(01-09-2025, 09:14 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Bullshit. GM’s all around the league have to answer for the state of their teams.

Completely ignored what i said.  Got it.

(01-09-2025, 05:12 PM)lone bengal Wrote: So many questions lol.
Why can’t you develop any offensive lineman ever ? We had faith in Pollack and he came with an outstanding resume. Obviously, the results here have left something to be desired and that is why we recently made the difficult decision of parting ways. Amarius Mims looked very promisng this year and we're excited about the future. We wish Frank well.

Why did Bates walk ? We worked hard to keep Bates and even applied the franchise Tag to him as we tried to work a long-term deal. Unfortunately, Atalnata was in a better position cap-wise to offer Jesse a large front-loaded contract that included $23 MIL guarenteed at signing.  We are happy he is doing well in Atlanta. We had plans to employ Dax Hill as FS, but unfortunately injuries to CTB and Awuzie in 2023 forced us to use him more in a CB role and we liked what we saw in him there. 

Why haven’t all these picks on defense worked out Hill, Carter , Murphy, ect. We've had mixed results with our younger Defensive signings. We were very pleased with what we saw out of Dax and DJ before we lost them to injury. We loved what we got out of Josh Newton when he was asked to step up and were also pleased with what Ivey gave us once he retuned from injury.With that said, we strive for excellence and this is why we made the very hard decision of letting Lou go.

Explain why Stone and Rankins didn’t work ? I wouldn't say they "didn't work" It took Stone a little while to adjust to what Lou was doing, but we thought he really came on as the season progressed. He has a reputation for creating the turnover and he didn't dissappoint. Unfortunately Rankins battled injury all year. It was unexpected as he has been very durable throughout his career. He hope he gets back to full health and helps us in our bid to win it all next year

Were you concerned about Burton coming out of the draft ? We have concerns about all our draft choices. As to Burton, the kid is currently going through some issues that do not allow mw to comment further. 

Why couldn’t you resign Chase before the season ? We tried hard to sign Chase and made what we considered to be fair offers. Unfortunatly, we and his agent could not agree to the language/number prior to the start of the season . We definately look forward to Chase being a Bengal for years to come.

Can you resign Higgins now that Bates walked ? Tee is a huge asset to this team and we'll do all we can to keep him in the building

There you go. Now let Duke focus on getting the off-season off to a good start. He'll get interviewed by many folks later. He's a regular on Sirius XM

(01-09-2025, 03:25 AM)Bengalstripes9 Wrote: Would this be because of the time in the offseason and that he doesn’t want to give out his strategy on something?

He does interviews other times of the year, right?

Duke typically talks at the combine, pre-draft press conference, and media luncheon right before training camp.

(01-09-2025, 08:51 PM)Stewy Wrote: Sheesh I just read through some of the responses here and all I can say is, no wonder he doesn't talk to fans.

You'd think he ignored a subpoena to testify under oath before a grand jury. The team told an ad-hoc writer that he wasn't available for an interview.

Some apparently feel Duke knows who stole the Linburgh baby

(01-10-2025, 02:17 AM)Bengal Dude Wrote: Duke typically talks at the combine, pre-draft press conference, and media luncheon right before training camp.

and usually comes on during one of the preseason games i believe

Chris Ballard flat-out admits his team-building approach last spring — keep the core together, don't add outside talent — was a mistake.

"I didn't create enough competition on the roster ... that directly falls on my shoulders. I was wrong. I was wrong."

— Zak Keefer (@zkeefer) January 10, 2025

Another GM taking accountability. Someone should have told him that he didn’t owe Colts fans anything.

(Yesterday, 12:48 AM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote:

Chris Ballard flat-out admits his team-building approach last spring — keep the core together, don't add outside talent — was a mistake.

"I didn't create enough competition on the roster ... that directly falls on my shoulders. I was wrong. I was wrong."

— Zak Keefer (@zkeefer) January 10, 2025

Another GM taking accountability. Someone should have told him that he didn’t owe Colts fans anything.

Also sounds familiar. We have been adding less and less outside talent each year since 2021.

(01-09-2025, 11:52 PM)bfine32 Wrote: There you go. Now let Duke focus on getting the off-season off to a good start. He'll get interviewed by many folks later. He's a regular on Sirius XM

Not sure if you’re a fan of Tobin and the responses you provided are what you believe or just how you think Duke would respond ? If you believe what you posted then here’s my rebuttal if you were just hypothesizing about Tobin’s response then please disregard.

1. Far as the not developing O-line before Pollack we blamed Turner and Alexander but Tobin is the one variable that remains the same. How do you explain that ?

2. Dax played FS all of 2023 and sucked. He played outside CB in 2022 in that Cleveland Halloween game because Apple was hurt then Awuzie tore his ACL. He didn’t play good he got killed by Amari Cooper which I didn’t blame on him. After that Apple was back and Cam Britt-Taylor started for Awuzie all year with Hilton in the slot. So I don’t think playing corner that game stunted his growth at safety.

3. Far as the young guys Turner was bad all year he had 2 nice pass breakups in the Chargers game and fans went wild. Bengals spin he got hurt during his breakout game ? I think Dax looked solid at corner still a failure big picture for a 1st rd.pick. Also Dax played the Patriots and the Panthers in two of the games he played who have awful WR’s. He gave up the game winning Td vs. the Commanders so it was a small sample size of just 4 games. I actually think Newton can be a decent backup CB which I’ll take for a 5th rounder. Overall the bad picks outweighs the good by a landslide recently and is the main reason for where this team is at.

4. Part of being a safety is tackling which Geno Stone cannot do. He takes awful angles and gets ran over when in position which has nothing to do with getting used of Lou’s system it’s basic football. The Steelers 1st game was after the bye in week 13 and Stone was atrocious. We play in a run heavy division you need to tackle. He had a few nice picks off Cooper Rush and Will Levis. He went from horrific to bad he was still getting beat in pass coverage at the end of the year. Stone and Battle getting split in the Denver game for an easy TD in week 17. Rankins is a bad run defender and you signed him in a run heavy division? Signed him as a rusher when 3 of his 6 sacks came against the Bengals because are interior line blows.

5. We kept getting told we couldn’t resign Bates because we can’t pay everyone. Outside of Burrow what young good players have been resigned ?We have no other good young guys to resign because we’ve had awful drafts. We need to change the way we structure contracts. We have a dumb policy that we can’t negotiate contracts during the season which is idiotic. You could have still got Chase done during the season but chose not too because of a dumb policy.