(03-23-2021, 01:03 PM)Synric Wrote: Trae Waynes will likely replace WJ3 at LCB and Chidobe Awuzie will step in at RCB. And yes it does matter.

He’s not replacing Dennard. That’s the point.

(03-23-2021, 01:05 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: But trae was already brought in last season. as a kirkpatrick replacement...  Can he replace both?

Trae never saw the field last season. So the logic is we had WJ3 as CB1, and a slew of others playing the other CB, with Mac in the slot.

Trae (even tho he was brought in last year he never played) replaces WJ3 
Auwzie replaces the mess at the other CB
Hilton replaces Mac

The question really boils down to will our secondary as a whole be better this year than last year?

I think most would agree Jackson is better than awuzie. That doesn’t really matter much if he didn’t want to play here anymore (who knows?) of wasn’t a good scheme fit. That’s more on the dc and his scheme.

Imho Jackson didn’t seem like he wanted to play here anymore so unless we were going to overpay to try and keep him here the point is kinda moot.

The bigger question is is awuzie the best we could have done? Probably not but he’s better than the nothing we would have had and is deal wasn’t terrible


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(03-23-2021, 01:23 PM)BenZoo2 Wrote: The question really boils down to will our secondary as a whole be better this year than last year?

I think most would agree Jackson is better than awuzie.  That doesn’t really matter much if he didn’t want to play here anymore (who knows?) of wasn’t a good scheme fit.  That’s more on the dc and his scheme.

Imho Jackson didn’t seem like he wanted to play here anymore so unless we were going to overpay to try and keep him here the point is kinda moot.

The bigger question is is awuzie the best we could have done?  Probably not but he’s better than the nothing we would have had and is deal wasn’t terrible


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I know alot of Bengals fans nitpick the Awuzie pickup but this guy was a hot free agent prospect according to Mike Garafolo. The Saints specifically were a team that tried very hard to sign him.

(03-23-2021, 11:43 AM)fredtoast Wrote: I just don't understand you sometimes.

Who is the DT on our team that was as good as Ogunjobi?  You have to assume that Geno was going to be 100% healthy to say we did not have a hole at DT.

I also see Reif as  big upgrade over Hart.

Even if you think Lawson was as good as Hendrickson that was a big upgrade because of Lawsons injury history.

You are just upset that so many of your claims were proven to be false.

Again we just replaced players (we will see if upgrade or what, but...... even with Atkins (and thus his replacement) we needed another DT. Even with WJIII, Lawson, Alexander (and their replacements), we needed another CB, DT, DE. That is a net -0- gain my friend. Even with Hart/Reif, we needed another OT.... We are just back to treading water. We need to get past that.

(03-23-2021, 01:46 PM)jj22 Wrote: Again we just replaced players (we will see if upgrade or what, but...... even with Atkins (and thus his replacement) we needed another DT. Even with WJIII, Lawson, Alexander (and their replacements), we needed another CB, DT, DE. That is a net -0- gain my friend. Even with Hart/Reif, we needed another OT.... We are just back to treading water. We need to get past that.

We have our starting OT’s (for this year at least). What we need is 2 OG’s and a WR. And in a perfect world another pass rusher.

The question is actually whether Jackson is better IN ZONE than Azuwie. Since Jackson sucks in zone I'd assume the answer is no. And since our scheme is now zone based it seems that is the reason. Hilton is an excellent CB in his own right and one of the best pass rush CBs in football. Hendrickson does not have Lawson's injury tendency and also finishes the play on pass rush. Ogunjobi gives us inside pass rush which we have lacked ever since Geno became injury hampered. And Reiff is a pretty significant uptick from Hart.

Do we still need some pieces? Of course. But so far we have a good Free Agency going.

(03-23-2021, 01:46 PM)jj22 Wrote: Again we just replaced players (we will see if upgrade or what, but...... even with Atkins (and thus his replacement) we needed another DT. Even with WJIII, Lawson, Alexander (and their replacements), we needed another CB, DT, DE. That is a net -0- gain my friend. Even with Hart/Reif, we needed another OT.... We are just back to treading water. We need to get past that.

I get where you're going but you cant add without subtraction. So yes we replaced players, it will be determined if those players will be better. It's not like we could have kept all of them AND added these pieces as well. SOMEONE has to go, and there is ZERO chance we resigned all our FAs and get others as well. 

(03-23-2021, 02:11 PM)Joelist Wrote: The question is actually whether Jackson is better IN ZONE than Azuwie. Since Jackson sucks in zone I'd assume the answer is no. And since our scheme is now zone based it seems that is the reason. Hilton is an excellent CB in his own right and one of the best pass rush CBs in football. Hendrickson does not have Lawson's injury tendency and also finishes the play on pass rush. Ogunjobi gives us inside pass rush which we have lacked ever since Geno became injury hampered. And Reiff is a pretty significant uptick from Hart.

Do we still need some pieces? Of course. But so far we have a good Free Agency going.

Absolutely  

(03-23-2021, 02:11 PM)Joelist Wrote: The question is actually whether Jackson is better IN ZONE than Azuwie. Since Jackson sucks in zone I'd assume the answer is no. And since our scheme is now zone based it seems that is the reason. Hilton is an excellent CB in his own right and one of the best pass rush CBs in football. Hendrickson does not have Lawson's injury tendency and also finishes the play on pass rush. Ogunjobi gives us inside pass rush which we have lacked ever since Geno became injury hampered. And Reiff is a pretty significant uptick from Hart.

Do we still need some pieces? Of course. But so far we have a good Free Agency going.

Correct. When I say we upgraded, I'm talking about the unit as a group in the scheme Anarumo is going to run. WJIII is really good in man, not so much in zone. And with the people Lou has brought in, it's obvious we will be in a lot of zone coverage. Lou is bringing in guys that fit his system.

(03-22-2021, 02:32 PM)Whatever Wrote: Kerrigan had 5.5 sacks while only playing 38% of the defensive snaps last year, so he could be a decent rotation piece.  

Sounds great to me, bring in Kerrigan and a Guard and I am good. Could be better but man was Kerrigan a force in his prime.

(03-22-2021, 02:48 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: I watched 2 games from last year and he looked no better than what they have now. The games i watched were from right before and right after his injury. In each case, he looked...not very good. Then i went to 2017 when he was in his "prime" and the difference was night and day. His intensity, awareness, quickness, finish...it was all light years ahead of where it is now. Then i went to 2019. Dude looked really fat and out of shape. 
As far as his size, he looks similar now to what he did in 2017, smaller than he was in 2019 when he looked too big and slow. He looked to have 'lost it' (whatever "it" is) after 2017. 2018 and '19 were average to below average years before being shipped off to LAC. 
As far as your pass blocking comparison to MJ...there were more than a few times he looked just as bad as Jordan, post 2017. 

Thanks for this, hopefully Trai has been trying to get into shape. Sounds like that is what led to his poor play and injuries.

If he is not in shape and injured I don't want him. Just thought he would be cheap and if he could get back to playing like
he was in 2017 it would be a great pick up. If he isn't in shape tho bring back Spain or another Guard.

(03-23-2021, 02:12 PM)Fulcher_33 Wrote: I get where you're going but you cant add without subtraction. So yes we replaced players, it will be determined if those players will be better. It's not like we could have kept all of them AND added these pieces as well. SOMEONE has to go, and there is ZERO chance we resigned all our FAs and get others as well. 

Why can't we ever add. We always just replace (that's why the FO is reactionary instead of being proactive). I don't see why we can never use FA like other teams to add. 

Look at what the Bills did to turn things around. The Browns. We always end FA at net -0- gain from a roster need standpoint.

Now we couldn't keep our own and sign all of these FA's. But with the focus of the draft having to now be Oline. How nice would it have been to keep WJIII/Lawson and sign another DE? A WR. Fill some holes instead of leaving all the holes with only 8 draft picks (that it is already looking like all 8 will need to contribute fast which is unlikely and unfair to those draftees).

(03-23-2021, 03:24 PM)jj22 Wrote: Why can't we ever add. We always just replace (that's why the FO is reactionary instead of being proactive). I don't see why we can never use FA like other teams to add. 

Look at what the Bills did to turn things around. The Browns. We always end FA at net -0- gain from a roster need standpoint.

A major part of that is drafting better. Having young players on cap friendly contracts will allow you to ADD during FA. Also you need to look at the team as a whole, our own FA's have left and not wanted to resign with the team due to any number of circumstances. FO needs to do a better job but not sure how that happens with the current regime in place. We have to have players WANTED to come here to play, and players who are not stop gap, or slight upgrades etc. It's not like we have SUPERSTAR players coming to play for Cincy.

(03-23-2021, 03:33 PM)Fulcher_33 Wrote: A major part of that is drafting better. Having young players on cap friendly contracts will allow you to ADD during FA. Also you need to look at the team as a whole, our own FA's have left and not wanted to resign with the team due to any number of circumstances. FO needs to do a better job but not sure how that happens with the current regime in place. We have to have players WANTED to come here to play, and players who are not stop gap, or slight upgrades etc. It's not like we have SUPERSTAR players coming to play for Cincy.

Fair enough. Can't argue with any of this. 

(03-23-2021, 03:33 PM)Fulcher_33 Wrote: A major part of that is drafting better. Having young players on cap friendly contracts will allow you to ADD during FA. Also you need to look at the team as a whole, our own FA's have left and not wanted to resign with the team due to any number of circumstances. FO needs to do a better job but not sure how that happens with the current regime in place. We have to have players WANTED to come here to play, and players who are not stop gap, or slight upgrades etc. It's not like we have SUPERSTAR players coming to play for Cincy.

We have some hits in the draft but often dont retain them which makes it also harder to add and most the free agency gets this year are just replacing losses. instead of upgrading players.

(03-23-2021, 04:03 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: We have some hits in the draft but often dont retain them which makes it also harder to add and most the free agency gets this year are just replacing losses. instead of upgrading players.

yeah we definitely have had hits in the draft. Don't want it to seem like we haven't, but for whatever reason those types of players we haven't been able to retain.  Maybe the teams culture (FO/Ownership), Losing? who knows

(03-23-2021, 04:03 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: We have some hits in the draft but often dont retain them which makes it also harder to add and most the free agency gets this year are just replacing losses. instead of upgrading players.

True, and even when we were hitting in the draft 2009-2014, we sat on our hands during free agency to roll money over for future extensions instead of going "all in" and adding some net gains to the roster when we were soooooo close to getting over the hump. Outside of an aged LB, nothing was really done to nudge them over the hump.

And I'm being kind by not claiming the roll over excuse was a lie given we lost Marvin Jones, Sanu, and Zeitler and probably more if I can remember. But maybe not, but they were so focused on the future they failed to strike while the iron was hot in the present.

Spain back on 1 year deal

We have signed corner Eli Apple. This ensures us that even with a rash of injuries our starting corners will be FAR superior than what we ran out by mid-year last year. Apple isn't a star but if he is your 5th corner on your team you are doing really freaking good.

Apple is worth the flyer.