06-17-2022, 11:58 PM
(06-16-2022, 12:02 PM)Au165 Wrote: I think Larry is in line to come back once the deadline to negotiate a deal with Bates passes. Essentially they are keeping flexibility to get a deal done, Bengals may want to actually increase his year 1 cap hit via salary as a "guarantee" without having to actually do a lot of guaranteed money to protect them on the back end. Once they can no longer deal with Bates I think another move or two may get done to leverage cap space available this year.
This post gives this thread hope. I think you're right that priority 1 is Bates, especially in light of the few players they can realistically negotiate with in house and the holding pattern with UFAs.
I hope that a smaller annual than Fitzpatrick but a bigger 1st year bonus and short term deal gets it done, but more likely the deadline passes. There will be guys that will sit and wait for big injuries to occur to gain more PT and a few more guaranteed dollars out of need. I think it speaks volumes that the jersey situation is fluid and they had no problem giving up a guy like Spain's number.
