It was pretty clear yesterday that the Browns and Bengals are two teams headed in completely opposite directions. This team missed its window to win with AJ, Geno, Burfict, Dunlap, and others in their prime. The Mayfield kid is a winner and exudes everything the Bengals, Dalton, and Marvin dont. The Bengals will occupy the basement of the AFC North for years to come, especially given the team's philosophy of building through the draft with minimal free agent signings who actually make a difference. Recent bad drafts have killed this organization who had done a good job of drafting that led to a culmination of 5 consecutive playoff appearances. Since 2012, they have wasted a ton of 2-4 round picks on players who have done nothing. Then there's the 1st rounders of Ogbuehi and Ross. You simply can't miss on 1st and 2nd round picks and win, and you have to hit on more 3rd and 4th rounders than they have since 2012.

So while we can only hope the 2020's aren't as bad as the 90's were, it's pretty clear where this team is headed.

As far as I’m concerned the Cincinnati Bengals can go one of two directions:

1. Retain the current coaching staff, let the best players leave via trade or free agency to competitive teams, and continue to use the franchise as a farm team for the elite teams in the NFL.

2. Attract the best coaching talent with positive playoff experience either at the college or professional level.

It’s easy to forget players like Billy Price, Dre Kirkpatrick, AJ Green, Andre Smith, Cedric Ogbuehi, Jake Fisher, Andy Dalton, Darqueze Dennard — and let’s even go back to Carson Palmer — were all highly rated players in college yet in the NFL only AJ Green and sometimes Andy Dalton play to the potential they demonstrated in college.

Somehow college studs become Bengal duds.

(11-26-2018, 03:49 PM)Fullrock Wrote: It was pretty clear yesterday that the Browns and Bengals are two teams headed in completely opposite directions. This team missed its window to win with AJ, Geno, Burfict, Dunlap, and others in their prime. The Mayfield kid is a winner and exudes everything the Bengals, Dalton, and Marvin dont. The Bengals will occupy the basement of the AFC North for years to come, especially given the team's philosophy of building through the draft with minimal free agent signings who actually make a difference.  Recent bad drafts have killed this organization who had done a good job of drafting that led to a culmination of 5 consecutive playoff appearances. Since 2012,  they have wasted a ton of 2-4 round picks on players who have done nothing. Then there's the 1st rounders of Ogbuehi and Ross. You simply can't miss on 1st and 2nd round picks and win, and you have to hit on more 3rd and 4th rounders than they have since 2012.

So while we can only hope the 2020's aren't as bad as the 90's were, it's pretty clear where this team is headed.

I agree with you. Window has been missed for a Super Bowl Run with the current roster. The Bengals have some young players to build around going forward, but probably should consider moving older assets for picks. 

Back on the old bengals forums. I called this years ago maybe was premature at the time but I knew exactly where this team was heading. They held onto Marvin for far too long. Andy is another Alex Smith. Solid but you can do much better. Bengals let the title window go back when they had an elite defense and good offense but Everything had to go right for Andy to be successful.

(11-29-2018, 09:48 AM)hotweales Wrote: I agree with you. Window has been missed for a Super Bowl Run with the current roster. The Bengals have some young players to build around going forward, but probably should consider moving older assets for picks. 

That's exactly right IMO. In order to win a SB nowadays, you have to get some good production from players on cheap rookie contracts and/or very cheap veteran deals because you can't pay all your good players veteran money. Back in 2015, you had Zeitler, Marvin Jones, Sanu, Jeremy Hill, and Kirkpatrick all on their rookie contracts and making at least a solid contribution. Dalton only counted for $9.6 mill against the cap in 2015 before shooting up to $13+ mill in 2016 and beyond.

The Chiefs would not be able to do as well right now if they had to pay veteran premium prices for Mahomes and Tyreek Hill.
Saints similar with Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara, Marshon Lattimore, Marcus Williams.
Rams with Goff, Cooper Kupp, and Rob Havenstein (who increases after this year) on cheaper contracts and Aaron Donald only making under $9 mill and Cooks only $5 mill cap hit this year (both go up substantially after this season). 
Steelers with JuJu Smith-Schuster, Villanueva (only counting $4 mill against cap this year, more than double starting next year), Bell (before tags)/Conner, TJ Watt.

(11-29-2018, 09:59 AM)Clappington Wrote: Back on the old bengals forums. I called this years ago maybe was premature at the time but I knew exactly where this team was heading. They held onto Marvin for far too long. Andy is another Alex Smith. Solid but you can do much better. Bengals let the title window go back when they had an elite defense and good offense but Everything had to go right for Andy to be successful.

Well...even when we had a great roster...we couldn't cover a TE and had a bad Center that we didn't address.

The 90's are here. Just an updated 21 century version of them.

(11-29-2018, 11:23 AM)ochocincos Wrote: That's exactly right IMO. In order to win a SB nowadays, you have to get some good production from players on cheap rookie contracts and/or very cheap veteran deals because you can't pay all your good players veteran money. Back in 2015, you had Zeitler, Marvin Jones, Sanu, Jeremy Hill, and Kirkpatrick all on their rookie contracts and making at least a solid contribution. Dalton only counted for $9.6 mill against the cap in 2015 before shooting up to $13+ mill in 2016 and beyond.

The Chiefs would not be able to do as well right now if they had to pay veteran premium prices for Mahomes and Tyreek Hill.
Saints similar with Michael Thomas, Alvin Kamara, Marshon Lattimore, Marcus Williams.
Rams with Goff, Cooper Kupp, and Rob Havenstein (who increases after this year) on cheaper contracts and Aaron Donald only making under $9 mill and Cooks only $5 mill cap hit this year (both go up substantially after this season). 
Steelers with JuJu Smith-Schuster, Villanueva (only counting $4 mill against cap this year, more than double starting next year), Bell (before tags)/Conner, TJ Watt.

The importance of not whiffing in the draft and getting maximum out of the quality picks you do get is so important. I won't even bother naming names.

(11-26-2018, 04:14 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: As far as I’m concerned the Cincinnati Bengals can go one of two directions:

1.  Retain the current coaching staff, let the best players leave via trade or free agency to competitive teams, and continue to use the franchise as a farm team for the elite teams in the NFL.

2.  Attract the best coaching talent with positive playoff experience either at the college or professional level.  

It’s easy to forget players like Billy Price, Dre Kirkpatrick, AJ Green, Andre Smith, Cedric Ogbuehi, Jake Fisher, Andy Dalton, Darqueze Dennard — and let’s even go back to Carson Palmer — were all highly rated players in college yet in the NFL only AJ Green and sometimes Andy Dalton play to the potential they demonstrated in college.

Somehow college studs become Bengal duds.

Everyone who gets drafted in the NFL were highly rated in college.

There's roughly over 16,000 NCAA players eligible for the draft every year, and only 64 go in the first 2 rounds (the cream of the crop). That's 192 people drafted in the first 2 rounds 2015-2017 out of roughly 48,000 eligible players, or 0.4%.

In the 2015-2017 drafts, there were 19 Pro Bowlers in the first two rounds (out of the 192 total).

So even if you look at just the cream of the crop out of college the previous three years, still only 9.89% are Pro Bowlers.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Bengals certainly don't get the most out of the players they draft, but the argument that "they were highly rated in college" is a bad one.

To be fair we came out of the gate doing great on offense. With a better Oline we could still be doing pretty good . The defense crumbled and injuries have been devastating so I'm not necessarily betting on the repeat of the 90s.. 
We've got 4 defensive linemen on IR, 4 TEs there, a very promising young safety and several others all out for the season and several others who have missed significant playing time.  These injuries are not permanent and expected to last indefinitely. 
If during training camp we'd have had this many injuries we'd have never won a single game by now so no,we're really not headed back to the 90s. THIS SEASON is shot, but by next September they should all be back in shape and ready for another run despite Mikey Marvin Hue and Austin ..

There, my optimistic outlook for tomorrow.. It won't be the 90s all over again. 

(11-29-2018, 09:04 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Everyone who gets drafted in the NFL were highly rated in college.

There's roughly over 16,000 NCAA players eligible for the draft every year, and only 64 go in the first 2 rounds (the cream of the crop). That's 192 people drafted in the first 2 rounds 2015-2017 out of roughly 48,000 eligible players, or 0.4%.

In the 2015-2017 drafts, there were 19 Pro Bowlers in the first two rounds (out of the 192 total).

So even if you look at just the cream of the crop out of college the previous three years, still only 9.89% are Pro Bowlers.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

The Bengals certainly don't get the most out of the players they draft, but the argument that "they were highly rated in college" is a bad one.

(09-23-2018, 07:40 PM)McC Wrote: To what end?  What a bizarre thing to say.

The worst NFL player is one of the best to ever play the game.