Whitworth was one of my favourite Bengals. Loved his attitude, commitment AND is a great player. How did they let him go!!!! If anyone should have been kept to retire a Bengal it should have been him. Bengals O-line has really struggled since he left. All this focus on drafting leaders and quality people and they let one of the best go.

Ps Dunlap played great too. Definitely played better than a 7th rounder and a scrub who could not beat out other scrubs to get playing time.

(01-09-2021, 10:15 PM)CanadianBengal Wrote: Whitworth was one of my favourite Bengals. Loved his attitude, commitment AND is a great player. How did they let him go!!!! If anyone should have been kept to retire a Bengal it should have been him. Bengals O-line has really struggled since he left. All this focus on drafting leaders and quality people and they let one of the best go.

Ps Dunlap played great too. Definitely played better than a 7th rounder and a scrub who could not beat out other scrubs to get playing time.

He was offered a 1 yearvcontract and had mentioned retirement and they had drafted his replacement . It is part of the NFL, most did not seeing still playing. 

Letting Whit go was one of the biggest mistakes this franchise has ever made. And that’s really saying something.

Not to mention how badly that oompa loompa Troy Blackburn disrespected him in the process. Unforgivable.

(01-09-2021, 10:15 PM)CanadianBengal Wrote: Ps Dunlap played great too. Definitely played better than a 7th rounder and a scrub who could not beat out other scrubs to get playing time.

He hated playing under Lou so much he was considering retiring before being traded. Sooooooooooooo happy we retained Lou, he knows how to connect with his guys!

(01-09-2021, 11:43 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: Letting Whit go was one of the biggest mistakes this franchise has ever made. And that’s really saying something.

Not to mention how badly that oompa loompa Troy Blackburn disrespected him in the process. Unforgivable.

Agree wholeheartedly. They messed up big time with this. This one decision put us behind for years. Whit easily would have given us 4 more wins a year.

Hindsight is 20/20 but it was a huge blunder.

(01-10-2021, 11:25 AM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Hindsight is 20/20.

This.

Same people who complain about us not bring Whit back praise the Patriot's practice based on it being better to let a player go a year too early than a year too late.  They also say we should have gotten rid of Dunlap and Atkins the year after they combined for 18 sacks, 21 TFL, 40 QB hits, and a Pro Bowl selection when they were both still under 30 years old. 

Letting Whit walk ended up being a bad decision, but he was 36 years old and a lot of other teams would have done the same thing.

Whitworth did not show the degradation in play that many other, who the Bengals keep, end up having. Would I have done a 5 year contract for $100 million? No, but he had more talent than anyone else showed on the O-line. We could have seen that we were getting garbage after him. It was worth a shot. Most felt the same. It's not hindsight, it's being proven right and Bengals proven wrong. Happens a lot, actually.

(01-10-2021, 12:29 PM)Destro Wrote: It's not hindsight, it's being proven right and Bengals proven wrong. Happens a lot, actually.

No more often than fans being proven wrong.  Look at how many here claimed Peko was garbage and agreed with bringing Green back last year.  Fans complain about Mike Brown wont pay OGs, but it would have been a huge mistake to give Steinbach more than the Browns offered him.  And Remember when Justin Smith was "Bustin Smith" around here?

Bengal front office makes a lot of bad decisions, but fans are proven wrong all the time also.  Only difference is that they don't make threads about it.

(01-10-2021, 11:25 AM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Hindsight is 20/20 but it was a huge blunder.

(01-10-2021, 12:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: This.

Same people who complain about us not bring Whit back praise the Patriot's practice based on it being better to let a player go a year to early than a year to late.  They also say we should have gotten rid of Dunlap and Atkins the year after they combined for 18 sacks, 21 TFL, 40 QB hits, and a Pro Bowl selection when they were both still under 30 years old. 

Letting Whit walk ended up being a bad decision, but he was 36 years old and a lot of other teams would have done the same thing.

If you are wrong in hindsight, it just shows that you lack foresight. 

I liked Andrew Whitworth as much as the next guy but when they let him go it was a calculated business decision.
Put yourself in Mike Browns shoes at that time. You have a 35 year old LT wanting a 3 year deal that pays him top dolllar.
The Off line coach at the time had already drafted (2015) his heir apparent LT Cedric Ogbuehi and RT Jake Fischer.
You are being told these guys are ready to take over.

Would you spend the money on an aging vet? Would you make the decision to allocate that money to other FA available?
We lossed Zeitler that year as well. We signed Andre Smith to play G and gave a big deal to Dre Kirkpatrick (5yr 52Mil)
We also brought in Minter and signed TJ Johnston to play Center. No wonder why Paul Alexander was fired.

Hindsight is always 20-20. If you think you would have signed Whitworth then I am interested to see if you would be good with the Bengals offering top dollar to get 35 year old ATL C Alex Mack a 3 year contract? How about a Top dollar 3 year deal to land 32 year old Trent Williams or 32 year old Alejandro Villanueva. Those are all scary contracts to offer aging veterans. Can't afford to miss with the FA money we have.

(01-10-2021, 12:45 PM)fredtoast Wrote: No more often than fans being proven wrong.  Look at how many here claimed Peko was garbage and agreed with bringing Green back last year.  Fans complain about Mike Brown wont pay OGs, but it would have been a huge mistake to give Steinbach more than the Browns offered him.  And Remember when Justin Smith was "Bustin Smith" around here?

Bengal front office makes a lot of bad decisions, but fans are proven wrong all the time also.  Only difference is that they don't make threads about it.

Thousands of fans and only one front office. Sure there's a few who may say anything, which isn't a majority. A track record of 25 years of no playoff wins shows that the blind squirrel can die. I thought keeping Green as a tag was bad. I also thought David Klingler would make us a winner. Neither time was I in the Bengals front office.

(01-10-2021, 11:25 AM)masonbengals fan Wrote: Hindsight is 20/20 but it was a huge blunder.

It's not hindsight.

The plan was to replace Andrew Whitworth (a Pro Bowler that year, and 1 year removed from 1st Team All-Pro) with Cedric Ogbuehi who I can say without exaggeration that he was the worst OT I have ever watched play.

That was the dumbest plan around, and it ended up just as the overwhelmingly vast majority of people with eyeballs predicted. "Hindsight 20/20" isn't a catchall phrase that can wipe away things that are blatantly obvious before they happen. Sticking a fork in an electrical outlet and going "hindsight 20/20" when someone says you're an idiot for it after you get electrocuted, doesn't work.

(01-10-2021, 12:17 PM)fredtoast Wrote: This.

Same people who complain about us not bring Whit back praise the Patriot's practice based on it being better to let a player go a year too early than a year too late.  They also say we should have gotten rid of Dunlap and Atkins the year after they combined for 18 sacks, 21 TFL, 40 QB hits, and a Pro Bowl selection when they were both still under 30 years old. 

Letting Whit walk ended up being a bad decision, but he was 36 years old and a lot of other teams would have done the same thing.

These very same people are now saying get rid of Geno, and if Geno goes to another team and wrecks game they will be right back on here talking about how stupid the Bengals were for letting him go. Face it, Whit is old. He was old when they let him go. He has been able, so far, to beat Father Time, but the odds against him doing what he's done were not very good. Looking to replace him was the smart move. It didn't work out simply because they didn't find a quality replacement.

(01-10-2021, 02:27 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: It's not hindsight.

The plan was to replace Andrew Whitworth (a Pro Bowler that year, and 1 year removed from 1st Team All-Pro) with Cedric Ogbuehi who I can say without exaggeration that he was the worst OT I have ever watched play.

That was the dumbest plan around, and it ended up just as the overwhelmingly vast majority of people with eyeballs predicted. "Hindsight 20/20" isn't a catchall phrase that can wipe away things that are blatantly obvious before they happen. Sticking a fork in an electrical outlet and going "hindsight 20/20" when someone says you're an idiot for it after you get electrocuted, doesn't work.

So if your coaches are telling Mike Brown it is time to move on from Whitworth Mike Brown should have over ruled them and kept Whitworth and leave Ogbuehi your 1st round pick in 2015 just sit on the bench. You would be a good GM but I would have trusted my coaches and moved on even though I was a Whitworth fan.

(01-10-2021, 02:27 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: That was the dumbest plan around, and it ended up just as the overwhelmingly vast majority of people with eyeballs predicted. "Hindsight 20/20" isn't a catchall phrase that can wipe away things that are blatantly obvious before they happen. 

Nothing is "blatantly obvious" when a player is 36 years old.  That is just stupid.  There was only ONE offensive lineman 36 or older who started a single game in the entire league this year.  As much as I like Whit there was no way you could say it was "obvious" that he would not decline rapidly at age 36.

(01-09-2021, 10:54 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: He was offered a 1 yearvcontract and had mentioned retirement and they had drafted his replacement . It is part of the NFL, most did not seeing still playing. 

Yep.
The Bengals basically used trends that they didn't expect Whitworth to keep being this good and play this long.
Steelers do this all the time with players. They let good players leave in FA and replace them with draft picks, who perform about as well or sometimes better.
The problem the Bengals have had for a while is they haven't been drafting/developing players behind the pricey vets, so when the vets leave, the Bengals get (much) worse.
In Whit's case, we probably wouldn't care as much if Ogbuehi and/or Fisher had become quality OTs.

(01-10-2021, 03:29 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Yep.
The Bengals basically used trends that they didn't expect Whitworth to keep being this good and play this long.
Steelers do this all the time with players. They let good players leave in FA and replace them with draft picks, who perform about as well or sometimes better.
The problem the Bengals have had for a while is they haven't been drafting/developing players behind the pricey vets, so when the vets leave, the Bengals get (much) worse.
In Whit's case, we probably wouldn't care as much if Ogbuehi and/or Fisher had become quality OTs.

Absolutely right!

If they would have been quality OT's Marvin Lewis regime would have seen a few more play-off appearances.
Alexander was ultimately fired for his part in this decision.

You have to remember the other end in the decision tree here. Ogbuehi was getting playing time and looked awful. So not only was Whit showing no signs of tailing off Og was showing no signs he belonged on an NFL roster.

(01-10-2021, 05:50 PM)Joelist Wrote: You have to remember the other end in the decision tree here. Ogbuehi was getting playing time and looked awful. So not only was Whit showing no signs of tailing off Og was showing no signs he belonged on an NFL roster.

That is true. 

So who is at fault? Mike Brown, Paul Alexander or the Head Coach Marvin Lewis?