Why the **** is Jessie Bates not signed yet?

[wcu]

(06-16-2022, 10:05 AM)Stewy Wrote: Yep this.

I am sorry to those who are in love with Bates, but last year he showed he can be distracted by contract issues and then made the idiot move of ADMITTING it publicly.  It was UNPROFESSIONAL and our FO would be fools to pay him anything over 13-14 my due to his inconsistency and being unprofessional.  The NFL is a business and throwing top 5 money at Bates, AT THIS POINT, is bad business.  

Bates needs to man up and play on the tag (which he will).  He isn't being treated unfairly.  He made his bed and now he has to lie in it.

My jaw hit the floor when he made those statements last year.  Basically, "you're not giving me what I want, so I'm not going to give as much effort and not be as valuable to to the team in order to convince you to give me what I want."  That's some straight up toddler reasoning right there.  I really think that had he not had the playoff success that he did, his value would be nothing close to what we're discussing now.  His performance last year was nothing more than pedestrian.  If he's truly not willing to play under the tag this season and prove that he's worth a huge contract, then I say piss on him.

While I love for our best players to hang around and continue to be the best here in Cincinnati, I also realize that this is potentially Joe's last season under his rookie contract and then we've got Ja'marr and Tee to lock up.  We can't pay everyone top dollar.