Are we being realistic with Free Agency expectations?

[*Go Cards*]

(02-18-2022, 08:25 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The idea of spending $33-35m/yr on just Bates, Uzomah, and Hill is hilariously bad.

Bates isn't worth anywhere near $16-18m/yr. I'm not even sure he's worth a $13m franchise tag. $18m/yr would make him tied for the 27th highest paid non-QB player in the entire NFL. Also.. why would you ever front load? That's nonsense.

Uzomah isn't worth anywhere near $8.3m/yr. That would make him the 8th highest paid TE in the league and he's heading into his age 29 season and has never reached 500 yards receiving before.

Hill isn't worth anywhere near $8.75m/yr. That would make him the 19th highest paid DT in the league and he's a part-time player non-starter. Jonathan Fanene part 2.

- - - - -

I get people have been reading Hobspin articles for years and years now, but you don't need to regurgitate that line of thinking in order to preemptively cover up for the 7th Annual Not Fixing The OL offseason.

Yep and that 35 million would buy some nice FA O-line help.

I like Bates but 18 million will bring in a ProBowl LT and could draft Bates replacement at pick #32. 

Every Free Safety on the board will be left at this time except for Kyle Hamilton and maybe Elam. Many have 2nd round grades like Cline, Brisker, and Hall and who knows maybe Elam falls even. Bengals could basically have whoever they feel is the 2nd or 3rd best FS in draft and add a Top Tier experienced O-lineman for just Bates alone. A Center and Guard should be much cheaper and easier to work out and Hill could help out here a lot leaving only one spot needed which should be easy enough, and could even keep Uzomah in this scenario.  

Its doable imho. 

[*Go Cards*]

Yet seems last time the Bengals did well in draft with O-line it was when they hired an outside source to evaluate the OL draft talent for them. Forget his name but he steered the Bengals right imo.

Everybody wanted DeCastro and he was available when Bengals drafted but dude told them that Zeitler was as good and could be gotten later in draft. Bengals traded the pick adding a 3rd round selection and watched the steelers get DeCastro and on the mothership heads exploded.

Then the Bengals drafted Zeitler and Sanu with the extra pick added by trading down and then we all saw that the move could be brilliant.

Maybe they should lob that guy a call again or just put him on the payroll.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-20-2022, 08:45 PM)Go Cards Wrote: Yet seems last time the Bengals did well in draft with O-line it was when they hired an outside source to evaluate the OL draft talent for them. Forget his name but he steered the Bengals right imo.

Everybody wanted DeCastro and he was available when Bengals drafted but dude told them that Zeitler was as good and could be gotten later in draft. Bengals traded the pick adding a 3rd round selection and watched the steelers get DeCastro and on the mothership heads exploded.

Then the Bengals drafted Zeitler and Sanu with the extra pick added by trading down and then we all saw that the move could be brilliant.

Maybe they should lob that guy a call again or just put him on the payroll.

You didn't have a ninja or anything, so I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

Sanu averaged 448 yards/3 TDs per year as a receiver in 4 years as a Bengal. That does not offset the difference between a solid starting guard and a 6x Pro Bowl, 1x 2nd Team All-Pro, 2x 1st Team All-Pro guard.

[CJD]

Here is how I would approach our cap space requirements:

The way I see it, we need to sign a starting free safety, a starting 3 tech, a starting cornerback, a starting TE and 2 to 3 new starting offensive linemen.

Let's just go down the list one by one and fill these needs.

For free safety, the obvious move is to sign Bates. I am not sure if we'll be able to sign him to a long term contract because the franchise tag is currently about 13 million dollars for safeties. If Bates does want to be the highest paid safety in the league, that would mean paying him more than what the Seahawks gave Jamal Adams, which was about 17.5 million AAV.

Side note, Adams' contract is the perfect example of why you should never trade multiple first round picks for a player near the end of their contract without a new contract extension being a contingent to completing the trade. As soon as the Seahawks made that trade, Adams knew he could ask for the world, and Seattle would have to give it to him because the sunk cost fallacy would have kicked in.

But I digress, I just don't see us giving Bates an 18 million AAV contract, so let's just say we franchise tag him for that 13 million dollar price tag.

Our cap space, is about 58 million or so for 2022. If we cut Waynes (which we will), it'll be above 69 million.

So franchise tagging Bates leaves us at 56 million remaining.

On to 3 tech DT.
I hope we re-sign either Ogunjobi or Hill, but I honestly loved having them in a rotation. I think both players benefited from the rotation, so I have my concerns that re-signing one of them will yield close to the same results in 2022. The odds of us resigning both at a reasonable price is low so I wouldn't mind looking elsewhere for a full time pass rusher at DT who doesn't need to be rotated to produce. Akiem Hicks would be an awfully attractive option if available and PFF estimates that his contract would be a 2 years, 17 million (8.5 million per year). If Hicks isn't available and we have to rely on a rotation, I think signing either Ogunjobi or Hill + taking a flier on another player would be good. Sheldon Richardson could also be a low cost "prove it" option to pair with either Hill or Ogunjobi to accomplish the same thing we did on 2021 with Hill and Ogunjobi. PFF estimates that Richardson will sign a 1 year, 3 million dollar prove it deal this year. They estimate B.J. Hill to get a 3 year 26.25 million dollar contract (8.75 million per year). That's a bit steep, in my opinion, but let's say we give him that and backload it a wee bit in order to have only a cap hit of 6 million in 2022. Either way we go, we're looking at 9 to 10 million dedicated to fixing up DT. That would leave us with 46 million left.

At CB, there are a pretty good number of corners who I think fit our scheme pretty well. If they resign Apple as a 1 to 2 million dollar back up, I think it would be a good move, but he should definitely not be the starter next year.

I know some people are pitching going all in on CB and grabbing JC Jackson, but I think he will be too expensive and is primarily a man corner, which doesn't really fit our scheme.

There are 4 cornerbacks I'd take a long, hard look at in this year's free agency class.
1. Donte Jackson
2. Casey Hayward Jr
3. Steven Nelson
4. D.J. Reed Jr

Donte Jackson would be an ideal #2 cornerback in a zone scheme like ours that doesn't break the bank. PFF is projecting a 2 year, 20 million dollar contract.
Casey Heyward may be a steal in free agency this year. He's on the older side and is only 1 year removed from his career worst year, but he played well in Oakland and fits our zone heavy scheme well. PFF is estimating a 1 year 6.5 million dollar contract for him.
Steven Nelson and D.J. Reed Jr are similar prospects in that they're slightly undersized zone corners who are limited in man coverage. While we play a lot of zone, we aren't a zone only team like Oakland's Cover 3 scheme, so these two would probably depend on Lou's comfortability with them fitting his scheme, but they are both quality zone corners who we could bring in for under 8 million per year. PFF projects them as 7 million per year (2 years, 14 million) and 8 million per year (3 years, 24 million), respectively.

Let's say we go tot he high end and sign Jackson to a 10M AAV contract. We also sign Eli Apple to a 1 year, 1.5 million dollar contract again. That leaves our cap space at 34.5 million.

At this point, I think it's fair to account for the Bengal's 2022 rookie draft pool, which is estimated to be about 7.6 million by overthecap.com

So that drops our available cap space for the Oline to 27 million dollars.

I know everyone wants to bring back C.J. Uzomah, but I'm not sure we can afford to do so unless he takes a hometown discount. PFF is estimating his contract at 3 years, 25 million (8.333 AAV) which is just...a lot of money for C.J. If we can sign him for 6M AAV, I think that would be a good deal. Otherwise, we may need to allocate this money elsewhere. Probably would mean we draft a TE in the 2nd day.

Let's say we are able to get him back for a 6 million dollar cap hit in 2022. That leaves 21 million for the offensive line. I know the Bengals always want to hold back 5 to 10 million for in-year signings and roll-over (we rolled 5 million over this year), so let's assume that we now have 15 million for the offensive line.

That would allow us to sign two starting level players at center and guard and maybe push a little money into the latter years to keep us under for 2022.

PFF estimates Laken Tomlinson, Connor Williams, James Daniels, Austin Corbett, Andrew Norwell, Alex Cappa, Quinton Spain, Ryan Jensen, Ben Jones, Brian Allen or Bradley Bozeman could be had for 9M, 6.67M, 10M, 9.25M, 7.25M, 9.25M, 4.75M, 13M, 6.67M, 7.25M or 7M AAV, respectively.

PFF also estimates that Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr, Duane Brown, Morgan Moses, Trent Brown, Riley Reiff or Germain Ifedi could be had for 20M, 21M, 10M, 7.5M, 10M, 7M, or 6M AAV, respectively.

With a budget of 15 Million, the top guys like Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr , Trent Brown and James Daniels are probably out. We also probably stay away from centers this year, since Hopkins is still under contract.

But, we could sign 2 starting guards in Spain and, say, Connor Williams for about 12M per year (6.67 + 4.75). That would leave us with 3M for back ups and role players. If we shift contract cap hits around, we can probably make room for Riley Reiff as well. Maybe give him a void year to make his cap hit 3.5 M. If we did this, I think the wise move would be to use the draft to find a starting RT of the future and fill up depth on the Dline and maybe TE, depending on what we do with Uzomah.

That would leave us with a total free agent pool of Jessie Bates, BJ Hill, Sheldon Richardson, Donte Jackson, Eli Apple, CJ Uzomah, Quinton Spain, Connor Williams and Riley Reiff.

I know this probably won't happen and it doesn't account for back ups who deserve contracts like Josh Tupou, but the point is we have more than enough cap space to either fix the offensive line in free agency or fix the other needs on the team such that we can focus our draft on the offensive line.

Our team should be vastly improved in 2022 and I don't think people are being all that unrealistic with what we can do in free agency.

[THE PISTONS]

(02-20-2022, 09:25 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Here is how I would approach our cap space requirements:

The way I see it, we need to sign a starting free safety, a starting 3 tech, a starting cornerback, a starting TE and 2 to 3 new starting offensive linemen.

Let's just go down the list one by one and fill these needs.

For free safety, the obvious move is to sign Bates. I am not sure if we'll be able to sign him to a long term contract because the franchise tag is currently about 13 million dollars for safeties. If Bates does want to be the highest paid safety in the league, that would mean paying him more than what the Seahawks gave Jamal Adams, which was about 17.5 million AAV.

Side note, Adams' contract is the perfect example of why you should never trade multiple first round picks for a player near the end of their contract without a new contract extension being a contingent to completing the trade. As soon as the Seahawks made that trade, Adams knew he could ask for the world, and Seattle would have to give it to him because the sunk cost fallacy would have kicked in.

But I digress, I just don't see us giving Bates an 18 million AAV contract, so let's just say we franchise tag him for that 13 million dollar price tag.

Our cap space, is about 58 million or so for 2022. If we cut Waynes (which we will), it'll be above 69 million.

So franchise tagging Bates leaves us at 56 million remaining.

On to 3 tech DT.
I hope we re-sign either Ogunjobi or Hill, but I honestly loved having them in a rotation. I think both players benefited from the rotation, so I have my concerns that re-signing one of them will yield close to the same results in 2022. The odds of us resigning both at a reasonable price is low so I wouldn't mind looking elsewhere for a full time pass rusher at DT who doesn't need to be rotated to produce. Akiem Hicks would be an awfully attractive option if available and PFF estimates that his contract would be a 2 years, 17 million (8.5 million per year). If Hicks isn't available and we have to rely on a rotation, I think signing either Ogunjobi or Hill + taking a flier on another player would be good. Sheldon Richardson could also be a low cost "prove it" option to pair with either Hill or Ogunjobi to accomplish the same thing we did on 2021 with Hill and Ogunjobi. PFF estimates that Richardson will sign a 1 year, 3 million dollar prove it deal this year. They estimate B.J. Hill to get a 3 year 26.25 million dollar contract (8.75 million per year). That's a bit steep, in my opinion, but let's say we give him that and backload it a wee bit in order to have only a cap hit of 6 million in 2022. Either way we go, we're looking at 9 to 10 million dedicated to fixing up DT. That would leave us with 46 million left.

At CB, there are a pretty good number of corners who I think fit our scheme pretty well. If they resign Apple as a 1 to 2 million dollar back up, I think it would be a good move, but he should definitely not be the starter next year.

I know some people are pitching going all in on CB and grabbing JC Jackson, but I think he will be too expensive and is primarily a man corner, which doesn't really fit our scheme.

There are 4 cornerbacks I'd take a long, hard look at in this year's free agency class.
1. Donte Jackson
2. Casey Hayward Jr
3. Steven Nelson
4. D.J. Reed Jr

Donte Jackson would be an ideal #2 cornerback in a zone scheme like ours that doesn't break the bank. PFF is projecting a 2 year, 20 million dollar contract.
Casey Heyward may be a steal in free agency this year. He's on the older side and is only 1 year removed from his career worst year, but he played well in Oakland and fits our zone heavy scheme well. PFF is estimating a 1 year 6.5 million dollar contract for him.
Steven Nelson and D.J. Reed Jr are similar prospects in that they're slightly undersized zone corners who are limited in man coverage. While we play a lot of zone, we aren't a zone only team like Oakland's Cover 3 scheme, so these two would probably depend on Lou's comfortability with them fitting his scheme, but they are both quality zone corners who we could bring in for under 8 million per year. PFF projects them as 7 million per year (2 years, 14 million) and 8 million per year (3 years, 24 million), respectively.

Let's say we go tot he high end and sign Jackson to a 10M AAV contract. We also sign Eli Apple to a 1 year, 1.5 million dollar contract again. That leaves our cap space at 34.5 million.

At this point, I think it's fair to account for the Bengal's 2022 rookie draft pool, which is estimated to be about 7.6 million by overthecap.com

So that drops our available cap space for the Oline to 27 million dollars.

I know everyone wants to bring back C.J. Uzomah, but I'm not sure we can afford to do so unless he takes a hometown discount. PFF is estimating his contract at 3 years, 25 million (8.333 AAV) which is just...a lot of money for C.J. If we can sign him for 6M AAV, I think that would be a good deal. Otherwise, we may need to allocate this money elsewhere. Probably would mean we draft a TE in the 2nd day.

Let's say we are able to get him back for a 6 million dollar cap hit in 2022. That leaves 21 million for the offensive line. I know the Bengals always want to hold back 5 to 10 million for in-year signings and roll-over (we rolled 5 million over this year), so let's assume that we now have 15 million for the offensive line.

That would allow us to sign two starting level players at center and guard and maybe push a little money into the latter years to keep us under for 2022.

PFF estimates Laken Tomlinson, Connor Williams, James Daniels, Austin Corbett, Andrew Norwell, Alex Cappa, Quinton Spain, Ryan Jensen, Ben Jones, Brian Allen or Bradley Bozeman could be had for 9M, 6.67M, 10M, 9.25M, 7.25M, 9.25M, 4.75M, 13M, 6.67M, 7.25M or 7M AAV, respectively.

PFF also estimates that Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr, Duane Brown, Morgan Moses, Trent Brown, Riley Reiff or Germain Ifedi could be had for 20M, 21M, 10M, 7.5M, 10M, 7M, or 6M AAV, respectively.

With a budget of 15 Million, the top guys like Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr , Trent Brown and James Daniels are probably out. We also probably stay away from centers this year, since Hopkins is still under contract.

But, we could sign 2 starting guards in Spain and, say, Connor Williams for about 12M per year (6.67 + 4.75). That would leave us with 3M for back ups and role players. If we shift contract cap hits around, we can probably make room for Riley Reiff as well. Maybe give him a void year to make his cap hit 3.5 M. If we did this, I think the wise move would be to use the draft to find a starting RT of the future and fill up depth on the Dline and maybe TE, depending on what we do with Uzomah.

That would leave us with a total free agent pool of Jessie Bates, BJ Hill, Sheldon Richardson, Donte Jackson, Eli Apple, CJ Uzomah, Quinton Spain, Connor Williams and Riley Reiff.

I know this probably won't happen and it doesn't account for back ups who deserve contracts like Josh Tupou, but the point is we have more than enough cap space to either fix the offensive line in free agency or fix the other needs on the team such that we can focus our draft on the offensive line.

Our team should be vastly improved in 2022 and I don't think people are being all that unrealistic with what we can do in free agency.

That's a good post that shows just how quickly that money goes. And in your scenario, you're picking the guys you want and aren't having to compete with other teams to sign them.

[*Go Cards*]

(02-20-2022, 09:16 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: You didn't have a ninja or anything, so I can't tell if this is sarcasm or not.

Sanu averaged 448 yards/3 TDs per year as a receiver in 4 years as a Bengal. That does not offset the difference between a solid starting guard and a 6x Pro Bowl, 1x 2nd Team All-Pro, 2x 1st Team All-Pro guard.

the Bengals would have never paid DeCastro to stay 6 seasons not being a OT and Sanu was used that way here with AJ being the man already. 

and I was one of them screaming for DeCastro. 

Yet it still does not change that this was the last good OL taken by Bengals that was healthy and we did not have to wait on and an extra WR came with the deal. Thought it worked out fine for Bengals personally and they went 10-6 in their first season as Bengals improving on the previous seasons results by a reaching double digit wins. 

Plus DeCastro has hung up his cleats and Zeitler is still productive

Yet guess we can just keep swinging like we have been though, maybe one day we will hit some OL talent again. 

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-20-2022, 11:06 PM)Go Cards Wrote: the Bengals would have never paid DeCastro to stay 6 seasons not being a OT and Sanu was used that way here with AJ being the man already. 

and I was one of them screaming for DeCastro. 

Yet it still does not change that this was the last good OL taken by Bengals that was healthy and we did not have to wait on and an extra WR came with the deal. Thought it worked out fine for Bengals personally and they went 10-6 in their first season as Bengals improving on the previous seasons results by a reaching double digit wins. 

But guess we can just keep swinging like we have been though, maybe one day we will hit some OL again. 

Even if that's true (I am not convinced it is) they didn't pay Zeitler to stay 6 seasons either. Meanwhile in his first 5 seasons DeCastro was still a 2x Pro Bowl, 1x 2nd Team All-Pro, 1x 1st Team All-Pro.

That still doesn't get evened out because of a WR who averaged 450 yards/3 TDs per year. In the 4 years after Sanu, Kroft had a 400 yard season, LaFell had 850 and 550 yard seasons, Uzomah had a 450 yard season, Auden Tate had a 575 yard season, Alex Erickson had a 525 yard season, and John Ross had a 500 yard season.

Next you're going to say the Chris Perry trade down was fine because they also got Stacy Andrews. Steven Jackson pshaw.

The answer is to swing less and just buy more. The Bengals clearly don't have the ability to scout and develop good OL regularly. So just buy them.

[*Go Cards*]

(02-20-2022, 11:21 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Even if that's true (I am not convinced it is) they didn't pay Zeitler to stay 6 seasons either. Meanwhile in his first 5 seasons DeCastro was still a 2x Pro Bowl, 1x 2nd Team All-Pro, 1x 1st Team All-Pro.

That still doesn't get evened out because of a WR who averaged 450 yards/3 TDs per year. In the 4 years after Sanu, Kroft had a 400 yard season, LaFell had 850 and 550 yard seasons, Uzomah had a 450 yard season, Auden Tate had a 575 yard season, Alex Erickson had a 525 yard season, and John Ross had a 500 yard season.

The answer is to swing less and just buy more. The Bengals clearly don't have the ability to scout and develop good OL regularly. So just buy them.

Ok Zeitler was horrible and the worst pick ever and DeCastro was king even though he is still productive and David can no longer play. You are correct in saying he may not have been better but it still was not a horrible selection. 

The Bengals went 10-6 and the steelers went 8-8 with both players starting right away. 

Yet agree that OL should be purchased at this point as well, but last years crop that was purchased was pretty darn average to give them more credit than they deserve.  

Just think whatever has been going on lately in OL draft evaluation is not working that well for Bengals and wish they would try another approach. 

By the way who was this advisor they hired, I can not recall. 

[CottonHill]

I’ll get more in depth later, but letting Bates walk and somehow drafting Cine out of Georgia would be a huge win. Dude is going to be very good. Use the Bates money on o line

[Housh]

(02-17-2022, 10:39 PM)puddycat Wrote: Bates franchise tag is 13.5M.  He won't get more than that unless he signs multi-year with up front bonus.  I think he's a top 10 safety, but not a top 5.
CJ is a team leader and I'd like to see him back at 7M, but he's hit and miss in blocking.  I'd also like to pursue Maxx Williams 6M, who is a more find-the-soft-spot receiver but an excellent blocker. Good TE blockers are getting harder to find.
Since DB performance is hard to project, I'd repeat our scatter shot approach and pursue DJ Reed 8M, Sidney Jones 4M, or Casey Hayward 8M as a CB2 with Eli or Phillips 2M as a CB5 and draft a CB/S.
BJ Hill is a nice run/pass mix, but for a little bump in salary the Bengals could pursue Akiem Hicks, who's better at everything.

The OLine: I'm not sold on anyone but Williams.  I also don't want to sink $15+m into a player that could end up injured.  I also don't want sign 4 FAs.  OTOH, improvement isn't hard when you start from bad.
RT: I like Moses 8M if available, or sign Reiff 7M or Bobby Massey 3M as stop-gap RTs and draft or develop.
OG: Oday Aboushi 3M, recovering from ACL in 2021 and Spain 4M.  I'm not convinced that Tomlinson is worth 8 or Scherff worth 17. Pick up another OG in the draft and let them battle it out.
OC: My big/small brain move.  Trade 2022 and 2023 1st rounders to get Tyler Lindenbaum.  I'm not planning to draft below 20+ in 2023 anyway. My guess is that we'd need to go up to #13 (Browns).  As a 1st round pick, this is a 5 year answer to the center position.  Alternatively or additionally, pursue Ben Jones 7M who is a solid pass-defender and has played RG in the past.

Jesus christ this was a good take.

All these moves seemed smart, only con is this approach seemed conservative. I think you absolutely do poor money into proven o line vets. ANYONE can get injured at any point.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(02-20-2022, 11:31 PM)Go Cards Wrote: Ok Zeitler was horrible and the worst pick ever and DeCastro was king even though he is still productive and David can no longer play. You are correct in saying he may not have been better but it still was not a horrible selection. 

The Bengals went 10-6 and the steelers went 8-8 with both players starting right away. 

Yet agree that OL should be purchased at this point as well, but last years crop that was purchased was pretty darn average to give them more credit than they deserve.  

Just think whatever has been going on lately in OL draft evaluation is not working that well for Bengals and wish they would try another approach. 

By the way who was this advisor they hired, I can not recall. 

My very first reply to you I said Zeitler was a solid starting guard.

If you're convinced that neither would be on the Bengals after 5 years, what does it matter what they are doing now for other teams? We don't draft players caring what they'll do for other teams later in their careers, just what they do in a Bengals uniform.

Yes, Zeitler and DeCastro were single-handedly responsible for their teams records their rookie years. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Bengals getting AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Clint Boling, Jermaine Gresham, Carlos Dunlap, and Geno Atkins in the previous two drafts. By that absurd logic the Bengals went 2-7-1 with Burrow his rookie year, the Dolphins went 6-3 with Tua his rookie year. Nobody is ever or was ever taking Tua over Burrow.

I have no idea who the advisor is, and yeah, the answer is to not listen to Mike Brown or the shitty former OL coach. The guy is an OL consultant for the German Football League now. Seriously. The last 3 guys we know that Mike Brown wanted were... Jackson Carman, John Ross, and he wanted Ryan Mallett over Andy Dalton (at least Jay Gruden had the balls to stop him).

[*ochocincos*]

(02-20-2022, 01:13 PM)Bengalbug Wrote: Bro, please…we were 5-2.  Burrow was sacked 22 times at that point, on pace for 63 in the regular season (more than we ended up giving).  6 qbs got sacked 30 times or less over 15-17 games.  

The bengals at 5-2 (one loss being an OT loss to packers) had real playoff aspirations.  Are you telling me they couldn’t have done “something” to help get burrow protection?

Instead we sat on our hands, lost our RT and our OL before and after that loss hindered us throughout the rest of the season.  

We won in spite of a huge problem

The past is the past, but there was AMPLE opportunity.

They probably could have, but at what cost?
doing a midseason trade at the deadline would have likely cost a high draft pick for a player who was probably in the final year of their contract anyway.

Also, Bengals were 5-3 at the deadline, not 5-2. And the first half of the schedule was considered the "easy" part.
By mid-Dec, they were 7-6 and about to play DEN, BAL, KC, and CLE.
Most people thought they were only going to win 1 or maybe 2 of those games. Or at least I did.
Once the Bengals made the playoffs, I thought they were going to beat the Raiders, but that's probably as far as they were going to go.

Regardless, it's clear the Bengals thought they had a good enough OL when they signed Riley Reiff to play RT and drafted Carman.
It was likely envisioned XSF/Carman would hold down the RG spot and the OL would be better than it ended up being.
Bengals now (hopefully) saw the error of their ways and will invest more heavily (quality, not quantity) on the OL this offseason.

[jj22]

(02-20-2022, 09:25 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Here is how I would approach our cap space requirements:

The way I see it, we need to sign a starting free safety, a starting 3 tech, a starting cornerback, a starting TE and 2 to 3 new starting offensive linemen.

Let's just go down the list one by one and fill these needs.

For free safety, the obvious move is to sign Bates. I am not sure if we'll be able to sign him to a long term contract because the franchise tag is currently about 13 million dollars for safeties. If Bates does want to be the highest paid safety in the league, that would mean paying him more than what the Seahawks gave Jamal Adams, which was about 17.5 million AAV.

Side note, Adams' contract is the perfect example of why you should never trade multiple first round picks for a player near the end of their contract without a new contract extension being a contingent to completing the trade. As soon as the Seahawks made that trade, Adams knew he could ask for the world, and Seattle would have to give it to him because the sunk cost fallacy would have kicked in.

But I digress, I just don't see us giving Bates an 18 million AAV contract, so let's just say we franchise tag him for that 13 million dollar price tag.

Our cap space, is about 58 million or so for 2022. If we cut Waynes (which we will), it'll be above 69 million.

So franchise tagging Bates leaves us at 56 million remaining.

On to 3 tech DT.
I hope we re-sign either Ogunjobi or Hill, but I honestly loved having them in a rotation. I think both players benefited from the rotation, so I have my concerns that re-signing one of them will yield close to the same results in 2022. The odds of us resigning both at a reasonable price is low so I wouldn't mind looking elsewhere for a full time pass rusher at DT who doesn't need to be rotated to produce. Akiem Hicks would be an awfully attractive option if available and PFF estimates that his contract would be a 2 years, 17 million (8.5 million per year). If Hicks isn't available and we have to rely on a rotation, I think signing either Ogunjobi or Hill + taking a flier on another player would be good. Sheldon Richardson could also be a low cost "prove it" option to pair with either Hill or Ogunjobi to accomplish the same thing we did on 2021 with Hill and Ogunjobi. PFF estimates that Richardson will sign a 1 year, 3 million dollar prove it deal this year. They estimate B.J. Hill to get a 3 year 26.25 million dollar contract (8.75 million per year). That's a bit steep, in my opinion, but let's say we give him that and backload it a wee bit in order to have only a cap hit of 6 million in 2022. Either way we go, we're looking at 9 to 10 million dedicated to fixing up DT. That would leave us with 46 million left.

At CB, there are a pretty good number of corners who I think fit our scheme pretty well. If they resign Apple as a 1 to 2 million dollar back up, I think it would be a good move, but he should definitely not be the starter next year.

I know some people are pitching going all in on CB and grabbing JC Jackson, but I think he will be too expensive and is primarily a man corner, which doesn't really fit our scheme.

There are 4 cornerbacks I'd take a long, hard look at in this year's free agency class.
1. Donte Jackson
2. Casey Hayward Jr
3. Steven Nelson
4. D.J. Reed Jr

Donte Jackson would be an ideal #2 cornerback in a zone scheme like ours that doesn't break the bank. PFF is projecting a 2 year, 20 million dollar contract.
Casey Heyward may be a steal in free agency this year. He's on the older side and is only 1 year removed from his career worst year, but he played well in Oakland and fits our zone heavy scheme well. PFF is estimating a 1 year 6.5 million dollar contract for him.
Steven Nelson and D.J. Reed Jr are similar prospects in that they're slightly undersized zone corners who are limited in man coverage. While we play a lot of zone, we aren't a zone only team like Oakland's Cover 3 scheme, so these two would probably depend on Lou's comfortability with them fitting his scheme, but they are both quality zone corners who we could bring in for under 8 million per year. PFF projects them as 7 million per year (2 years, 14 million) and 8 million per year (3 years, 24 million), respectively.

Let's say we go tot he high end and sign Jackson to a 10M AAV contract. We also sign Eli Apple to a 1 year, 1.5 million dollar contract again. That leaves our cap space at 34.5 million.

At this point, I think it's fair to account for the Bengal's 2022 rookie draft pool, which is estimated to be about 7.6 million by overthecap.com

So that drops our available cap space for the Oline to 27 million dollars.

I know everyone wants to bring back C.J. Uzomah, but I'm not sure we can afford to do so unless he takes a hometown discount. PFF is estimating his contract at 3 years, 25 million (8.333 AAV) which is just...a lot of money for C.J. If we can sign him for 6M AAV, I think that would be a good deal. Otherwise, we may need to allocate this money elsewhere. Probably would mean we draft a TE in the 2nd day.

Let's say we are able to get him back for a 6 million dollar cap hit in 2022. That leaves 21 million for the offensive line. I know the Bengals always want to hold back 5 to 10 million for in-year signings and roll-over (we rolled 5 million over this year), so let's assume that we now have 15 million for the offensive line.

That would allow us to sign two starting level players at center and guard and maybe push a little money into the latter years to keep us under for 2022.

PFF estimates Laken Tomlinson, Connor Williams, James Daniels, Austin Corbett, Andrew Norwell, Alex Cappa, Quinton Spain, Ryan Jensen, Ben Jones, Brian Allen or Bradley Bozeman could be had for 9M, 6.67M, 10M, 9.25M, 7.25M, 9.25M, 4.75M, 13M, 6.67M, 7.25M or 7M AAV, respectively.

PFF also estimates that Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr, Duane Brown, Morgan Moses, Trent Brown, Riley Reiff or Germain Ifedi could be had for 20M, 21M, 10M, 7.5M, 10M, 7M, or 6M AAV, respectively.

With a budget of 15 Million, the top guys like Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr , Trent Brown and James Daniels are probably out. We also probably stay away from centers this year, since Hopkins is still under contract.

But, we could sign 2 starting guards in Spain and, say, Connor Williams for about 12M per year (6.67 + 4.75). That would leave us with 3M for back ups and role players. If we shift contract cap hits around, we can probably make room for Riley Reiff as well. Maybe give him a void year to make his cap hit 3.5 M. If we did this, I think the wise move would be to use the draft to find a starting RT of the future and fill up depth on the Dline and maybe TE, depending on what we do with Uzomah.

That would leave us with a total free agent pool of Jessie Bates, BJ Hill, Sheldon Richardson, Donte Jackson, Eli Apple, CJ Uzomah, Quinton Spain, Connor Williams and Riley Reiff.

I know this probably won't happen and it doesn't account for back ups who deserve contracts like Josh Tupou, but the point is we have more than enough cap space to either fix the offensive line in free agency or fix the other needs on the team such that we can focus our draft on the offensive line.

Our team should be vastly improved in 2022 and I don't think people are being all that unrealistic with what we can do in free agency.

I'm not sure starting 22 with only Connor Williams as a new Oline member gives much hope to having the Oline fixed. That's my only issue. Something's going to have to give. I'm thinking the DT. Sample and a draft pick can play 3t. Also a lot of money is already tied up on the Dline. So from a budget standpoint, I think they have to spread the money around some.

[CJD]

(02-21-2022, 10:53 AM)jj22 Wrote: I'm not sure starting 22 with only Connor Williams as a new Oline member gives much hope to having the Oline fixed. That's my only issue. Something's going to have to give. I'm thinking the DT. Sample and a draft pick can play 3t. Also a lot of money is already tied up on the Dline. So from a budget standpoint, I think they have to spread the money around some.

Well, I think if we did it this way, with retaining Spain and Reiff, then OT would be the pick at 31. But I understand your point. I did build in some margin to both the DT and CB signings (assuming 10 million for both). If we were to let Hill walk in free agency, that would give us about 9 million more to work with, which would mean we could sign a RT like Morgan Moses or Trent Brown. That would be a significant upgrade, along with keeping Spain and signing Connor Williams.

If we do that, then I think it would be wise to draft a DT in the first two rounds, though. We saw what our pass rush looked like without a rotation at 3T and it was, at times, anemic. Hubbard and Reader are excellent run defenders, but don't offer too much on the pass rushing front. Having that Ogunjobi/Hill rotation next to Hendrickson gave him a fair number of 1 on 1s, which is why I think he was as successful as he was this year. If we don't re-sign either and just draft a rookie to replace them, I would bet that our pass rush would be even worse this year and Hendrickson may regress.

Maybe we cheap out on CB and only sign Apple but draft a CB in the first or second round to make up that money to sign another impact offensive lineman.

We have options, but I think you're right. We can't sign everything this off season. We're going to have to pick an area where we rely on the draft.

[Bengalbug]

(02-21-2022, 11:01 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Well, I think if we did it this way, with retaining Spain and Reiff, then OT would be the pick at 31. But I understand your point. I did build in some margin to both the DT and CB signings (assuming 10 million for both). If we were to let Hill walk in free agency, that would give us about 9 million more to work with, which would mean we could sign a RT like Morgan Moses or Trent Brown. That would be a significant upgrade, along with keeping Spain and signing Connor Williams.

If we do that, then I think it would be wise to draft a DT in the first two rounds, though. We saw what our pass rush looked like without a rotation at 3T and it was, at times, anemic. Hubbard and Reader are excellent run defenders, but don't offer too much on the pass rushing front. Having that Ogunjobi/Hill rotation next to Hendrickson gave him a fair number of 1 on 1s, which is why I think he was as successful as he was this year. If we don't re-sign either and just draft a rookie to replace them, I would bet that our pass rush would be even worse this year and Hendrickson may regress.

Maybe we cheap out on CB and only sign Apple but draft a CB in the first or second round to make up that money to sign another impact offensive lineman.

We have options, but I think you're right. We can't sign everything this off season. We're going to have to pick an area where we rely on the draft.

Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t this how an upgrade to an OL would play out?

More 1st downs lead to More sustained drives which leads to more scoring which means that the defense was on the sideline more. This would lead to a fresher defense, so maybe the drop off isn’t as great.

I know it doesn’t work exactly like this, but in theory… and my mind, it makes a lot of sense.

The bengals were 12th at 30:42 in TOP. If they can get just one more minute of TOP they would Be top 5.

[CanadianBengal]

(02-20-2022, 09:25 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Here is how I would approach our cap space requirements:

The way I see it, we need to sign a starting free safety, a starting 3 tech, a starting cornerback, a starting TE and 2 to 3 new starting offensive linemen.

Let's just go down the list one by one and fill these needs.

For free safety, the obvious move is to sign Bates. I am not sure if we'll be able to sign him to a long term contract because the franchise tag is currently about 13 million dollars for safeties. If Bates does want to be the highest paid safety in the league, that would mean paying him more than what the Seahawks gave Jamal Adams, which was about 17.5 million AAV.

Side note, Adams' contract is the perfect example of why you should never trade multiple first round picks for a player near the end of their contract without a new contract extension being a contingent to completing the trade. As soon as the Seahawks made that trade, Adams knew he could ask for the world, and Seattle would have to give it to him because the sunk cost fallacy would have kicked in.

But I digress, I just don't see us giving Bates an 18 million AAV contract, so let's just say we franchise tag him for that 13 million dollar price tag.

Our cap space, is about 58 million or so for 2022. If we cut Waynes (which we will), it'll be above 69 million.

So franchise tagging Bates leaves us at 56 million remaining.

On to 3 tech DT.
I hope we re-sign either Ogunjobi or Hill, but I honestly loved having them in a rotation. I think both players benefited from the rotation, so I have my concerns that re-signing one of them will yield close to the same results in 2022. The odds of us resigning both at a reasonable price is low so I wouldn't mind looking elsewhere for a full time pass rusher at DT who doesn't need to be rotated to produce. Akiem Hicks would be an awfully attractive option if available and PFF estimates that his contract would be a 2 years, 17 million (8.5 million per year). If Hicks isn't available and we have to rely on a rotation, I think signing either Ogunjobi or Hill + taking a flier on another player would be good. Sheldon Richardson could also be a low cost "prove it" option to pair with either Hill or Ogunjobi to accomplish the same thing we did on 2021 with Hill and Ogunjobi. PFF estimates that Richardson will sign a 1 year, 3 million dollar prove it deal this year. They estimate B.J. Hill to get a 3 year 26.25 million dollar contract (8.75 million per year). That's a bit steep, in my opinion, but let's say we give him that and backload it a wee bit in order to have only a cap hit of 6 million in 2022. Either way we go, we're looking at 9 to 10 million dedicated to fixing up DT. That would leave us with 46 million left.

At CB, there are a pretty good number of corners who I think fit our scheme pretty well. If they resign Apple as a 1 to 2 million dollar back up, I think it would be a good move, but he should definitely not be the starter next year.

I know some people are pitching going all in on CB and grabbing JC Jackson, but I think he will be too expensive and is primarily a man corner, which doesn't really fit our scheme.

There are 4 cornerbacks I'd take a long, hard look at in this year's free agency class.
1. Donte Jackson
2. Casey Hayward Jr
3. Steven Nelson
4. D.J. Reed Jr

Donte Jackson would be an ideal #2 cornerback in a zone scheme like ours that doesn't break the bank. PFF is projecting a 2 year, 20 million dollar contract.
Casey Heyward may be a steal in free agency this year. He's on the older side and is only 1 year removed from his career worst year, but he played well in Oakland and fits our zone heavy scheme well. PFF is estimating a 1 year 6.5 million dollar contract for him.
Steven Nelson and D.J. Reed Jr are similar prospects in that they're slightly undersized zone corners who are limited in man coverage. While we play a lot of zone, we aren't a zone only team like Oakland's Cover 3 scheme, so these two would probably depend on Lou's comfortability with them fitting his scheme, but they are both quality zone corners who we could bring in for under 8 million per year. PFF projects them as 7 million per year (2 years, 14 million) and 8 million per year (3 years, 24 million), respectively.

Let's say we go tot he high end and sign Jackson to a 10M AAV contract. We also sign Eli Apple to a 1 year, 1.5 million dollar contract again. That leaves our cap space at 34.5 million.

At this point, I think it's fair to account for the Bengal's 2022 rookie draft pool, which is estimated to be about 7.6 million by overthecap.com

So that drops our available cap space for the Oline to 27 million dollars.

I know everyone wants to bring back C.J. Uzomah, but I'm not sure we can afford to do so unless he takes a hometown discount. PFF is estimating his contract at 3 years, 25 million (8.333 AAV) which is just...a lot of money for C.J. If we can sign him for 6M AAV, I think that would be a good deal. Otherwise, we may need to allocate this money elsewhere. Probably would mean we draft a TE in the 2nd day.

Let's say we are able to get him back for a 6 million dollar cap hit in 2022. That leaves 21 million for the offensive line. I know the Bengals always want to hold back 5 to 10 million for in-year signings and roll-over (we rolled 5 million over this year), so let's assume that we now have 15 million for the offensive line.

That would allow us to sign two starting level players at center and guard and maybe push a little money into the latter years to keep us under for 2022.

PFF estimates Laken Tomlinson, Connor Williams, James Daniels, Austin Corbett, Andrew Norwell, Alex Cappa, Quinton Spain, Ryan Jensen, Ben Jones, Brian Allen or Bradley Bozeman could be had for 9M, 6.67M, 10M, 9.25M, 7.25M, 9.25M, 4.75M, 13M, 6.67M, 7.25M or 7M AAV, respectively.

PFF also estimates that Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr, Duane Brown, Morgan Moses, Trent Brown, Riley Reiff or Germain Ifedi could be had for 20M, 21M, 10M, 7.5M, 10M, 7M, or 6M AAV, respectively.

With a budget of 15 Million, the top guys like Terron Armstead, Orlando Brown Jr , Trent Brown and James Daniels are probably out. We also probably stay away from centers this year, since Hopkins is still under contract.

But, we could sign 2 starting guards in Spain and, say, Connor Williams for about 12M per year (6.67 + 4.75). That would leave us with 3M for back ups and role players. If we shift contract cap hits around, we can probably make room for Riley Reiff as well. Maybe give him a void year to make his cap hit 3.5 M. If we did this, I think the wise move would be to use the draft to find a starting RT of the future and fill up depth on the Dline and maybe TE, depending on what we do with Uzomah.

That would leave us with a total free agent pool of Jessie Bates, BJ Hill, Sheldon Richardson, Donte Jackson, Eli Apple, CJ Uzomah, Quinton Spain, Connor Williams and Riley Reiff.

I know this probably won't happen and it doesn't account for back ups who deserve contracts like Josh Tupou, but the point is we have more than enough cap space to either fix the offensive line in free agency or fix the other needs on the team such that we can focus our draft on the offensive line.

Our team should be vastly improved in 2022 and I don't think people are being all that unrealistic with what we can do in free agency.

This is a good take and way more reasonable and likely than most who fail to take into consideration the number of players we need to sign when spending the cap space.

I would tinker a bit with your suggestions though.

Your DT solution makes sense as does TE --love CJ at $6mil not at $8mil

I agree Reif + First round pick is solid RT 

I could go to $14 mil per year for Jessie but not higher 

I wouldn't go $10 mil on CB --maybe Rasul -Douglas for $7.5 mil which saves $2.5 mil from your estimate.

I would cut Brandon Wilson as that saves $2 mil and he could be replaced by Evans (KR) and Morgan (Gunner) 

I also hope they don't roll money over this year or push money back to future years. Play it straight this year and spend true amount. This team is close and has a chance to build off success.

With the extra money I would upgrade over Spain ( can't believe he made only $1.1 mil last year but that shows he was considered a back-up). It would be great if he returned for even $2 mil per as a back-up but doubt he will. Played well enough to land a better deal elsewhere.

I would use the extra money I saved off your proposal to sign Daniels over Williams and Norwell over Spain. 

Maybe last years O-Line draft picks can improve from year one to year two and give us a bit of a bench?

[*Go Cards*]

(02-21-2022, 12:18 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: My very first reply to you I said Zeitler was a solid starting guard.

If you're convinced that neither would be on the Bengals after 5 years, what does it matter what they are doing now for other teams? We don't draft players caring what they'll do for other teams later in their careers, just what they do in a Bengals uniform.

Yes, Zeitler and DeCastro were single-handedly responsible for their teams records their rookie years. I'm sure it had nothing to do with the Bengals getting AJ Green, Andy Dalton, Clint Boling, Jermaine Gresham, Carlos Dunlap, and Geno Atkins in the previous two drafts. By that absurd logic the Bengals went 2-7-1 with Burrow his rookie year, the Dolphins went 6-3 with Tua his rookie year. Nobody is ever or was ever taking Tua over Burrow.

I have no idea who the advisor is, and yeah, the answer is to not listen to Mike Brown or the shitty former OL coach. The guy is an OL consultant for the German Football League now. Seriously. The last 3 guys we know that Mike Brown wanted were... Jackson Carman, John Ross, and he wanted Ryan Mallett over Andy Dalton (at least Jay Gruden had the balls to stop him).

Agree Zeitler was solid and yes we all know MB does not pay interior OL and is why he foolishly allowed Zeitler to walk and DeCastro would have commanded more money even. So pretty sure he would have walked too, I mean he even let Whit walk this same year. 

Yes these players are not solely responsible for teams record but are partly. We needed an OG and he helped immediately. 

steelers years leading up were  2010,  12-4 in Super Bowl, 2011, 12-4 playoffs, 2012, 8-8 no playoffs after drafting DeCastro
The Bengals in same years ......2010,  4-12 ,....................2011,  9-7 wildcard,  2012,  12-4 playoffs after Zeitler and Sanu

The steelers had 1,537 yds rushing this year and ....30 sacks in 449 attempts once every 14 passes with HOF QB
The Bengals had 1,745 yds rushing this season and 46 sacks in 528 attempts once every 11 passes with 2nd year QB

steelers RB's accounted for 7 TD's 
Bengals RB's accounted for 11 TD's

Before Tua's injury he was certainly ranked higher than Burrow, not that I would switch though. 
Would also add that if your using the prior drafts to say Zeitler did not help as much as record would suggest, then you would have to include all the additions Burrow received that helped Bengals record to leap forward this year would you not ?

Also Sanu only touched the ball 22 times his rookie season getting 16 receptions, 5 rushes, and 1 pass attempted.

Yet he did score TD on 25% of his catches with 4 TD's and on 100% of his passes for another TD. That is 5 TD's where the entire steelers RB's only accounted for 7 TD's total behind their greatest interior OL in franchise history. 

Also we can all agree that the ProBowl is somewhat a popularity contest with the steelers being way more popular than the Bengals. 

2021 PFF Ranking Zeitler 77.0 , DeCastro 0.0 

Maybe its just the advisor was right but Piano Man was worse at coaching him up than the steelers coaches were in the years to follow. 

Yet will concede that you win and are correct, yet just don't see it so cut and dry as you claim. Kind of like analytics. 

[THE PISTONS]

(02-21-2022, 09:53 PM)Go Cards Wrote: Agree Zeitler was solid and yes we all know MB does not pay interior OL and is why he foolishly allowed Zeitler to walk and DeCastro would have commanded more money even. So pretty sure he would have walked too, I mean he even let Whit walk this same year. 

Yes these players are not solely responsible for teams record but are partly. We needed an OG and he helped immediately. 

steelers years leading up were  2010,  12-4 in Super Bowl, 2011, 12-4 playoffs, 2012, 8-8 no playoffs after drafting DeCastro
The Bengals in same years ......2010,  4-12 ,....................2011,  9-7 wildcard,  2012,  12-4 playoffs after Zeitler and Sanu

The steelers had 1,537 yds rushing this year and ....30 sacks in 449 attempts once every 14 passes with HOF QB
The Bengals had 1,745 yds rushing this season and 46 sacks in 528 attempts once every 11 passes with 2nd year QB

steelers RB's accounted for 7 TD's 
Bengals RB's accounted for 11 TD's

Before Tua's injury he was certainly ranked higher than Burrow, not that I would switch though. 
Would also add that if your using the prior drafts to say Zeitler did not help as much as record would suggest, then you would have to include all the additions Burrow received that helped Bengals record to leap forward this year would you not ?

Also Sanu only touched the ball 22 times his rookie season getting 16 receptions, 5 rushes, and 1 pass attempted.

Yet he did score TD on 25% of his catches with 4 TD's and on 100% of his passes for another TD. That is 5 TD's where the entire steelers RB's only accounted for 7 TD's total behind their greatest interior OL in franchise history. 

Also we can all agree that the ProBowl is somewhat a popularity contest with the steelers being way more popular than the Bengals. 

2021 PFF Ranking Zeitler 77.0 , DeCastro 0.0 

Maybe its just the advisor was right but Piano Man was worse at coaching him up than the steelers coaches were in the years to follow. 

Yet will concede that you win and are correct, yet just don't see it so cut and dry as you claim. Kind of like analytics. 

DeCastro didn't age well due to injuries and his play fell off a cliff at the end. He had multiple ankle surgeries that just didn't heal.

But, he was arguably better than Zeitler for most of his career. Although, if Zeitler played for the Steelers and was allowed to hold...I'm sure he'd have made multiple Pro Bowls, etc.

[fredtoast]

(02-20-2022, 09:25 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: Our cap space, is about 58 million or so for 2022. If we cut Waynes (which we will), it'll be above 69 million.

Sportrac has us at about $49 million in cap space.

Where did you get $58 million?

[CJD]

(02-22-2022, 12:34 PM)fredtoast Wrote: Sportrac has us at about $49 million in cap space.

Where did you get $58 million?

I got it from this article on cincyjungle:
https://www.cincyjungle.com/2022/1/18/22889882/bengals-cap-space-2022-rollover-2021

Quote:That $5.292 million may not seem like a lot when there are teams with over $10 million getting rolled over. However, it looks like Cincinnati will have roughly $58 million in cap space when the rollover gets added, according to Spotrac. That number is also prior to the Bengals cutting cornerback Trae Waynes who has struggled to stay on the field since being signed before the 2020 season. That move would open up $11 million more in cap space.

But if I click the link attached, you're right it's only shown as 49 million. Maybe the total salary cap projection changed between the time this article was written and now? Either way, that's a little disappointing. So we have less than I was anticipating when I wrote my post.