03-02-2019, 06:09 PM
(03-02-2019, 05:49 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Yes 11 games. Less than a full season. I'll agree that the franchise tag would've been a good option given how much Og was struggling. Maybe Whit really didn't want that? Either way, I'm mainly talking about not matching the Rams 3 year deal...which was the most money ever spent on a Tackle that age. Which is telling.
The only thing I would disagree with is that matching the Rams deal wouldn't have been much a risk at all for the Bengals. It was basically a one year deal, with an option for 2 more. If Whit showed signs of falling after the 1st year, they could have simply walked away from the deal being out a total of 15m. Given what we had seen from OG and Fisher to that point, that didn't seem like a huge gamble to take for at least one more year of Whit.
I think the Bengals were in a tough spot...having drafted 2 tackles, hoping one would be Whit's eventual successor, and the fact that Whit was an aging LT with no guarantees that his performance wouldn't take a nose dive. IMO, the best move would've have been to do a deal similar to the Rams, where you get at least one more year of Whit - hoping that he still plays fairly well - while giving yourself more time to evaluate and get a better feel about what you have in Og and/or Fisher.
