11-18-2020, 05:25 PM
(11-17-2020, 05:48 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: Definitely in favor of letting WJIII walk.
Trae Waynes is due 16 million dollars next year. I'd imagine the market for WJIII will north of 10 mil. I would not feel at all comfortable with having around 30 million dollars locked up into those two corners.
I hope we didn't overpay for Waynes, but I do believe he's far from elite. And I feel the same about WJIII. He's too inconsistent. From both in his career, and from game to game. He's very good in man, but leaves a lot to be desired in zone.
IMHO, the market for corners is incredibly inflated. Outside of the elite players, you have a jumbled up group of guys that sometimes flash and sometimes don't. And they get grossly overpaid (See Dre Kirkpatricks old deal).
Invest into getting pressure on the QB and you can make average CB's look great. Find a mid-level vet at 3-8 mil per to pair with Waynes. Maybe look into bringing Mackenzie Alexander back too. See if you can hit on someone in the draft in the mid rounds as well. And save that cap space from a WJIII deal to use on OL/DL/LB.
Agree the market for CB is inflated but then the replacement cost will be inflated as well. It's like everyone wanted Kirkpatrick gone because he cost too much but then they didn't really save anything like people thought they would because they replaced him with Waynes. The Bengals will pay a premium on any CB they sign - because who wants to come and play D for Cincy if they have options - on top of the premium for CBs and end up with a lesser player. I'll go on record and say I think we'll end up spending more on replacements (and my money is on it taking several attempts to replace him) for WJIII than we would spend on extending him.
Personally, my priorities before free agency are extending Lawson and WJIII. Everyone else out of contract can be replaced easily enough. Those two will be expensive to sign but they will also be expensive to replace and as we didn't commit to a rebuild by trading away veterans for draft picks we don't have the draft capital to replace them in the draft and fill our other holes.
