PFF: Cincinnati did exactly what it should have done

[*ochocincos*]

(05-05-2021, 12:29 PM)Whatever Wrote: There's no way I pay that for Zeitler.  He's 31 and his PFF rating slid from 76.4 in '19 to 65.9 last year.  $8 mil a year for a 30+ year old G playing at an average level and showing tangible signs of hitting the wall?

$8 mill is overpaying a bit, but the Bengals would have had to overpay to draw him away from an actual contender in BAL, who is paying him 3 years, $22.5 mill ($7.5 mill APY).

You bring up his PFF scores from 19 to 20, but...
1) I'm not going to judge Zeitler on a 1-year decline when he's been good for so long
2) Zeitler's 65.9 is still better than any of the Bengals Gs from last year

And if you're looking at PFF scores and comparing to the contracts they signed...
Joe Thuney is the second-highest paid OG based on APY, at $16 mill. That's more than double what Zeitler is getting.
Thuney was only 10th G in the league last year, with a score of 74.2.

Zeitler was about the same in 2019 as Thuney was (76.4 Zeitler vs 77.4 Thuney).

What Zeitler (or Thuney) would have done is remove the need to get a RG in the draft, allowing them to get someone who projects as a better long-term guy at OT compared to D'Ante Smith and/or could have drafted a better replacement for Hopkins.