(01-03-2024, 11:07 AM)Sled21 Wrote: Man, how absence makes the heart grow fonder. Everybody missing Bates, Bell, Perine and Apple.
When Jesse Bates was here all we heard was he was overpaid and missed too many tackles. During his "head funk" period people were lining up to pull the gallows lever.
Bell will always have a place in my heart for his hit on Shit Schuster that set the tone and put the league on notice that this wasn't your daddy's Bengals. I really wanted him re-signed, but I clearly remember a lot of "He's getting too old" comments.
And Apple, despite his high level of play, more people wanted him gone than Covid.
Perine? Another of my favorites, but there were clearly people after his head for not making a diving catch during the Super Bowl.  
But now the team is a bunch of idiots for letting them go.
Of the bunch, if it were up to me and I had to let one go, it would have been Bates, because he did not always play up to his ability. Playoff Jesse and Regular Season Jesse weren't even close to the same player. And that tells me he wasn't giving 100% during the regular season.

Dax Hill will be better than Bates IMO. Give the kid some time, it's just his 2nd year and he was playing numerous positions his first year. Battle will come on strong I think. Chase Brown appears to be the real deal and can break a long run at any given moment he is given the ball. CTB and Awuzie > Apple and Awuzie.

The future is bright.

I never thought Bates would be retained. Too high of an asking price. For the right price, I was fine with keeping Apple, and wanted both Bell and Perine to stay. They were good role players.

(12-31-2023, 11:56 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: Just wait for the Browns to make the superbowl and lose, they will know pain. Otherwise the Ravens are going to eat them alive, NFL won't let a healthy lamar lose to a flacco led Browns team IMO.

Are you insunuating the NFL is rigged? 

If so, see ... 

The NFL is rigged (thebengalsboard.com)

(01-03-2024, 11:07 AM)Sled21 Wrote: Man, how absence makes the heart grow fonder. Everybody missing Bates, Bell, Perine and Apple.
When Jesse Bates was here all we heard was he was overpaid and missed too many tackles. During his "head funk" period people were lining up to pull the gallows lever.
Bell will always have a place in my heart for his hit on Shit Schuster that set the tone and put the league on notice that this wasn't your daddy's Bengals. I really wanted him re-signed, but I clearly remember a lot of "He's getting too old" comments.
And Apple, despite his high level of play, more people wanted him gone than Covid.
Perine? Another of my favorites, but there were clearly people after his head for not making a diving catch during the Super Bowl.  
But now the team is a bunch of idiots for letting them go.
Of the bunch, if it were up to me and I had to let one go, it would have been Bates, because he did not always play up to his ability. Playoff Jesse and Regular Season Jesse weren't even close to the same player. And that tells me he wasn't giving 100% during the regular season.

Dax Hill will be better than Bates IMO. Give the kid some time, it's just his 2nd year and he was playing numerous positions his first year. Battle will come on strong I think. Chase Brown appears to be the real deal and can break a long run at any given moment he is given the ball. CTB and Awuzie > Apple and Awuzie.

The future is bright.

Yes, I miss them. 

(01-03-2024, 01:32 PM)BengalYankee Wrote: Are you insunuating the NFL is rigged? 

If so see ... 

The NFL is rigged (thebengalsboard.com)

NFEL National Football Entertainment League..

(12-31-2023, 11:56 PM)reuben.ahmed Wrote: Just wait for the Browns to make the superbowl and lose, they will know pain. Otherwise the Ravens are going to eat them alive, NFL won't let a healthy lamar lose to a flacco led Browns team IMO.

you dont think the NFL will use a flacco super bowl run to help pump up the 1 legged rodgers run next year?

(12-31-2023, 10:52 PM)Emphasis Wrote: Does anyone actually think he's a viable candidate to be head coach for another team?

I'm not calling for him to get purged, but this defense overall did not have a good showing this season.

Not this year, no.

(12-31-2023, 11:33 PM)Synric Wrote: You know... Ive been wondering for a year or so now are you GMDino? You post like Dino lol. It might be the Budweiser but I would put a couple Benjamin's on it lol. 

(01-03-2024, 10:35 AM)Wyche Wrote: Wow, lol. Thanks for the numbers. 3.4 is really bad, not that ours is great, but damn.



That makes a ton of sense. Agree on guys like Nick Scott. If you're going to sign someone to fill that vet role, they need to at least be decent. Just speculating, but I don't think they thought Bell would leave, and got caught with their pants down there. They had to scramble to find someone.

Apparently they offered Bell a 2 year deal, but no idea on the money. Of all the free agents, I thought Bell was the guaranteed lock to return to the team. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bengals go a little harder in the safety market this offseason.

(01-03-2024, 11:58 PM)Bengal Dude Wrote: Apparently they offered Bell a 2 year deal, but no idea on the money. Of all the free agents, I thought Bell was the guaranteed lock to return to the team. I wouldn't be surprised if the Bengals go a little harder in the safety market this offseason.

I'm not so sure they sign a FA safety this off-season. Maybe if they cut Nick Scott. But they have Tycen coming back from injury, Dax, and Battle. Maybe a late-ish draft pick?

Hopefully Hill and Battle show improvement come OTAs and eventually TC. Would also not be opposed to Dax moving to nickel / dime CB and signing a true FS that can play single-high without all the brain farts and bad angles.

(01-03-2024, 11:24 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: I don't think we scored a single point in the 2nd half after scoring what 17 1st half points? That's the reason we lost.

Had we moved the ball better, the defense looks better too.

Thats been part of the problem most of the year especially early in the season.  Offense struggles and people expect the defense to work miracles and blame the defense.  The offense laid an egg in the second half against K.C.  The offense scored just 11 points the week before against Pittsburgh. The Bengals scoring offense is currently ranked #20.  The scoring defense is ranked #21.  People are crazy to keep blaming the defense when the offense isnt any better and is part of the reason for the struggles on defense.  If you are going to weaken the defense by getting rid of talent like Apple, Bell, Bates so you can keep dumping money into the offense, the offense needs to step up and get their act together. 

(01-04-2024, 12:51 AM)007BengalsFan Wrote: Thats been part of the problem most of the year especially early in the season.  Offense struggles and people expect the defense to work miracles and blame the defense.  The offense laid an egg in the second half against K.C.  The offense scored just 11 points the week before against Pittsburgh. The Bengals scoring offense is currently ranked #20.  The scoring defense is ranked #21.  People are crazy to keep blaming the defense when the offense isnt any better and is part of the reason for the struggles on defense.  If you are going to weaken the defense by getting rid of talent like Apple, Bell, Bates so you can keep dumping money into the offense, the offense needs to step up and get their act together. 

The offense struggled some with Burrow healthy too.

People will blame missing playoffs on his injury, but the slow start to the season killed us equally.

(01-04-2024, 12:57 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The offense struggled some with Burrow healthy too.

People will blame missing playoffs on his injury, but the slow start to the season killed us equally.

Yes it did.  I dont know why people blame the defense when Bengals management let Apple, Bell and Bates walk and they dropped to the #21 scoring defense.   The defense at least has an excuse.  On Offense they add even more talent with Orlando Brown Jr. now part of the tremendous talent they already have on offense and the offense drops to #20 in scoring yet people want to blame the defense.  You cant keep expecting Lou and the defense to bail out the offense when the Bengals have made the decision to let talent leave from the defense so they can spend the money on offense

(01-04-2024, 01:21 AM)007BengalsFan Wrote: Yes it did.  I dont know why people blame the defense when Bengals management let Apple, Bell and Bates walk and they dropped to the #21 scoring defense.   The defense at least has an excuse.  On Offense they add even more talent with Orlando Brown Jr. now part of the tremendous talent they already have on offense and the offense drops to #20 in scoring yet people want to blame the defense.  You cant keep expecting Lou and the defense to bail out the offense when the Bengals have made the decision to let talent leave from the defense so they can spend the money on offense

You can keep claiming they cheaped out on the defense all you want, but it’s just simply not true. They sunk a ton of money into the DL, and paid both LBers. The fact is outside of Trey they haven’t come close to getting their moneys worth out of those 2 position groups this season. They were atrocious against the run, and Trey has 12 more sacks than the next closest guy.

(01-04-2024, 12:57 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: The offense struggled some with Burrow healthy too.

People will blame missing playoffs on his injury, but the slow start to the season killed us equally.

You mean when he was playing injured??? Face it, without Burrow's calf injury hindering him at the beginning of the season, or losing him altogether on the back end of the season, we would be right in the playoff mix. Shit happens, reload and come back stronger next year.

if it weren't for this Defense, we would be our usual 3-14. The offense just failed to score enough points to win.

(01-04-2024, 09:41 AM)Sled21 Wrote: You mean when he was playing injured??? Face it, without Burrow's calf injury hindering him at the beginning of the season, or losing him altogether on the back end of the season, we would be right in the playoff mix. Shit happens, reload and come back stronger next year.

which brings up the question why was he starting those early games.

(01-04-2024, 12:06 AM)The D.O.Z. Wrote: I'm not so sure they sign a FA safety this off-season. Maybe if they cut Nick Scott. But they have Tycen coming back from injury, Dax, and Battle. Maybe a late-ish draft pick?

Hopefully Hill and Battle show improvement come OTAs and eventually TC. Would also not be opposed to Dax moving to nickel / dime CB and signing a true FS that can play single-high without all the brain farts and bad angles.

No way they trust Tycen as a FS yet.  Im sure Dax would excel at NCB, but very likely wont be in 2024, Hilton is too valuable, but in 2025 I can definitely see it. 

(01-04-2024, 01:21 AM)007BengalsFan Wrote: Yes it did.  I dont know why people blame the defense when Bengals management let Apple, Bell and Bates walk and they dropped to the #21 scoring defense.   The defense at least has an excuse.  On Offense they add even more talent with Orlando Brown Jr. now part of the tremendous talent they already have on offense and the offense drops to #20 in scoring yet people want to blame the defense.  You cant keep expecting Lou and the defense to bail out the offense when the Bengals have made the decision to let talent leave from the defense so they can spend the money on offense

We have the highest paid DLine in the NFL. 

We just extended TWO LBs coming off of very good seasons.

We replaced Bates with a 1st Rounder that had a year to learn.

We replaced Apple with CTB.

We replaced Bell with a Super Bowl starter.

If Lou such an awesome D Coord we should have dont better, especially since he is defensive back specialist. 


We were just bad on D, offense always sputters at times, and we couldnt win field position with our punter.

(01-04-2024, 01:00 PM)XenoMorph Wrote: which brings up the question why was he starting those early games.

I think pretty much everyone thought a 70% Burrow was a better option than a 100% Browning. Browning surprised people.

(01-04-2024, 01:29 PM)casear2727 Wrote: No way they trust Tycen as a FS yet.  Im sure Dax would excel at NCB, but very likely wont be in 2024, Hilton is too valuable, but in 2025 I can definitely see it. 

I like Hilton but if I had my choice, I would go ahead and move Dax there anyways. Hilton isn't all that good in coverage in my opinion, and Dax can probably do all the things Hilton is being asked to do presently. I may be wrong, some of you REALLY SMART football-IQ guys may have numbers / stats to debunk that, but I feel like there would be little to no drop off with the added possibility to be better. We don't have to cut Hilton either, he's not expensive and could fit a dime role or a specific role they carve out for him in his final year. How confident are we Hilton gets a Bengals contract post-age 30? If they did that, they could either sign a true vet FS, allow Tycen to take snaps there (provided he shows up and shows out for OTAs, or, at the latest, TC), or draft a FS and start again.

Maybe I just like Tycen too much? I dunno. I was sad when he got hurt this year, and feel like he deserves a chance to win that spot.