalen Carter a big contract. And so it goes. As someone put it, last year Tee and Ja'Marr bet on themselves and won the bet. The Bengals front office bet against them and lost. And it's corrosive to player morale when the ownership bets against you. Now the team will end up paying an extra 15 mil or so to extend Tee, Uno, and Hendrickson. That's how we end up with Ossai for 7 mil instead of Sweat for 19.

Yeah, we're paying Hill twice as much as Onwuzurike to be a poorer pass rusher. But hey, we'll just draft Nolen or Harmon and problem instantly solved, right?

Yes, I want the Bengals to push cap hits down the road like good teams do. The Browns are in a mess because they gave a 5 year fully guaranteed contract to a QB who turned out to be terrible. If he was playing at Burrow's level, the Browns wouldn't be in a mess. Similarly, the Eagles and Saints both have a lot of backloaded contracts but one team is better at player evaluation so they win the Super Bowl. Player evaluation and resource allocation aren't strengths for the Bengals so it's unlikely we'll win a Super Bowl, even with Burrow playing at a high level. Apparently the plan is to count on rookies for pass rush and to protect Burrow up the middle.

Yeah, I figured he and Sample would probably be candidates for a veteran minimum benefit deal. Trayveon Williams and Jay Tufele as well.

Yes, they did a bunch of restructurings, which created cap space but didn't spend it, so they had a lot of cap room to carry forward. Even with their dead money hits for trading Amari Cooper and ZaDarius Smith (which hit this year's cap). Bengals are just incompetent if one assumes their goal is to build the best roster they can for the money they have available to spend. It makes a lot more sense if one assumes their cap management is designed to maximize current year cap hits so they can plead poverty when desirable players are available. It fails cap management 101 when you sign a player to a contract of X years and the first year cap hit is more than 1/X of the total value. But the Slaton contract is like that. We haven't seen Hill's yet but I wouldn't be surprised if more than a third of his contract value hits year 1, even if they don't keep him all 3 years.

Here's how much each team can spend this year. The differences are due to cap rollover from last season and incentives hit or missed. https://x.com/NFLPA/status/1899845393745133823

Yeah, I wasn't expecting any $20+M guys from other teams or anything crazy like that. Just that they would recognize obvious reality that players in demand don't get cheaper. So they would sign Chase, Higgins, and Hendrickson to new deals well before the tampering period. That they watched the games last year and noticed we don't have a good pass rush. That we shouldn't expect heroics of the level Burrow and Chase gave us as a baseline and maybe upgrading the interior Oline and being able to run the ball in short yardage situations would be nice. That they would figure out how to maximize the salary cap, courtesy of Joe's offseason prompting.

Look at the Cowboys, ahead of only the Jaguars.