When was the last time...

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-18-2018, 11:26 AM)ochocincos Wrote: Great point IMO.
By letting a high-priced FA leave or removing those external ones from the market before even "kicking the tires", you increase the risk of not finding a quality replacement and have to keep trying to use draft picks and/or middle-tier FAs to replace them. And in the end it could end up costing more than if you had just kept/signed the upper-tier guy to begin with.

We're in the middle of Part 2 of this happening with Marvin Jones leaving. Jones left after '15, and the Bengals have....

Tyler Boyd (2nd round + 4yr/$4.25m)
Cody Core (6th round + 4yr/$2.46m)
John Ross (9th overall + 4yr/$17.1m)
Josh Malone (4th round + 4yr/$2.99m)
Brandon LaFell (1yr/$2.5m + 2yr/$9m)

...as their replacement attempts at #2 WR, and they're heading into 2018 and STILL don't have that answered. They went the predictable Bengals route of going for a meh LaFell at $2.5m rather than a Mike Wallace (2yr/$11.5m) or Rishard Matthews (3yr/$15m) and then doubled down by giving more money to LaFell because at that point he was one of their guys, and wasting more draft picks. Yet those four draft picks and LaFell still haven't been able to fill the #2 WR role like Wallace or Matthews could have, and at quite a reasonable salary, too.


(Part 3 will be in another year or two when we fully realize how much resources was wasted on trying to replace Whit.)