2024 Cincinnati Bengals Part 2

[Tony Cloninger]

Since you must use up to 90 percent of the cap. The Mike Brown rule. Mike will spend it and cash the rest for his family. Since they didn’t have the foresight to invest or diversify his assets he is stuck not having more cash available. While refusing to get more or better scouts. Expecting to. As he would say in the 90s. We have the same information everyone else has.

Eventually Katie will fully take over. Maybe she will actually hire a real GM and more scouts. Not be paranoid that someone is going to steal their franchise from them like Scrooge Modell.

This org has had only 1 sustained playoff run. 2011-2015. Besides that it’s 1970. 1973. 1975. Those were fine. They were still an expansion team. 3 playoffs in their first 8 years? Before FA? Only Miami could do better until the 1995 expansion teams had FA to help them.

1981-82. 1988. 1990. 2005. 2009. They can never sustain and they always seem to let the wrong player leave. Pay Bates instead of Pratt? Easy decision. You still have enough cap room to pay him the difference since Pratt is paid less. Pratt and Wilson have become average since their extensions and Hubbard has gone downhill quickly. It’s like Whitworth all over again. Bates is like Watt is to the Steelers. Bad without him. Completely different team.

[Boss-Hog]

We rarely see safeties signed to big deals by the team that drafted them. Most of them are moved like Minkah Fitzpatrick was. Chase jumped the gun trying to get paid two years before he was eligible to leave. Higgins cannot be kept if they’re keeping Chase. The problem is that we aren’t replacing these guys well in the draft or otherwise. We have to do better in player development


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We agree on their inability to draft and develop as their biggest issue right now, at least on defense (not to mention recent misses in free agency). It was already pointed out that top safeties resigning with their original teams is not rare, and while you can debate whether Tee SHOULD be resigned, there's really not much debate whether he COULD be (or could have been) resigned. The Eagles and Dolphins both have star QBs and two top receivers signed to big deals, so it's not as if this isn't doable under the cap. The Bengals' refusal to offer large guaranteed money, regardless the reason, is the bigger impediment to getting large deals done than the cap is.

[Sea Ray]

We agree on their inability to draft and develop as their biggest issue right now, at least on defense (not to mention recent misses in free agency). It was already pointed out that top safeties resigning with their original teams is not rare, and while you can debate whether Tee SHOULD be resigned, there's really not much debate whether he COULD be (or could have been) resigned. The Eagles and Dolphins both have star QBs and two top receivers signed to big deals, so it's not as if this isn't doable under the cap. The Bengals' refusal to offer large guaranteed money, regardless the reason, is the bigger impediment to getting large deals done than the cap is.

The Dolphins and Eagles are both teams on the decline. Not teams we want to emulate. The idea is that Burton will replace Tee. As for Bates, yeah, he was the best FA signing in 2023. That makes it a bad deal from the Bengals standpoint, but very few teams are getting their money's worth out of the top ten paid safeties in the NFL

[Boss-Hog]

The Dolphins and Eagles are both teams on the decline. Not teams we want to emulate. The idea is that Burton will replace Tee. As for Bates, yeah, he was the best FA signing in 2023. That makes it a bad deal from the Bengals standpoint, but very few teams are getting their money's worth out of the top ten paid safeties in the NFL

My response was not based on the idea it's good business to resign Tee. It's pushing back on your comment that some of the high profile players we've lost or will lose is due to cap constraints.

[Sea Ray]

My response was not based on the thought it's a good idea to resign Tee. It's pushing back on your comment that some of the high profile players we've lost or will lose is due to cap constraints.

Rarely can teams like the Bengals fit star WR-2 into the salary cap situation without affecting other areas. In the Bengals case, they would be better served to spend Tee's money on defense

[Boss-Hog]

Rarely can teams like the Bengals fit star WR-2 into the salary cap situation without affecting other areas. In the Bengals case, they would be better served to spend Tee's money on defense

You can - you just need to draft, develop and retain better than they have been, which gets us back to our agreement on that being the issue. Put it this way - the only large long-term contract the Bengals currently have is Burrow and presumably will add Chase to that next offseason. There's room under an ever growing salary cap to fit more long-term players under it than two players; the issue is the Bengals don't really have enough to warrant that consideration, aside from maybe CTB, which is a symptom of the aforementioned problem, and when they do, they run into issues due to their self-imposed philosophical limitation I mentioned earlier (see Bates, Higgins and Chase).

[KoryMac5]

For years the Bengals have drafted, developed, and resigned their players...

Atkins
Dunlap
AJ Green

My worry is that with players wanting more years of guaranteed money we are going to see them be behind the times like what happened when FA hit all those years ago and they lost Max Montoya and others. We could honestly see a loss of Bates, Hendrickson (was brought in FA), Higgins and others if they don't change their philosophy.

[Tony Cloninger]

A lot of the cap money is in the OL after Joe. That’s the worse indictment. Can’t draft develop anyone besides The G now. Moms though looks good. They need to at worst develop backups and could not even do that. So next draft its Safety and then Guard or Tackle? The OL is so good this year that you never hear fire Pollack anymore. But there is always a hole to plug elsewhere.

[KoryMac5]

Rankins back at practice today as was DJ Ivey who tore his ACL last season.

[RiverRat13]

Put it this way - the only large long-term contract the Bengals currently have is Burrow and presumably will add Chase to that next offseason.

I've seen people say trade Chase because KC traded Tyreek. The context missing there is the Chiefs had Mahomes and Chris Jones on big deals already - the Bengals only have Burrow. As you said, there really isn't anyone else to pay on the roster from the recent drafts. They can sign Chase and still have plenty of money. Even more if they were willing to re-structure Burrow's contract.

[Boss-Hog]

I've seen people say trade Chase because KC traded Tyreek. The context missing there is the Chiefs had Mahomes and Chris Jones on big deals already - the Bengals only have Burrow. As you said, there really isn't anyone else to pay on the roster from the recent drafts. They can sign Chase and still have plenty of money. Even more if they were willing to re-structure Burrow's contract.

Not to mention Kelce even if his contract then wasn't the current going rate of star WRs...

[Kingspoint]

Rarely can teams like the Bengals fit star WR-2 into the salary cap situation without affecting other areas. In the Bengals case, they would be better served to spend Tee's money on defense

Ownership has pre-determined what percentage of the pie that each position group should receive from year-to-year based on their organizational philosophy of what importance they place on each position. An organization is more flexible being able to move up or down with a position group from year to year if there's less gauranteed money. They don't pay dead money, so they don't want to place themselves into a position where they have a choice of cutting someone and leaving dead money versus being able to just cut someone and not have wasted money. That's what other teams are doing when they make a bad signing.

As Sea Ray mentioned, MIA is screwed. PHI is the most pro-active team when it comes to being willing to explore trades and make them happen, so I don't think they'll have a problem with getting out of any hole they may put themselves into. MIA, too, is also very willing to make trades (not trying to screw the other team in the process, which makes it so other teams don't want to deal with you because you are unreasonable...the Mike Brown method), so it's still possible that MIA can find ways to fix their fiscal problems (gauranteed money handed to an injury-prone Quarterback with a history of concussions). JAX and GBP gave a boatload of gauranteed money to Quarterbacks that hadn't proved themselves over anything more than half a season or one season. That seems incompetent to me.

I love the Free Agent signings the Bengals have made ever since Mike Brown turned over control to the next generation. They've been top-five in the NFL over that period of time. They not only added Reader, which was a great signing, but they added Hendrickson, and then extended Hendrickson when it looked like the money wasn't going to be there (it's going to come from Bates). They wisely moved on from Mixon (who has missed the last three games), while Reader has missed half of his time in DET so far or been ineffective.

If you are going to pay above league average for any position, then you are going to have to pay below league average in other positions to make up for it, and if that position is the most expensive one in the league that you are paying the most money to, then you have to pay below league average in at least 3 other position groups in order to afford to pay a Joe Burrow. The decision to pay Chase isn't cut-and-dry, but they invested a top-3 pick on him, so he's going to get signed, and when he does, he'll be the highest paid Wide Receiver in the NFL. Can't pay Higgins AND pay Chase AND pay Burrow.

It seems to be forgotten that Bates was coming off of a sub-par season where he flipped the switch at about Week 10, but had he played better before Week 10, we might not have had to play on the Road in the playoffs. Bates was inconsistent as a Bengal up to the point of needing to decide on spending that much money on the Safety position. They planned ahead for it by using a 1st Round pick on a Safety, but you never know if someone can do something in the NFL until they actually get into the NFL.

Zac stated that Dax Hill will be their Starting CB for years to come. His 2nd contract should be affordable and we may get a bargain there if he turns out to be what Anarumo and Taylor say that they see in him.

In the years Anarumo has been here, last season was the only one where he didn't develop the Defense into a playoff-caliber winning Defense by the end of the season. But, even last year, he had them playing a great game in San Francisco mid-way through the season, and then Burrow got hurt. What happened to the Defense from that point forward has been blamed on too much youth and too much youth that were not able to handle the communications and on-field readings of the opponent to make the unit work as one. New players at most positions this season. It's not going to work after five games.

Still, if not for Taylor's choking and shrinking into his turtle-shell, the Bengals would be 3-2, at least.

There's way too much talent and the Coaches are way too good for the Bengals not to win on Sunday Night and move to 2-4. One game at a time, and go from there. It's a very, very long season and as much of an act of attrition of key players than it is anything else.

I hope Taylor can change his choking ways. He seems to be getting worse, not better in this area. That's not a good sign. Can't waste all of Burrow's "window" on just one Head Coach if there's legitimate reasons to try another.