Williams: Super Bowl champion Eagles show Cincinnati Bengals' blueprint for winning

[Arkansas Bengal]

Jason Williams

Cincinnati Enquirer

 

 

 

Cincinnati Bengals ownership shouldn’t listen to Joe Burrow.

 

Not about Tee Higgins, anyway.

 

The Bengals shouldn’t re-sign their No. 2 receiver, good as the homegrown Higgins has been on- and off-the-field.

 

It’d be a waste of resources for a franchise facing too many other roster problems in perhaps its most important offseason ever. Invest the Higgins money in the defensive line and/or anywhere else on the defense and/or on the interior offensive line.

 

The Philadelphia Eagles showed the world the blueprint for winning the Super Bowl.

 

Great defensive line.

 

Great offensive line.

 

Great quarterback. (Jalen Hurts isn’t Burrow/Josh Allen/Lamar Jackson great, but the Eagles QB was on Sunday night when he won Super Bowl MVP.)

 

The Bengals have one of the three right now – the best quarterback in the league regardless of what the MVP voters said.

 

Burrow went on the campaign trail in New Orleans last week, telling national media he wants the Bengals to re-sign Higgins and give contract extensions to defensive end Trey Hendrickson and No. 1 receiver Ja’Marr Chase. Burrow said he's willing to restructure his contract. It's his money, but why cut a break to a franchise that's never gone all in on a commitment to excellence?

 

Who Dey fans loved what Burrow said, as they should. No stronger voice in Bengaldom than Burrow. But Bengals fans need to be reminded that ownership has historically listened to no one outside of its small inner circle when it comes to business decisions.

 

The politicking quarterback is spot on about Hendrickson and Chase. Priority No. 1 should be Hendrickson, who led the NFL in sacks and is all the Bengals have on defense. Then Chase. Call it 1a and 1b. Whatever. Then all in on defensive line, secondary, interior offensive. The Bengals need help at linebacker, too. Football personnel director Duke Tobin says the Bengals need to "retool" on defense. No, sir, you need a complete rebuild.

 

It's too much for a frugal franchise to fix in one offseason – especially one that has whiffed on evaluating several defensive players in recent drafts.

 

Sure, the Bengals could afford to do long-term deals with Hendrickson, Chase and Higgins. But it’d stretch the resources thin and put even more onus on the club’s skeleton-crew scouting staff to suddenly start evaluating talent better in the draft. Good luck with that. It's not going to happen until the Bengals decide to spend money on a fully staffed football operations operation. And good luck with that, too.

 

 

 

Higgins is a luxury. Don’t fix the defense and the Bengals will be right back to hoping for other teams to lose the last few weeks of the season to make the playoffs. Gotta admit, that was pretty pathetic seeing Bengals fans rooting for Kansas City to win in Week 18 just to give Cincinnati a shot to make the playoffs.

 

Or worse, the Bengals completely collapse and win four or five games. Then again, that's been a strategy in the past. Lose so much that they're gifted a top-five draft pick. It's how they got Burrow and Chase.

 

If the Bengals don't bring back Higgins, it's still OK to be upset with the decision. But be pissed about them not getting Higgins under contract two winters ago, when they should've re-signed him. Higgins' contract wouldn't have cost as much then.

 

Instead, the Bengals did what they almost always do. They sent a message that they don't see long-term value in a fantastic homegrown player and tried to go cheap. They drafted Jermaine Burton last year to be Higgins' replacement. Brutal. And predictable.

 

Show of hands if you have a bad feeling the Bengals are going to screw up some of these major offseason decisions?

Hey, over here!

 

Show of hands if you're starting to wonder if the Bengals are going to squander the Burrow years and that he's on track to be the next Dan Marino?

Over here!

 

If you read Enquirer reporter Kelsey Conway's excellent recent Q&A with Tobin, you can't help but be concerned. Appreciated Tobin's honesty. Lots of alarming stuff in there, including what he said about Hendrickson's contract situation.

 

Said Tobin: "We'll do what we can. We'll do what we feel is right, and we will try to get Trey re-signed."

 

That's Bengals-speak for "we'll give him a lowball offer and see if he'll give us a hometown discount."

 

Another alarming Tobin quote: The Bengals kept a bunch of aging defensive players because they wanted to run "it back."

Run it back to what?

 

That comment is so much of what is wrong with the Bengals. Three seasons removed from a surprise Super Bowl run, the Bengals front office thought it could get back there with generally the same players.

 

You know who doesn't have a run-it-back mentality? The Eagles, Chiefs, Ravens, Stealers, Bills. Those franchises know the league is too competitive to sit back and think they can just run it back with the same roster.

 

They're always striving to get better. It's what winning franchises do.

 

 

https://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/columnists/jason-williams/2025/02/11/nfl-bengals-joe-burrow-tee-higgins-super-bowl-champion-eagles-winning-blueprint/78387770007/

[Inigo Montoya]

Yeah, the blueprint is simple.  Just assemble the best OL and DL in the league.  Also, load up on skill position players on offense.  And then bring in two new coordinators.  It’s just that easy.  

[sparky151]

Winning a Super Bowl isn't easy. But running the Bengals in a much more professional manner should be easy. But when nepotism is policy and the relatives have to be given power as well as a paycheck, it probably won't work out optimally. Lots of amateurs could build a better Bengals roster than Tobin has. 

[LostInDaJungle]

Boy, talk about reacting to something you saw five minutes ago. This is about as relevant a take as saying the Chiefs didn't win a Super Bowl so they did EVERYTHING wrong. "If we learned anything last night, it's that resigning an aging TE won't win you a Super Bowl." (I mean, it DID the previous two years...)

Sweet. What a relevant hot take.

[esjbh2]

4 hours ago, Inigo Montoya said:

Yeah, the blueprint is simple.  Just assemble the best OL and DL in the league.  Also, load up on skill position players on offense.  And then bring in two new coordinators.  It’s just that easy.  

 

LOL, yeah.  Just one part of that is elusive enough...like how I keep hearing how all you need to do is get disruptive QB pressure from a 4-man DLine rush.  Like that's something that you can just do out of thin air.  What the Eagles did with pressure on Mahomes was incredible...with no real blitzes...just rushing 4...it does help that Chiefs OLine isn't too good.  But yeah, just do that!  Even with 4 quality players that's hard to pull off, especially consistently against teams with better OLines..

 

 

[T-Dub]

There's this assumption that instead of paying Higgins & Hendrickson they will instead invest in other areas that are not, eg, a really sweet game room for the grandchildren.

 

I am, to put it mildly, unconvinced.

[-GoBengals-]

4 hours ago, sparky151 said:

Winning a Super Bowl isn't easy. But running the Bengals in a much more professional manner should be easy. But when nepotism is policy and the relatives have to be given power as well as a paycheck, it probably won't work out optimally. Lots of amateurs could build a better Bengals roster than Tobin has. 

 

 

jesus fucking christ...

 

what nepotism? we have already broken down the jobs the family members have..  and like 2-3 are even football related... 

 

this is so fucking stupid. 

 

a bunch of amateurs could field a better team? really? the league must be filled to the brim with terrible owners and GMs then... 12.5% of the league has never even BEEN TO a superbowl. and 37.5% of the teams have never won a superbowl. 

 

but no no noo.. the message and social media fans cannot be wrong.. its Duke Tobin...

[BBR]

There's also the assumption that passing on the known good player (Tee Higgins) means that they will spend the money on players that provide the same or better value elsewhere.  They know what Tee is and how well he works on this team - he's a known commodity for the Bengals.  There are plenty of examples of free agents that the team, the fans, the media, etc... were singing high praises for their signings that just didn't work out for one reason or another.  

Honestly, this is a click-bait type of article.  Unless you really think the Bengals org should just go F-U Joe, we're going to let Tee move right on along and just accept a potential 3rd round pick in next year's draft when we sign LESS than the total number of qualifying free agents this year than we actually lose.  That way we won't lose out on any return for Tee moving on.

 

Now, they should make every effort to do all of it, sign Tee, Mike G., extend Chase and Trey, etc...  I don't think they can get all of that done, plus sign other FAs (theirs and outsiders) as well as prepare for the draft and do it quickly enough to keep everyone happy.  I honestly think that it's Trey that is going to blow-up on them 1st.  Tee has no leverage with a 2nd tag sitting there as an option.  Trey's leverage expires with the draft.  Hell, if the team wants to be complete assholes they can just Tag Tee again, tell Trey too bad - you're playing on the last year of this deal, not extend Chase knowing they have 2 years of tags afterwards and spend all of the money on FAs for the lines and secondary.  Sure it will be a spectacular shit show in the media and people will threaten to / actually sit out games.  The team could do it though since you know, they're essentially telling Joe to shut-up and just play ball according this dumbass.

 

I swear, most sports writers annoying the hell out of me.  I'd rather listen to the homeless guy's opinion that convinced the Browns to draft their next QB savior.

[T-Dub]

2 minutes ago, BBR said:

There's also the assumption that passing on the known good player (Tee Higgins) means that they will spend the money on players that provide the same or better value elsewhere.  They know what Tee is and how well he works on this team - he's a known commodity for the Bengals.  There are plenty of examples of free agents that the team, the fans, the media, etc... were singing high praises for their signings that just didn't work out for one reason or another.  

 

 

This is also true.  If they're reluctant to pay for a proven player in Higgins, what are the odds they're instead going to go out and find one of similar value for less money?

 

Let's maybe get Ford & Gesicki under contract so we're not moving backwards & then worry about actually adding to the roster.

[Inigo Montoya]

2 minutes ago, GoBengals said:

the league must be filled to the brim with terrible owners and GMs then... 12.5% of the league has never even BEEN TO a superbowl. and 37.5% of the teams have never won a superbowl. 

 

I think you can easily get to 10-12 teams that can safely be described as poorly run if not completely dysfunctional.  Not saying I would put the Bengals in that group, but there’s plenty of garbage organizations in the NFL.  

[sparky151]

20 hours ago, GoBengals said:

 

 

jesus fucking christ...

 

what nepotism? we have already broken down the jobs the family members have..  and like 2-3 are even football related... 

 

this is so fucking stupid. 

 

a bunch of amateurs could field a better team? really? the league must be filled to the brim with terrible owners and GMs then... 12.5% of the league has never even BEEN TO a superbowl. and 37.5% of the teams have never won a superbowl. 

 

but no no noo.. the message and social media fans cannot be wrong.. its Duke Tobin...

 

Not sure why you feel so compelled to leap to the defense of the Bengals ownership. Duke, is that you?

 

The team is owned by Mike Brown. He didn't buy it, he inherited it. Or more accurately he squeezed out the Nippert and Knowlton families in the 90s when he had control of the team while they were the actual owners following PB's death. 

 

Katie and Troy Blackburn have considerable power to choose who is on the roster and how much they are paid. Ask Andrew Whitworth about that. Were they hired from outside based on merit? Uh, no, their claim to their roles is being the daughter and son-in-law of Mike Brown. Pete Brown is the nephew of Mike Brown. The Blackburn sisters are his granddaughters. 

 

And yes, a bunch of amateurs could field a better team. The Bengals rather deliberately don't maximize their cap space and thus operate at a disadvantage to other teams.