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Thoughts on the Same old Bengals Free Agent extravaganza


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We have all been fans long enough to know that the Bengals would fall flat once free agency began.  Of course the better players on our team who's time has expired wanted out....they know that window of Bengals being just good enough to make the playoffs is quickly closing.  We don't like to take chances...we don't like to spend money....we are not the Patriots, players are not dying to come and play for Marvin.  We let our receivers/DBs walk last year and didn't replace them with talent...and it showed.  We let our lineman walk this year...and I am sure this will show when the season starts.  Our run game was abysmal...AJ really had no help.  Losing our best two lineman will not help those holes to open or buy Dalton time in the ever collapsing pocket.  Who knows...maybe the sky isn't falling.  Maybe this is all of MB and Marvin's plan to get us our first playoff win in 26 years.  They have belief in the young talent waiting in the wings. 

On to a couple other things....

The Browns - Does anyone else think they are f'n geniuses?  I mean they have to hit on their picks...but jesus, the money they have and the picks they have set themselves up with is very impressive.  The Osweiler deal was a very slick deal, they said they are already getting calls from team about trading for him.  It's going to be interesting to see how this turns out.  Hue is Hue...he will get his players to play for them, God I wish we would have been able to have him as HC.  They could be very good very quickly...I would definitely be stoked if I was a Cleveland fan. 

The Bengals as an organization - I know a guy who was a athletic trainer for a couple seasons here and then got a call to go to a Superbowl winning program.  He said it is night and day between the organizations.  He said a complete 180...With the Bengals being his first NFL gig he thought that was the norm, but once he left and went to the other team, he said he realized how truly different teams can be handled from the top down.  It's a shame that MB doesn't get it....

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I feel like a lot of Bengals' fans grossly overreact to free agency each year and that a lot of shit teams get hype from fans just because they spend a few bucks. HOWEVER, this year is different IMO.

Last year? Choosing to let Nelson walk seemed like the choice to make at the time, hindsight is 20/20. You pay your young players that develop. Williams looked GREAT in limited time, Nelson hit an age wall, the smart thing was to sign the young guys and have Iloka/Williams taking care of the back end for years to come. So far it seems like it wasn't the best idea, but you can't fault them for doing what they should have with the safeties. Same with WRs, I'll take Tyler Boyd (I watched his whole career at PITT and all my friends hated me when I was basically begging for the Bengals to draft him on social media) and Brandon LaFell (at his 2016 price) alllllllllllll fucking day over Sanu and MLJ for the contracts they received. Sanu was grossly overpaid. MLJ is a great player, but the Bengals WR2 isn't as important as other teams value WR2. For fuck's sake, one of our RBs (when healthy) outpaces almost all of our receivers in targets. That's our system, and until it changes we aren't going to pay our WR2 more than Brandon LaFell got this offseason.

This year should have been different. We've been told that we can't spend on outside guys because we need to save for our own, so you can't tell us that and then let our 2 best linemen go. You can't operate like that and not expect some backlash. You can't have Clint Boling become your best lineman (by far at that). If the team went out and grabbed Larry Warford or an equivalent of him in free agency, I wouldn't have any issue with Zeitler being gone. They didn't. No replacement in sight, even Hobspin came out and flat out told us that they are not going to be signing any UFAs in fear of their precious comp picks being lost. Fuck that strategy.

People will bash the Browns and make fun saying "Everyone says they're turning it around every year! Losers!!!" which yes, there are a few fans that keep saying it over and over. This year looks to be different though, this could be a solid Browns team within the next 2 seasons, they just need to find a QB and they're trending up to potentially take the division away. Here are the Browns draft picks over the next 2 seasons...

2017: 1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6, 6

2018: 1, 2, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5, 6, 6, 7

If Myles Garrett becomes a star and even ONE of those other picks ends up being (or turning into via trade) a QB that can play football at the NFL level, watch the hell out for the Browns. They could easily win a playoff game before Marvin Lewis.

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Nobody's surprised the Bengals didn't sign expensive players from other teams. But everyone should be disappointed the team let Whitworth get away. If they didn't want to sign him to a multi-year deal, they should have tagged him. That's a lot of money but the price is set by top LTs and he is one. A team that tags Stacie Andrews, but not Whitworth is one that's poorly run. 

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3 minutes ago, sparky151 said:

Nobody's surprised the Bengals didn't sign expensive players from other teams. But everyone should be disappointed the team let Whitworth get away. If they didn't want to sign him to a multi-year deal, they should have tagged him. That's a lot of money but the price is set by top LTs and he is one. A team that tags Stacie Andrews, but not Whitworth is one that's poorly run. 

LaFell along with some combination of 2 out of 3 Kirkpatrick/Zeitler/Whitworth should have been retained.

I don't expect the Bengals to re-sign 100% of their free agents every year, especially when you see other teams throwing the bank at a player who doesn't deserve it (Sanu). There's no excuse to let Zeitler AND Whit walk whenever there are no viable replacements already on the roster.

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5 minutes ago, omgdrdoom said:

LaFell along with some combination of 2 out of 3 Kirkpatrick/Zeitler/Whitworth should have been retained.

I don't expect the Bengals to re-sign 100% of their free agents every year, especially when you see other teams throwing the bank at a player who doesn't deserve it (Sanu). There's no excuse to let Zeitler AND Whit walk whenever there are no viable replacements already on the roster.

Yeah, it should have been easy to keep Whitworth. The LaFell deal is a fair price for team and player. I think they probably overpaid Dre but keeping him gives them the option to cut Pacman. If they were going to let a top player walk, Zeitler is the guy to give up since guards aren't that hard to find. I don't know what Warford got but even if they had to pay him 7-8 mil and 4 mil to bring back Andre Smith, they should have done that. 

 

 They started with 42 mil in cap space. Tagging Whit would cost 14 mil, Dre costs about 10, LaFell about 5, Warford say 8 mil or so, Andre Smith 4 mil, cut Maualuga and Jones, draft some pass rushers and a running back, and we're competing for a playoff spot. Don't extend Eifert, make him prove he can stay healthy and if he does, then tag him next year. Extend Burfict, he shouldn't be that expensive with his health and disciplinary history. 

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1 hour ago, westside bengal said:

MB gets it.  The Brown Family Trust were able to build a family fortune with relative little of their own money utilizing NFL handouts and the general public's love for an Ohio football legend.

It's never been about winning.

This....

Bengals fans want to win a championship, the Brown family wants to make as much money as they can.

They are pennywise but dollar foolish. They will never win in the modern era despite having the resources to do so. Small market teams can dominate in the NFL, if they have competent leadership, which the Bengals do not have.

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I'm not surprised, I'm confused by the logic and the plan moving forward. They have two offensive tackles on their entire roster. They have 16 combined starts between them. Clint Boling is our best lineman and the guy currently slated to play OG on the other side is TJ Johnson. The Bengals gave up 41 sacks last season (7th highest in the NFL), had a totally ineffective running game and just let their best two linemen leave. How do you fix that?

Throw in the fact that a few simple cuts of Jones and Maualuga could recoup $10 million against the cap and you gotta say...What The Actual Fuck.

The Bengals now have significant needs at OT, OG and LB coupled with a huge level of unknown and holes at S, C, CB, DE, WR, RB and DT. Is that supposed to all be remedied in the draft?

To top it off you have to read about how the Bengals should be applauded for sticking to their plan and pointing to 2018 compensatory picks as the light at the end of the tunnel. 

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Im expecting a top 5 pick next year after dalton gets murdered behind a shit oline. Marvin lewis signed his own pink slip after letting whit walk. He was the best linemen plus there heart and soul. Im not even looking frwd to the draft. We won 6 games with a better roster. 7 draft picks cant salvage that.

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27 minutes ago, BengalFanInTO said:



To top it off you have to read about how the Bengals should be applauded for sticking to their plan and pointing to 2018 compensatory picks as the light at the end of the tunnel. 

Hey now, we "walked away with a 3rd and a 5th" yesterday, that's much better than walking away with your 2 best linemen, right right right?

As another poster said, stop whining, we have $22 million now that we wouldn't have otherwise! WOOOOOOOOOOO! MONEY AND COMP PICKS YES! YES! YES! YES!

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I guess I see it differently. Our O-line sucked ass last year. No-one earned a huge contract and Whitworth is getting old in football years. No way would I have offered him what the rams did. We need to get younger at that position. I also don't believe in trying to buy championships like some of these teams do. I have yet to see it work. Folks seem to forget we have been to the playoffs 6 out of the last 7 years. Yeah I know we haven't won there yet, but you have to get there first.  I don't quite know if Ced falls in to the bust category yet. A lot of these guys get the big payday and the effort disappears. I think we will surprise people next year.

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I guess I see it differently. Our O-line sucked ass last year. No-one earned a huge contract and Whitworth is getting old in football years. No way would I have offered him what the rams did. We need to get younger at that position. I also don't believe in trying to buy championships like some of these teams do. I have yet to see it work. Folks seem to forget we have been to the playoffs 6 out of the last 7 years. Yeah I know we haven't won there yet, but you have to get there first.  I don't quite know if Ced falls in to the bust category yet. A lot of these guys get the big payday and the effort disappears. I think we will surprise people next year.


I agree with this. They must have confidence that Alexander can get the group ready to go. They have two high picks who surely can play, right?

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13 hours ago, OneHeartBeat said:

 I also don't believe in trying to buy championships like some of these teams do. I have yet to see it work. Folks seem to forget we have been to the playoffs 6 out of the last 7 years. 

 

Uh, you obviously don't pay attention to the NFL then. Virtually every team outside of the Stealers or Packers that have won a Super Bowl or been to one in the past 10-15 years have signed free agents that help get them over the hump. The "good teams don't sign impact FAs" nonsense is total bullshit spouted by lazy, scared Bungal fans.

 

the truth is that the best teams draft and retain the good players, release the players that don't earn their salaries, release coaches that don't achieve post season results, and then hit up impact free agents when the time is right.

 

the Bengals do virtually none of that. Don't give me that bullshit. The Bengals don't do a single goddamn thing that successful teams do. They're a loser franchise... have been for 25 years, will be for an indefinite amount of time heading into the future.

 

face it- fans want to win with much more passion than ownership hopes to stumble themselves into a winning/postseason win team. That's a fact. This organization does nothing that actual winning teams do. 

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http://fansided.com/2017/03/14/nfl-power-rankings-2017-free-agency/7/

Post free agency power rankings.....

Quote

To this point, nobody has had a worse free agency than the Cincinnati Bengals. Their two biggest in-house targets signed elsewhere. Veteran Pro Bowl Andrew Whitworth signed a multi-year deal with the Los Angeles Rams. He’ll likely retire as a Ram. Whitworth had been so good for so long in Cincinnati. He covered up a lot of issues up front for the Bengals.

Losing guard Kevin Zeitler in his prime to the division rival Cleveland Browns is absolutely devastating. He not only makes the Bengals offensive interior weak, but he now strengthens Cincinnati’s arch rival up front. Zeitler will tap into his Pro Bowl potential now with the Browns.

Add in that this is the worst offensive line draft in recent memory and the Bengals could plummet much worse than their 6-9-1 record from a year ago. If Andy Dalton gets hurt, this could be the worst team in the AFC North. The gap between the Browns and the Bengals isn’t as vast as people realize.

Fortunately, the Bengals have three things going for them heading into this season. One, this organization drafts well. They will have 11 picks to get better in this spring’s draft. Two, Cincinnati has proven it can develop offensive linemen in-house better than most teams in football. Three, Cincinnati has to be healthier than last year, right?

Overall, don’t expect a bounce back year for the Bengals. Unless they get lucky in a few tight games, this is a team with a 9-7 ceiling. However, this team could crater in a blink of an eye. If it hits the fan, this might be a 4-12 team. Flunking in free agency doesn’t help the Bengals going forward.

 

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12 minutes ago, TheBeaverHunter said:

I know a lot of people poke fun at the whole "winning free agency" ordeal, but it's certainly not good to lose a lot more talent than you gain during the FA period when you're a 6 win team.

Yes, bad teams often end up with some of the highest priced free agents each year and it doesn't automatically make them a great team, I think most fans understand that. I know it's easier to just make a condescending remark about anyone that wants us to sign free agents rather than forming a logical argument, but nobody here is claiming that we should run out and sign every top free agent at every position.

Go ahead and look at any team that has been in the Super Bowl over the last 5-10 years and you'll probably find a non-dumpster dive outside free agent or two that helped them achieve the goal of winning their conference. Dunlap, Geno, Andy, A.J., and a lot of other key pieces to the team aren't these young guys about to enter their prime anymore. They're not getting any younger. This could have been the year to take a shot in free agency without sweating over potential 2018 comp picks.

We have enough cap space where we could have signed 1-2 more top tier players and still had money left to spare. Someone get a time machine, cut Adam Jones, sign Logan Ryan and Larry Warford, re-sign Whit and Dre Kirk, and then you have a fanbase and media believing you could make a legit run at a championship and not questioning who is going to protect your quarterback. Moves like that may have to make you reconsider having a $5M "injury pool" and not being able to extend more than 1 of our 2018 free agents, but our young core isn't quite so young anymore, it should be time to chase a ring, not prepare for 3 years from now.

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Yeah, it should have been easy to keep Whitworth. The LaFell deal is a fair price for team and player. I think they probably overpaid Dre but keeping him gives them the option to cut Pacman. If they were going to let a top player walk, Zeitler is the guy to give up since guards aren't that hard to find. I don't know what Warford got but even if they had to pay him 7-8 mil and 4 mil to bring back Andre Smith, they should have done that. 
 
 They started with 42 mil in cap space. Tagging Whit would cost 14 mil, Dre costs about 10, LaFell about 5, Warford say 8 mil or so, Andre Smith 4 mil, cut Maualuga and Jones, draft some pass rushers and a running back, and we're competing for a playoff spot. Don't extend Eifert, make him prove he can stay healthy and if he does, then tag him next year. Extend Burfict, he shouldn't be that expensive with his health and disciplinary history. 




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On ‎11‎/‎03‎/‎2017 at 3:01 AM, T-Dub said:

 

the abridged version

Yup. Patriots win the Super Bowl and proceed to sign Stephon Gilmore, re-sign Dont'a Hightower, trade for Brandin Cooks, Dwayne Allen and Kony Ealy. I don't recall them getting any discounts on these moves because they were the Patriots. We sure as heck aren't the Patriots in any way, shape or form but for this argument...that excuse doesn't hold water.
 

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1 hour ago, BengalFanInTO said:

Yup. Patriots win the Super Bowl and proceed to sign Stephon Gilmore, re-sign Dont'a Hightower, trade for Brandin Cooks, Dwayne Allen and Kony Ealy. I don't recall them getting any discounts on these moves because they were the Patriots. We sure as heck aren't the Patriots in any way, shape or form but for this argument...that excuse doesn't hold water.
 

And they signed Burkhead...which they will understand how to utilize him...unlike we do.  Their offense is going to be insane with...Edelman, Amendola, Hogan. Cooks, Gronk, Allen, and now Burkhead.  The only one with a big contract is Gronk.  They understand how to get guys who fit into their plans...we do not.

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