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Botched Andrew Whitworth situation continues with Bengals only getting 5th-round compensatory pick


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The Cincinnati Bengals made a huge mistake with Andrew Whitworth — and it’s a mistake that keeps on giving.

Cincinnati coughed up Whitworth on the open market, letting him escape to the Los Angeles Rams and a playoff berth. The Bengals turned around and looked lost at left tackle, with Cedric Ogbuehi busting to the point the staff rotated in career right tackle Andre Smith for help.

Now the Bengals get hurt from the miscue in another way — 2018 NFL draft compensatory picks.

We noted at the start of January the Bengals should have four on the way:

 

RELATED

Bengals projected to receive 4 compensatory picks in 2018 NFL draft

Notably, though, only one was a third-round pick thanks to Kevin Zeitler. Whitworth got labeled as a fifth-round pick.

Jim Owczarski of the Cincinnati Enquirer just confirmed Whitworth will only net the Bengals a fifth-round pick thanks to an obscure rule: “But because Whitworth is over 30 years old and has accrued 10 years in the league, a rule prevents the team such a player departs from being rewarded for letting him go.”

The Bengals love, love, love compensatory picks. It’s been a point of emphasis they’ve talked about for years.

Yet here we are, with the Bengals not only losing a solid starter at a premium position and having it derail an entire season, but doing so while not getting a good value in return for the loss.

 

 

 

Revisiting idea of Bengals trading for Bills OT Cordy Glenn

Who knows? In hindsight, maybe the fifth-round pick netted via Whitworth’s loss turns into a great player, like say a Super Bowl kicker like Jake Elliott.

Kidding. Sarcasm aside, for a team that understands Andy Dalton needs the best protection possible and understands the compensatory market so well, it’s almost impressive how the Bengals played the Whitworth situation.

Worst of all, the fifth-round pick that should’ve been a third-round pick in most other scenarios isn’t as bad as it gets — if the Bengals don’t find a way to improve left tackle this offseason, this blunder will keep on hurting the Bengals well into 2018.

 

http://bengalswire.usatoday.com/2018/02/11/andrew-whitworth-bengals-5th-round-compensatory-pick/

 

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15 minutes ago, Bunghole said:

Well I didn't know because I don't know the formulas that entail what a team gets for player X. For some reason I thought for sure we were getting a 3rd each for both Whit AND Zeitler. Well, that sucks then.

I don't think anyone knows the exact formula TBH, they won't make it public for whatever reason. We just automatically assume a big contract + a lot of playing time usually lands you a 3rd rounder (ala Zeitler).

 

Buuuutttttt, in every thread regarding Whitworth on any form of social media or message board since he left it's been mentioned that the vet rule means we literally can't get anything more than a 5th out of him. Obviously some people missed it but it's been talked about so much I'm really surprised that people who post here regularly wouldn't already know about it.

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23 hours ago, omgdrdoom said:

You have to be going out of your way to not pay attention if you're a big enough fan to post on this kind of message board and you didn't already know we'd be getting a 5th round comp for Whitworth since the day he left.

 

 

Life has been getting in the way of me being a "big enough" fan, to the point I didn't know  that.

 

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13 hours ago, oldschooler said:

 

 

Life has been getting the way of me being a "big enough" fan, to the point I didn't know  that.

 

I didn't know it either but I don't see why it matters.  We were losing an All-Pro caliber LT because the price was too high for the braintrust in their opinions. It was a valid concern and they had thought they had drafted his successor. 

 

The reality is the Bengals took a reasonable course of action but the pick hasn't panned out.  If Cedric O was playing at a level equal to his draft slot we wouldn't be having this discussion.

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On 2/11/2018 at 9:54 PM, oldschooler said:

but doing so while not getting a good value in return for the loss.

Ummm, there is no way to get "Good value" for the loss of a Pro-Bowl LT. It's not like having a pick at the end of the third round makes everyone go "Oh, well, that was worth losing an entire season's worth of football games. I'm OK with this now."

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13 hours ago, SF2 said:

If Cedric O was playing at a level equal to his draft slot we wouldn't be having this discussion.

The problem is that we knew Cedric wasn't going to play at a top level long before the season started. And even if you pick a guy in the top 10, he's not a guaranteed pro-bowler. See "Smith, Andre". They literally lost a bird in the hand over two in a bush.

And remember... The brain trust assured us that we needed that money to resign Eifert after his big year he was going to have.

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14 hours ago, oldschooler said:

 

 

Life has been getting in the way of me being a "big enough" fan, to the point I didn't know  that.

 

 

I gotcha and I wasn't trying to say people aren't good fans or whatever if they didn't know, it's just a huge surprise that so many people who spend a lot of time here didn't see it in the 20 Whit discussions over the past year.

 

People who regularly post on message boards probably have 100x the knowledge of the random Facebook/ESPN/CincyJungle comment section shitposters. I usually assume everyone around here understands stuff like analytics, salary cap, obscure rules, team compositions, etc. more than the average football "fan".

 

I'm a lot less active on message boards myself than I was 5 or so years ago so I get it, but I'm still shocked that so many people didn't know that we've been expecting a 5th round comp for Whit ever since the day he left. WTS, whether it's a 3rd or 5th doesn't even matter, we should have retained Whitworth by any means necessary and a 3rd round pick wouldn't make this situation any better really.

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1 hour ago, LostInDaJungle said:

The problem is that we knew Cedric wasn't going to play at a top level long before the season started. And even if you pick a guy in the top 10, he's not a guaranteed pro-bowler. See "Smith, Andre". They literally lost a bird in the hand over two in a bush.

And remember... The brain trust assured us that we needed that money to resign Eifert after his big year he was going to have.

Again, the Bengals were NEVER going to sign a 35 year old Whitworth to 3 years / $33.75mil  with $15 mil guaranteed or anything close to that.  It just wasn't going to happen.  They made the right moves to move on from Whit but it didn't work out.  Even with the realization that Cedric wasn't going to be all that, they had already chosen their path.   

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23 minutes ago, SF2 said:

Again, the Bengals were NEVER going to sign a 35 year old Whitworth to 3 years / $33.75mil  with $15 mil guaranteed or anything close to that.  It just wasn't going to happen.  They made the right moves to move on from Whit but it didn't work out.  Even with the realization that Cedric wasn't going to be all that, they had already chosen their path.   

 

I think the big issue is that the right move was to not move on from Whit in general. There were no signs of his play slowing down and he was obviously fine taking a contract with team outs after the first 1-2 years of the deal.

 

Mike Brown has given huge contracts out to players that deserve it and Whitworth surely deserved a fair deal.

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1 hour ago, omgdrdoom said:

 

I think the big issue is that the right move was to not move on from Whit in general. There were no signs of his play slowing down and he was obviously fine taking a contract with team outs after the first 1-2 years of the deal.

 

Mike Brown has given huge contracts out to players that deserve it and Whitworth surely deserved a fair deal.

I dont disagree, I just said the Bengals were not going to do that.  They will give big contracts to skill position players in their prime on occasion. 

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On 2/12/2018 at 7:34 AM, omgdrdoom said:

You have to be going out of your way to not pay attention if you're a big enough fan to post on this kind of message board and you didn't already know we'd be getting a 5th round comp for Whitworth since the day he left.

 

16 hours ago, High School Harry said:

Know what?

This

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22 hours ago, SF2 said:

Again, the Bengals were NEVER going to sign a 35 year old Whitworth to 3 years / $33.75mil  with $15 mil guaranteed or anything close to that.  It just wasn't going to happen.  They made the right moves to move on from Whit but it didn't work out.  Even with the realization that Cedric wasn't going to be all that, they had already chosen their path.   

The Bengals made two big mistakes.  They could have signed Whitworth and front loaded it so if he tailed off they could cut him and have plenty of cap space.  They blew it based upon their own poor misconceptions.  They also continued to believe in Oogie Boogie, who showed everyone that would pay attention that he didn't have what it takes to play in the NFL.  Even Whitworth, who rarely says anything negative, said he needed to work on his core strength.  I can't imagine how lazy this cat really is.

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18 minutes ago, UncleEarl said:

The Bengals made two big mistakes.  They could have signed Whitworth and front loaded it so if he tailed off they could cut him and have plenty of cap space.  They blew it based upon their own poor misconceptions.  They also continued to believe in Oogie Boogie, who showed everyone that would pay attention that he didn't have what it takes to play in the NFL.  Even Whitworth, who rarely says anything negative, said he needed to work on his core strength.  I can't imagine how lazy this cat really is.

And yet some other team DID sign him... And went to the playoffs.

You really can't defend anything the Bengals FO does as being even remotely smart when the results speak for themselves. Scientifically speaking, how did NOT signing Whitworth work out?

Anytime someone says "Oh, he was too expensive", no he was too GOOD. Because someone else was willing to pay his price. The Bengals not only had first shot at resigning him, but also had a guy who wanted to stay. But hey, shame on Whit for making all of those pro-bowls and driving his price up.

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28 minutes ago, LostInDaJungle said:

And yet some other team DID sign him... And went to the playoffs.

You really can't defend anything the Bengals FO does as being even remotely smart when the results speak for themselves. Scientifically speaking, how did NOT signing Whitworth work out?

Anytime someone says "Oh, he was too expensive", no he was too GOOD. Because someone else was willing to pay his price. The Bengals not only had first shot at resigning him, but also had a guy who wanted to stay. But hey, shame on Whit for making all of those pro-bowls and driving his price up.

Again, you are confusing the reality of the situation.  I would have much rather kept Whit but having been a fan of this team since 1974 I knew that Mike Brown would NEVER pay that much for a 35 year old player.  Was not going to happen. I am actually happy that Whit was able to go to a new team and show people just how good he really is.   Cedric was a first round pick on everyone's board.  Fisher was an early 2nd rounder on everyone's board.  Andre Smith was good depth.  The Bengals had a good strategy, draft 2 guys who everyone thought would be good starting tackles in the NFL for far far less than keeping Whit and Zeitler.   Unfortunately, both picks have not worked out although Ced did play better at the end of this year. 

 

We paid $6.7 mil for  Cedric, Fisher and Andre Smith.    Keeping Whit would have cost around 9.1 mil a year in cap space.  Zeitler would have added another $8.4 mil.   It was a sound strategy just didn't work out. 

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10 minutes ago, SF2 said:

Again, you are confusing the reality of the situation.  I would have much rather kept Whit but having been a fan of this team since 1974 I knew that Mike Brown would NEVER pay that much for a 35 year old player.  Was not going to happen. I am actually happy that Whit was able to go to a new team and show people just how good he really is.   Cedric was a first round pick on everyone's board.  Fisher was an early 2nd rounder on everyone's board.  The Bengals had a good strategy, draft 2 guys who everyone thought would be good starting tackles in the NFL for far far less than keeping Whit and Zeitler.   Unfortunately, both picks have not worked out although Ced did play better at the end of this year. 

 

I totally agree, I've never seen Ced look as good as he did in weeks 14 - 17

 

Edit - I meant 15 - 17

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