Who to tag?

[OrlandoBengal]

(01-26-2016, 04:55 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Hopefully next year Eifert can start 16 games, so I would feel better about the Bengals giving him a deal before his 5th year option comes into play. If he misses another 3-5 games, it starts getting tricky though. The closest he's come to a full season is his rookie year when he started 15, but he wasn't playing a full workload of snaps in those 15 games. (In 2013, Eifert played only 59.5% of the snaps despite starting 15 games.)

So at that point, do you pay him big TE money based on potential of if he could stay healthy for a full starters workload, or do you try to pay him with that injury risk included and risk losing him to FA?

Add me to the list of those who would like to see if he can stay healthy for an entire year.  I just looked up Gronk because I know he has had a lot of injury issues as well.  He played in every game his first two seasons, then got the big deal going into 2012.  Between 2012-2013 he only played in 18 games, and has missed one game each of the last two seasons.  Gronk put up over 1300 yards in 2012 before he got the deal, Eifert has a total of 1100 in his career.

I definitely think you wait.  You hope he stays healthy for the entire year, and then negotiate before the fifth year option kicks in.  If he misses time... I'm not sure what I would do.