Small market free agency

[Whatever]

(11-06-2019, 02:13 PM)bengalfan74 Wrote: You beat me to it.

The "small market" thing is just a buzz phrase that gets thrown around that in reality has very, very little to do with the truth about why this team can't/doesn't field competitive teams.

The real reason as you say is Mike Brown and his antiquated ways. MB does basically nothing to build the brand ! Won't step into the modern era and build a real indoor practice facility, no ring of honor even though the stadium stays PBS, curious huh ? The Reds are 1,000 more fan friendly. If he'd do 25% of what they do the Bengals fans would fall over.

You could go on with pages and pages of his stupidity but suffice is to say he's awful, horrible, at building a winning culture.

The market does hurt.  Let's be real, if you're a single multimillionaire in your mid 20's, where do you want to live?  New York?  LA?  Miami?  New Orleans?  How about Cincinnati?  Yeah, thought not.

You can still be competitive in the Cinci market, but you are not going to be able to use FA to rebuild unless you massively overpay.  Then you run the risk of having to blow it all up before you become truly competitive due to cap issues.  Let's face it, if Miami is offering you $15'mil a year to play there, you aren't coming to Cinci for $16 mil.  You're probably looking at $18-20 mil to land that player.