Four consecutive years

[bengalhoel]

(10-16-2017, 03:05 PM)ochocincos Wrote: A glaring issue - The Bengals are 30th in cap spent on offensive line. Their highest paid player (Boling) doesn't even account for $5 mill against the cap, ranking the 74th highest paid player on the OL across the NFL based on average salary. Most teams have 2-3 players on OL being paid higher than him.
Yet the Bengals have 42% of their cap spent on the offensive side as whole.
How, you may ask?
Primarily tied up in WR, in which the Bengals are 6th highest in the league at $24.31 mill. $21.6 mill of that is being occupied by three WRs: AJ Green ($13.5 mill - justified), LaFell ($5 mill - garbage this year), and John Ross ($3.1 mill - unable to play due to injuries). The glaring one out of this is LaFell, who I'd much rather see cut in the offseason and that saved cap go toward OL.

The Bengals also have a lot of money tied up into defense (48.59% - 6th highest).
They are paying a lot of heavy hitters to account for this: Atkins ($10.6 mil - justified), Kirkpatrick ($9.38 mill - meh not worth that much, but not a terrible deal), Burfict ($8.3 mill - justified?), Adam Jones ($7.39 mill - justified?), Dunlap ($7.25 mill - justified), Iloka ($5.4 mill - fair), Michael Johnson ($5.12 mill - not worth the role he's in now), Minter ($4.25 mill - not worth the role he's playing), Williams ($4 mill - fair?).

Cut bait with those being (vastly) overpaid and/or underperforming, invest that into OL and maybe a WR that can actually contribute well, and we should see the offense improve. The defense may take a hit, but I'd gladly take that to be solid and balanced on offense.

The whole NFL is having these problems. There isn't really one team in the NFL without a glaring weakness. Philly may be the closest to it right now. 

This is the weakest the NFL has been in a long time. Once Brady retires the mediocrity is going to be even more obvious because Im not seeing a Hall of Fame type QB outside of Rodgers.