Eifert cleared

[masterpanthera_t]

(03-01-2018, 07:25 PM)phil413 Wrote: I have to disagree, he has missed literally half the games of his 5 yr career.  That's 10M that should go toward a good OL.  If he has a solid season you're still posed with resigning an injury prone player.  I'll match that one more year of his prime with one year of a quality Offensive Lineman getting chemistry with the current group.   

I don't disagree with your take on the surface level. But when you look at the context of how the team invests in free agency on OL, I'm not sure that they would put the savings to good use. You do have a Bobby Williams here, and a Travelle Wharton there (I thought he was a great FA pickup, too bad he got hurt), but my impression is that they mainly address OL through the draft. Even if they chose to go OL via free agency, I would bet that the type of free agents they would go after, wouldn't cost enough that they would have to dig into the 10M from Eifert's salary. That's why it's worth the risk IMO to bring Eifert back on a 1 year franchise tag. I can also see your opinion that we've basically seen Eifert for a reasonable amount of time (5 years) to know him well enough. If I'm being truly objective, as a GM, I would probably lean towards that view. I'm however slightly less objective as a fan, and think about how with the Bengals' luck letting Eifert go might come back and bite them. If that were to happen, I can't blame the Bengals for making a solid decision, but as a fan, it's going to sting a bit.

Edit:

I will add that maybe because we have new OL coach, the team might tweak their approach and start going after higher tier OL FAs. But we'll see.