Very Important Year for Jonah Williams

[Wes Mantooth]

(06-28-2021, 10:11 AM)fredtoast Wrote: What people keep forgetting is that Both Steinbach and Zeitler were not just well-paid.  They were paid like the top one or two players in the entire league at their position.  And history seems to show they they were both over-paid.  Yet people still want to bash the Bengals for not paying MORE than what other teams paid when they over-paid them.

Yeah, I don't find this argument to be sound (the Bengals would have had to pay more than what other teams overpaid them.)

If you ink an extension in advance you almost always pay less than you would once a player hits the open market.  This happens for two very simple reasons: 

1.) By giving a deal a year early you're offering security.  It's insurance for the player in case they get injured playing out the final of their contract, or if they have a down year that would hurt their value.  The team has some leverage in this situation, and the player has motivation to lock himself into a raise vs. betting on his future.

2.) You're competing againt no one but yourself, and the market prices that have already been set.  This changes entirely once a player hits the free market.  Supply and demand goes into effect, and now you're competing against other teams, other cities, and potentially newer contracts that have increased prices.

So, I don't think it's fair at all to use the dollar amounts for what these players saw in free agency and automatically assume that's what it would have cost to keep them.  Had we extended them prior to their final season we'd most likley be looking at completely different numbers.