Bengals releasing AJ Hawk

[leonardfan40]

(04-26-2016, 09:31 PM)jowczarski Wrote: I just talked to A.J. yesterday about his career and he didn't sound like a guy ready to hang it up, but he said he wasn't about to hang on just to hang on. He'd be a good fit for a team looking for a veteran backup.

Because, guess what, that's what he was here and why he was brought in last year.

Not sure what the expectation was coming in. He was brought in, really, to be Maualuga's back up in the middle and play in run situations on the strong side. He wasn't going to mess up, be a good locker room guy. Because he played at Ohio St. had nothing to do with anything.

The problem he ran in to now was the Dansby signing. Lamur was a key special teams player, as was Dawson. So, Lamur is out. They expect Dawson to contribute more. Rey's special teams snaps need to go down at least the first three weeks. So now...who's playing special teams? Maualuga doesn't. Dansby doesn't. And Burfict won't. Hawk couldn't. They need a guy to do that. That's specifically why Roach was brought on to the active roster for the playoff game.

As for Flowers -- he was probably going to get cut if he didn't get hurt last year (if you remember, Chris Carter made the linebacking room). Marvin Lewis told us on the final day of cuts that it "Played out about what we expected. I don’t think anything occurred that changed anything we were doing there at all. We are where we expected to be.”
http://www.cincinnati.com/story/sports/nfl/bengals/2015/09/05/bengals-cut-roster--53/71711566/

We'll see if he's ready to take on a bigger role. I wouldn't be surprised if they draft a LB either.

Expectations got out of hand fast among Bengals fans. I think people remembered what he once was, that combined with the homerism of many fans in these parts, and things escalated quickly.