(08-08-2017, 07:57 PM)Whatever Wrote: Whit still played very well last year, but he did drop off a bit from previous years.  He is already starting to slide.  In the NFL, you want to move on before the bottom totally drops out.  

Contract talks go both ways.  Could the Bengals have offered more money to Whit?  Yes.  Could Whit have given the team that had given him numerous extensions and made him a very rich man a bit of a hometown discount to stay?  Yes.  There was no reason for the Bengals to go over what they thought was fair when they had already drafted a replacement, and they offered him well over $10 million.  People act like the Bengals should start handing out blank checks every time one of their favorite player's contract is up.  They could also not just structure a multi year deal so he could easily be cut due to the Willie Anderson fiasco.  Willie was highly paid, oft injured and not that good anymore when they had to cut him, and the fanbase went ballistic.  Same thing would've happened with Whit.  

The unspoken part of the Whit deal is he was a lot of people's favorite player, and those people think the Bengals should have paid him whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted for him to retire a Bengal.  As much as you can call the Bengals cheap for letting Whit walk over a few million, on the flip side, it wasn't worth that few million to him to retire here.  Vince Wilfork, Revis, Welker, Vinatieri, etc were all beloved Patriot players who had tread left on their tires when they parted ways.  It sucks, but it's part of the business now if you want to be successful.

(08-08-2017, 10:17 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: They have cap space. The Bengals lowballed him and thought there was no way he'd leave. He left.

When you have $17-18 million cap space and don't sign the leader of your offensive line to a 1-2 year deal...the only reason is cheapness.

While they 'drafted his replacement'...the fact that they tried to sign Whitworth shows they weren't confident in Ced. It wasn't like they said...we're 100% confident in Ced so we'll let Whitworth walk. They wanted Whitworth...he left.

(08-08-2017, 10:10 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: It's what the Bengals always do. When they had a Top 5 roster in the NFL a few years ago...they'd save cap space to re-sign future free agents. The cap keeps rising. They could keep those guys anyways.

Why not sign a LB with that money to upgrade from Maualuga? A guy like Darryl Smith. He signed for $3-4 million a year and could actually cover TE's.

Why not sign a Center? It was obvious that Center was a weakness. They didn't address it and we couldn't run the ball in the playoffs.

You can always say...the Bengals need to save their cap space to keep future guys...but they had $18 million cap space and let Zeitler AND Whitworth leave.

It's classic Bengals.

And the we were more than Whitworth away from winning in the playoffs because we didn't win with him argument is classic. I'll tell you how you don't win in the playoffs? Fielding a poor offensive line.

Some fans will root for the Bengals and say that management has a sound strategy financially. It's been 25 years without a playoff win. Some 90% of NFL franchise's have won 5+ playoff game since we've last won a single game. We've won a total of what 5 playoff games in our 49 year history...

The Bengals philosophy DOES NOT work if your objective is playoff success. It works for profit margin.

(08-08-2017, 10:14 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Agreed. Plus we have what $17-18 million cap space now. Smith costed what $3 million. That's 20 million cap space right there.

Tag Zeitler for $10-11 million a year for 1 year.

We'd still have $9-10 million cap space after that.

How many times do we have to see the same thing happen over and over and over...and see a team not win a single playoff game in 25+ years to realize that management is inept.

We're hanging our hat on making the playoffs 5 times. Most teams have won 5+ playoff games since we've last won 1!

(08-08-2017, 10:17 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: They have cap space. The Bengals lowballed him and thought there was no way he'd leave. He left.

When you have $17-18 million cap space and don't sign the leader of your offensive line to a 1-2 year deal...the only reason is cheapness.

While they 'drafted his replacement'...the fact that they tried to sign Whitworth shows they weren't confident in Ced. It wasn't like they said...we're 100% confident in Ced so we'll let Whitworth walk. They wanted Whitworth...he left.

(08-08-2017, 04:48 PM)Whatever Wrote: I do realize Whit's accomplishments.  I also realize his days are numbered and his play could fall off a cliff at any time.  I also realize that if they tagged him this year and let him walk next year, they'd be in the exact same boat.  If he retired next year, they'd be in the same boat.  

The Brady instance is just silly.  The 49'ers let Montana go because they had Young.  The Packers let Favre go because they had Rodgers.  The Colts let Manning go because they could get Luck.  If I thought Garrapolo was my next franchise QB, I let Brady walk.  If I don't, and I had just won the SB, Id hold onto him and try to get another ring.  However, look around the league and the successful teams don't hold on too long, and they certainly don't FT linemen in their mid 30's.

If I was MB, and I trusted the word of some fans on the internet who have never won a preseason game and likely never will over the word of one of my coaches whose salary I pay, that coach shouldn't be working for me anymore.

(08-08-2017, 10:10 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: It's what the Bengals always do. When they had a Top 5 roster in the NFL a few years ago...they'd save cap space to re-sign future free agents. The cap keeps rising. They could keep those guys anyways.

Why not sign a LB with that money to upgrade from Maualuga? A guy like Darryl Smith. He signed for $3-4 million a year and could actually cover TE's.

Why not sign a Center? It was obvious that Center was a weakness. They didn't address it and we couldn't run the ball in the playoffs.

You can always say...the Bengals need to save their cap space to keep future guys...but they had $18 million cap space and let Zeitler AND Whitworth leave.

It's classic Bengals.

And the we were more than Whitworth away from winning in the playoffs because we didn't win with him argument is classic. I'll tell you how you don't win in the playoffs? Fielding a poor offensive line.

Some fans will root for the Bengals and say that management has a sound strategy financially. It's been 25 years without a playoff win. Some 90% of NFL franchise's have won 5+ playoff game since we've last won a single game. We've won a total of what 5 playoff games in our 49 year history...

The Bengals philosophy DOES NOT work if your objective is playoff success. It works for profit margin.

(08-09-2017, 01:01 AM)Whatever Wrote: How are you going to tag Zeitler for $10-11 mil when the FT # for OL was $13+?  I mean, I guess it makes it easier to sign everyone when you can just throw arbitrary #'s out there, but that's not how the real world works.

(08-09-2017, 12:55 AM)Whatever Wrote: Every team in the NFL loses players they would rather keep. 

At LB, they drafted Dawson, and he didn't pan out, then drafted Vigil, who the jury is still out on.  Maualuga sxcked, and I've said it for years.  I don't know what point you're trying to make, and how it pertains to this discussion.

Bodine is mediocre, at best, but he isn't the only reason we couldn't run the ball in the playoffs.  You're making him a scapegoat for the entire unit's struggles, as well as the RB's.  If you honestly think we could've run the ball just by swapping out Bodine, you're delusional.  Then again, if you spread the blame around, some of it goes to the guys you're bemoaning the team letting leave.

The Steelers won SB's with a crap OL.  I've posted on here before that statistically, there is no correlation between sacks allowed, ypc, or rushing offense and winning the SB.  The only cardinal rule that holds true is no team has won a SB with an offense ranked lower than 22, and no team that averaged under 300 yards/game has won one since the 70's.  Teams have won the SB ranking from the top to the bottom in those other categories.  It's a fallacy that you can't win in the playoffs without a top tier OL.

So basically, the franchise has sucked for forever, so we should a stupid contract at an aging LT who was one of the team captains in this latest run of futility?  If the franchise is so poorly run from a cap and personnel standpoint, tell me how they managed to assemble this Top 5 roster you were talking about in your first paragraph?  If you admit they built a top 5 roster, then you shouldn't be doing all this complaining about player personnel moves.  Of course, we both know you're just talking out of both sides of your mouth at this point, but whatever.

(08-09-2017, 09:23 AM)Wyche Wrote: Hallelujah!

I'm tired of the double talk.

(08-09-2017, 01:07 AM)Whatever Wrote: That's not what happened.  Get your facts straight.

The leader of the OL you bemoaned couldn't run the ball in the playoffs?  Former NFL FO guys have stated in the media that the Rams were stupid giving Whit what they did.

This franchise has numerous things you can legitimately gripe about, but half your arguments revolve around this made up fantasy land you've built up in your head.  

(08-09-2017, 12:55 AM)Whatever Wrote: Every team in the NFL loses players they would rather keep. 

At LB, they drafted Dawson, and he didn't pan out, then drafted Vigil, who the jury is still out on.  Maualuga sxcked, and I've said it for years.  I don't know what point you're trying to make, and how it pertains to this discussion.

Bodine is mediocre, at best, but he isn't the only reason we couldn't run the ball in the playoffs.  You're making him a scapegoat for the entire unit's struggles, as well as the RB's.  If you honestly think we could've run the ball just by swapping out Bodine, you're delusional.  Then again, if you spread the blame around, some of it goes to the guys you're bemoaning the team letting leave.

The Steelers won SB's with a crap OL.  I've posted on here before that statistically, there is no correlation between sacks allowed, ypc, or rushing offense and winning the SB.  The only cardinal rule that holds true is no team has won a SB with an offense ranked lower than 22, and no team that averaged under 300 yards/game has won one since the 70's.  Teams have won the SB ranking from the top to the bottom in those other categories.  It's a fallacy that you can't win in the playoffs without a top tier OL.

So basically, the franchise has sucked for forever, so we should a stupid contract at an aging LT who was one of the team captains in this latest run of futility?  If the franchise is so poorly run from a cap and personnel standpoint, tell me how they managed to assemble this Top 5 roster you were talking about in your first paragraph?  If you admit they built a top 5 roster, then you shouldn't be doing all this complaining about player personnel moves.  Of course, we both know you're just talking out of both sides of your mouth at this point, but whatever.

(08-09-2017, 09:26 AM)THE PISTONS Wrote: We have $17-18 million cap space and Smith costed what $3 million a year? That's $21 million.

Tag Zeitler for $13 million and we'd still have $8 million cap space now...

Or keep rationalizing the cheap spending strategy of a team that hasn't won a playoff game in 25+ year...

(08-09-2017, 09:37 AM)Wyche Wrote: ......but he's a HUGE part of it.  When you're constantly getting beat at the point of attack with NTs in your backfield nearly as soon as the back gets the ball.....you've got big problems against quality defenses.  Also, we have no idea how well he calls the blocking assignments at the LOS.  If he sucks as badly at that as he does blocking and snapping....well.....you know......

(08-09-2017, 09:11 AM)Wyche Wrote: ......and yet a couple of them still do.....one from as far back as the lost decade.  You said a mouthful there.....

(08-09-2017, 11:03 AM)Whatever Wrote: From a coaching staff perspective, I would have canned Marvin and Company after the SD loss, but that's a whole different can of worms.

(08-08-2017, 07:57 PM)Whatever Wrote: Whit still played very well last year, but he did drop off a bit from previous years.  He is already starting to slide.  In the NFL, you want to move on before the bottom totally drops out.  

Contract talks go both ways.  Could the Bengals have offered more money to Whit?  Yes.  Could Whit have given the team that had given him numerous extensions and made him a very rich man a bit of a hometown discount to stay?  Yes.  There was no reason for the Bengals to go over what they thought was fair when they had already drafted a replacement, and they offered him well over $10 million.  People act like the Bengals should start handing out blank checks every time one of their favorite player's contract is up.  They could also not just structure a multi year deal so he could easily be cut due to the Willie Anderson fiasco.  Willie was highly paid, oft injured and not that good anymore when they had to cut him, and the fanbase went ballistic.  Same thing would've happened with Whit.  

The unspoken part of the Whit deal is he was a lot of people's favorite player, and those people think the Bengals should have paid him whatever he wanted for as long as he wanted for him to retire a Bengal.  As much as you can call the Bengals cheap for letting Whit walk over a few million, on the flip side, it wasn't worth that few million to him to retire here.  Vince Wilfork, Revis, Welker, Vinatieri, etc were all beloved Patriot players who had tread left on their tires when they parted ways.  It sucks, but it's part of the business now if you want to be successful.