AJ Says He Can Wait For New Contract

[3wt]

(07-10-2015, 04:30 PM)J24 Wrote: Green, Iloka, and Whit will all be signed before the season starts.

Hope you're right.

Green sounds like he's got his priorities straight - and I don't deny that he does.  But I don't believe he's not going to want competitive compensation.  He has a lot of reasons not to sign before he's a free agent including jumping to a higher market value, the ability to justify it with bigger numbers this year now that he's healthy and the flexibility of choosing where he goes (better QB, playoff winner, more money being offered - or a combination).  So I don't think he may be as altruistic as he sounds.

The Bengals need so sign a lot of guys, and it would be tempting to franchise him to get that done.  But I think we lose him if we do as he will be so expensive when he can no longer be franchised that we will not be able to afford him.

There is also the argument (like with the REDS) that tying up that kind of money in one player (in addition to Dalton) is fiscal suicide, and it would be better to get rid of that kind of contract and keep your team viable.

My feeling is that we should sign him now.  Give him what he wants now and structure the contract to allow us to sign the players we know we want to keep.  It will be cheaper in the long run, we keep our only true blue chipper (until Geno pans back out) - and Dalton's contract will be diminishing as AJ's increases.

The rest of the contracts should sort themselves out.  Jones is the most dicey one I think we're going to be looking at if he doesn't get injured.  Whit will be reasonable as long as they don't totally low ball him.  And they should be able to get Iloka signed as well.