Why are we not extending our good players?

[WeezyBengal]

I think the last legit extension I can think of for one of our really good players was Joe Mixon last off-season.

Why are we not/haven't we extended guys like WJ3, Bates, Lawson, etc.

Bates is a FA after this year. They are going to let Lawson and WJ3 walk...like what are we doing?

[GreenCornBengal]

There are two parties involved in an extension. Bengals may be trying but those guys aren’t willing to commit to this franchise.

I’d give it a little more time before worrying too much.

[*Synric*]

Don't really have good players to extend at the moment. Carl Lawson and William Jackson were coming off injury riddled 2019 down years when they would have been getting their extension. Jessie Bates is up for an extension but I think they plan to let him play his 4th year then tag him.

[J24]

Lawson. Probably will be Tagged of not then it's ok to Riot and we will probably extend Bates in July. I'm with you on Jackson would prefer him over Wayne's.

[Hammerstripes]

Any other teams signing guys to long term extensions at this point? I think everyone is in a holding pattern until the cap details are finalized.

[Wes Mantooth]

(03-06-2021, 01:34 PM)J24 Wrote: 1.) Lawson. Probably will be Tagged of not then it's ok to Riot and we will probably extend Bates in July.

2.) I'm with you on Jackson would prefer him over Wayne's.

1.) I would hope more fans would riot if we tagged Lawson.  Paying him 17 million dollars would be absolutely ridiculous.  He's nowhere near a top 5 DE.  Either get a long term deal done or move on.

2.) Really not sure why so many are ready to give up on Waynes without ever seeing him play in stripes. 

If the team was that high on Jackson they would have exercised his 5th year option, or worked out a long-term deal.  Instead they invested 16 mil into Waynes.

Waynes is going nowhere.  He carries 10 mil in dead cap.  I think people who want to pay Jackson (in addition to Waynes) are nuts.  We'd have like 30 mil tied up into CB1 and CB2, and neither are proven to be elite.

I'm sorry, William Jackson just isn't that good.  And this team doesn't have the luxury of paying out that much to a guy like him when they have so many holes.

[WeezyBengal]

(03-06-2021, 01:45 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: 1.) I would hope more fans would riot if we tagged Lawson.  Paying him 17 million dollars would be absolutely ridiculous.  He's nowhere near a top 5 DE.  Either get a long term deal done or move on.

2.) Really not sure why so many are ready to give up on Waynes without ever seeing him play in stripes. 

If the team was that high on Jackson they would have exercised his 5th year option, or worked out a long-term deal.  Instead they invested 16 mil into Waynes.

Waynes is going nowhere.  He carries 10 mil in dead cap.  I think people who want to pay Jackson (in addition to Waynes) are nuts.  We'd have like 30 mil tied up into CB1 and CB2, and neither are proven to be elite.

I'm sorry, William Jackson just isn't that good.  And this team doesn't have the luxury of paying out that much to a guy like him when they have so many holes.

I'm not sure WJ3 wants to be here. I dont think its about the Bengals not wanting him, its more about him not wanting to be a Bengal. And WJ3 is really good according to a lot of analysts out there. Joe Goodberry is VERY high on Jackson. 

But I do agree with you - tying up 30 million at cornerback is just too much. IMO the money that went to Waynes should have went to WJ3. Maye they knew WJ3 didnt want to re-sign (or maybe they even offered him an extension that he turned down) with them though after negotiating...hence the Waynes signing. 

[KillerGoose]

(03-06-2021, 01:45 PM)Wes Mantooth Wrote: 1.) I would hope more fans would riot if we tagged Lawson.  Paying him 17 million dollars would be absolutely ridiculous.  He's nowhere near a top 5 DE.  Either get a long term deal done or move on.

2.) Really not sure why so many are ready to give up on Waynes without ever seeing him play in stripes. 

If the team was that high on Jackson they would have exercised his 5th year option, or worked out a long-term deal.  Instead they invested 16 mil into Waynes.

Waynes is going nowhere.  He carries 10 mil in dead cap.  I think people who want to pay Jackson (in addition to Waynes) are nuts.  We'd have like 30 mil tied up into CB1 and CB2, and neither are proven to be elite.

I'm sorry, William Jackson just isn't that good.  And this team doesn't have the luxury of paying out that much to a guy like him when they have so many holes.

Tagging Lawson wouldn’t be ideal, but the Bengals are in a very tight spot. I’ve made this post before so I’ll keep it short, but if Cincinnati lets Lawson go, they are in deep shit when it comes to pass rushing. Lawson alone had 44 pressures last season. The rest of the defensive line and LBers, including backups, had 50. Lawson produced almost as many pressures as 12 other guys on this team. If Lawson walks, this is the current starting defensive line..

Khalid Kareem - 254 snaps, four total pressures.

Geno Atkins - 119 snaps, one total pressure

DJ Reader - 259 snaps, one total pressure

Sam Hubbard - 664 snaps, 18 total pressures

That isn’t going to get it done. There is definitely a point to where you just let Lawson walk. He has struggled with injuries, but he is also the kind of guy that if you can get some better pass rushers on this defense, those sack numbers are going to inflate. He is a very good pass rusher, and this team has a dire need for pass rushers. I’d rather get a long term deal done but he is going to get paid big money by someone.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(03-06-2021, 12:54 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: I think the last legit extension I can think of for one of our really good players was Joe Mixon last off-season.

Why are we not/haven't we extended guys like WJ3, Bates, Lawson, etc.

Bates is a FA after this year. They are going to let Lawson and WJ3 walk...like what are we doing?

Title says "good" players. 2 of the 3 you listed are just "ok" players.

Bates is under contract for 2021, and the franchise tag for safeties is quite reasonable, so they essentially still have him under control for 2 years. An extension wouldn't be bad.

Thing is it's looking like Jackson and Lawson are going to get overpaid in FA, so it's fine to let them go rather than reactionally overpay them as well. Some times you just need to let okay players go when they are going to get paid good/great player money. Case and point, the Mixon deal was predictably a huge mistake.

The problem is the Bengals have 5 straight losing seasons. When you're losing that long, you don't actually have a lot of good players to extend, unless you're just extending people for the sake of it rather than it being a good idea/good value.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(03-06-2021, 02:33 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: I'm not sure WJ3 wants to be here. I dont think its about the Bengals not wanting him, its more about him not wanting to be a Bengal. And WJ3 is really good according to a lot of analysts out there. Joe Goodberry is VERY high on Jackson. 

But I do agree with you - tying up 30 million at cornerback is just too much. IMO the money that went to Waynes should have went to WJ3. Maye they knew WJ3 didnt want to re-sign (or maybe they even offered him an extension that he turned down) with them though after negotiating...hence the Waynes signing. 

Doubly so when it's two CBs who can't/don't create turnovers or have big plays. 
-Jackson has 14 Pdef/2 INT/0 FF/0.0 Sacks/2 TFL his last 2 years combined.
-Waynes has 16 Pdef/2 INT/2 FF/0.0 Sacks/4 TFL his last 3 years played combined. (Since he missed 2020.)

Would be different if they were '09-'11 Revis/Cromartie or something.


Quite possible. I haven't really even heard any talks or whispers about the Bengals and Jackson, which is strange.

[*bfine32*]

(03-06-2021, 03:00 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Title says "good" players. 2 of the 3 you listed are just "ok" players.

Bates is under contract for 2021, and the franchise tag for safeties is quite reasonable, so they essentially still have him under control for 2 years. An extension wouldn't be bad.

Thing is it's looking like Jackson and Lawson are going to get overpaid in FA, so it's fine to let them go rather than reactionally overpay them as well. Some times you just need to let okay players go when they are going to get paid good/great player money. Case and point, the Mixon deal was predictably a huge mistake.

The problem is the Bengals have 5 straight losing seasons. When you're losing that long, you don't actually have a lot of good players to extend, unless you're just extending people for the sake of it rather than it being a good idea/good value.

It actually says "Our good players" Law Dog and WJIII are among our good players.

[CJD]

I think we have a decent chance of keeping either Lawson or WJIII (Although I kind of hope we don't keep both because that will really cut into our ability to fix the Oline).

The reason we aren't re-signing a lot of our own players recently is because, quite frankly, we haven't drafted well enough to justify big contract extensions.

WJIII and Lawson are coming due this year because it's the 5th and 4th year, respectively, that they have been in the league (WJIII was a first round pick, so he got an additional year on his rookie contract due to the 5th year option). They were drafted in the 2016 and 2017 drafts, respectively.

Looking at the drafts prior to that, you see a TON of busts.

In 2015, our first three picks were Cedric Ogbuehi, Jake Fisher, Tyler Kroft, with Dawson, Shaw, Hardison, Uzomah, Smith and Alford making up the rest of that draft. Uzomah we re-signed (for a pretty rich contract, to be honest), but no one else in that draft class was worth re-signing in the slightest.

In 2014, Dennard, Hill, Clarke, Bodine, McCarron, Flowers, Wright, Westbrooks. Again, very few people worth re-signing here. Dennard was a decent slot corner, but nothing more. The rest are role players or back ups at best, with the majority of them out of the league.

In 2013, Eifert, Bernard, Shawn Williams, Porter, Hawkinson, Burkhead, Hamilton, Fragel and TJ Johnson. We re-signed Eifert to a few contracts, but he kept getting injured. We re-signed Bernard and Williams, with Williams being a free agent this year and we'll likely let him go because we replaced him with a superior outside free agent in Bell.

In 2012, Kirkpatrick, Zeitler, Still, Sanu, Thompson, Charles, Prater, Marvin Jones, Iloka and Herron. We re-signed Kirk and Iloka, but were outbid for Sanu and Jones, both of whom got really good contracts on the open market. I think that was just a case of bad timing, as Jones had a career year right before hitting free agency in 2015. And Sanu...I mean the Falcons overpaid like crazy for Sanu. Then there's Zeitler, who the Bengals foolishly did not re-sign. We have definitely been missing him ever since he left. So that was a major error by the front office (one that I hope they rectify by prioritizing the guard position in free agency this season, but we'll see).

Past that, we're looking at draft classes that are beginning to retire and the notable players from these draft classes like Dalton and Green have obviously been extended multiple times.

Looking at players from 2016 and 2017, we already extended Boyd, Nick Vigil was not worth re-signing, Billings was replaced by a better outside free agent, Westerman retired, Core was not worth keeping, Fejedelem probably should have been re-signed but as a special teams only player was replaceable, John Ross was a bust, Mixon was re-signed, Willis was not worth keeping, Lawson is up for re-signing now, Malone, Glasgow, Dielman and Evans were not worth re-signing, Elliot was taken by the Eagles who have since re-signed him to a very nice deal (I still have no idea why we let him go to keep Randy...), Wilson will likely be re-signed (at least I hope...) and Schreck has been bouncing around the team since being drafted.

We could extend the next set of players up for new contracts in Bates and Hubbard, who were drafted in 2018 (they're the only ones at the moment that deserve extensions, as that draft consisted of Price, Jefferson, Walton, Harris, Brown, Woodside and Taylor, with Phillips and Tate having a chance to secure their future in 2021), but I think the priority should probably be this free agency period for the time being. They have all of training camp to re-sign Bates and Hubbard.

Remember, Atkins and Dunlap were extended on August 28th, 2018. Joe Mixon was extended on September 2nd, 2020. Gio was extended on September 3rd, 2019. Boyd was extended on July 23rd, 2019.

So they do the vast majority of their in house extensions after the free agency window and draft are over, which I think is smart.

I understand why they didn't re-sign Lawson last off season, because he had dealt with injuries in 2019 and 2018 that limited him to 12 and 7 games, respectively. So re-signing him would have been risky. He made us pay by being healthy and pretty dominant in 2020. But I think the Bengals were fine there.

As for WJIII, I get a feeling Will saw how shallow the CB pool was slated to be in 2020 and decided to play in a contract year. I'm positive the Bengals approached him about an extension, but it's very likely he just wanted to test the market. We'll have to see what happens.

Overall, I think the Bengals have done a good job of extending their own, even when they do sign outside free agents. I think they do it too much, honestly, often paying for past production and loyalty rather than expected future production. I think the Dunlap extension, in hindsight, was a bit rich for what he produced (he gave us an 8 sack season, a 9 sack season and a 1 sack half season before demanding a trade at the price tag of 13M in 2018 and 10M in 2019, with 6M dead cap in 2020 and 2M dead space in 2021.) and the franchise tag on AJ Green was, in my opinion, WAY too rich. Not even in hindsight. In real time, that was a terrible decision. And I already mentioned the Uzomah contract which also seemed like an overpay at the time of signing.

We'll see how this free agency period and training camp session goes. I'd like us to retain Lawson and Bates and I wouldn't mind if we kept WJIII and Hubbard as well, as long as it doesn't interfere with our ability to bid high on a good to great OT and a good to great OG (one good and one great, if possible) in free agency this year.

[*ochocincos*]

(03-06-2021, 12:54 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: I think the last legit extension I can think of for one of our really good players was Joe Mixon last off-season.

Why are we not/haven't we extended guys like WJ3, Bates, Lawson, etc.

Bates is a FA after this year. They are going to let Lawson and WJ3 walk...like what are we doing?

Extensions usually don't happen until August, at least when it comes to the Bengals.

[Benton]

(03-06-2021, 05:16 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Extensions usually don't happen until August, at least when it comes to the Bengals.

That's what I was thinking. If I'm remembering, announcements tend to come late august/early September. Looking back at play/injury for some of the players mentioned, I'm not surprised there haven't been extensions announced on some of them.

[spazz70]

This post is exactly why I made a post in the draft forum that we should fix the offense in FA and draft defense...especially if Sewell is not there at 5 and we can trade down and pick up an extra 2nd. You can stay in the top 10 and get one of the top CB...second round go EDGE and then DT/OL/WR/BPA....Get a OG and OT in FA...sign a TE or WR in FA...fix the offense...we spent a ton on defense in FA last year. I would let WJ3 and Lawson walk, neither are worth top 5 pay. There are going to be a ton of OL and WRs in FA this year and a lot of teams against extreme cap issues.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(03-06-2021, 06:26 PM)spazz70 Wrote: This post is exactly why I made a post in the draft forum that we should fix the offense in FA and draft defense...especially if Sewell is not there at 5 and we can trade down and pick up an extra 2nd.  You can stay in the top 10 and get one of the top CB...second round go EDGE and then DT/OL/WR/BPA....Get a OG and OT in FA...sign a TE or WR in FA...fix the offense...we spent a ton on defense in FA last year.  I would let WJ3 and Lawson walk, neither are worth top 5 pay.  There are going to be a ton of OL and WRs in FA this year and a lot of teams against extreme cap issues.

If the Bengals go defense 1-2 in the draft, I am breaking something, much like how Joe Burrow will break again in 2021. If they did get an extra 2nd rounder and they go defense 1-2-2 in the draft, I will literally not watch them again until Mike Brown dies.

The OL can't be fixed in FA alone. There's too many holes. The Bengals only have 2 OL right now that are at least mediocre starters, neither have 2 healthy legs right now, and 1 of the 2 has only played 10 games in 2 years.

[Benton]

(03-06-2021, 06:43 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: The OL can't be fixed in FA alone. There's too many holes. The Bengals only have 2 OL right now that are at least mediocre starters, neither have 2 healthy legs right now, and 1 of the 2 has only played 10 games in 2 years.

It could be, depending on how it shakes out.

We need a starting tackle and guard. We also need a tackle for when jonah goes down. So... Two tackles and a guard.

We could get that in fa. It's not likely, but we've got space.

I mean,realistically, were probably only getting one starter for the line this season out of the draft anyway.

[Tony]

Because they don't want to be here ?

[PDub80]

(03-06-2021, 06:43 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: If the Bengals go defense 1-2 in the draft, I am breaking something, much like how Joe Burrow will break again in 2021. If they did get an extra 2nd rounder and they go defense 1-2-2 in the draft, I will literally not watch them again until Mike Brown dies.

The OL can't be fixed in FA alone. There's too many holes. The Bengals only have 2 OL right now that are at least mediocre starters, neither have 2 healthy legs right now, and 1 of the 2 has only played 10 games in 2 years.

I think a lot can be fixed in FA, but not everything. I agree with the sentiment that thw offense needs to get to an elite level first and then worry about the D in the following years as needed.

[kevin]

(03-06-2021, 12:54 PM)WeezyBengal Wrote: I think the last legit extension I can think of for one of our really good players was Joe Mixon last off-season.

Why are we not/haven't we extended guys like WJ3, Bates, Lawson, etc.

Bates is a FA after this year. They are going to let Lawson and WJ3 walk...like what are we doing?

 I don't think they are as focused on extensions going into free agency, combine and draft.  Often Bengals do contract extensions after draft and before start of season.  Bengals almost never talk contracts once season starts, they feel that is off season stuff. 

How much these players want is important.  I don't think any of them are the best in the game at their positions. Plus Bengals lose with them.  I see a lot of upside to keeping Bates.  Is he an Ed Reed or Ronnie Lott or Troy Polamalu yet, NO.  How much does he and his agent want ?   I would like to keep Bates most of the 3, but not Hall Of Fame Super Star Bucks.  

Yes, the Bengals are cheap, even when they let Bill Bergey or Lemar Parrish go in 1970's.  I never under estimate how cheap the Bengals Front Office can be.  However these agents and players can over estimate how much they are worth. 

Bates makes good hard hit tackles and yet plays within the new rules of the game unlike Burfict who never adjusted. Bates still needs to improve on pass coverage and giving deep ball help, but he is an asset to this defense. He can flat out tackle for a safety, and do it without getting flagged in todays game. I don't care about safety blitz.  Bengals safeties need to improve on giving corners deep ball help, but Bates has all the tools and can flat out tackle.  I call him BATES MOTEL.  That hasn't really caught on as a nickname, maybe kids have never seen movie Psycho.  You don't want to go near The Bates Motel.