12-14-2021, 11:53 PM
(12-14-2021, 11:24 PM)samhain Wrote: You fix the line like they fixed the defense. You throw money at it and sign veteran, established talent that can come in and be major upgrades without being developed for 3 years. This is probably the last year that they can get away with doing that before spending big on extensions. Cross that bridge when you get to it.
(12-14-2021, 11:26 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Winner!
Problem is taht you can not build an entire team out of expensive free agents. You have to be able to draft and develop players if you want to have a winning program. You also have to pay up for a few big dollar free agents to fill in the gaps. The draft is a bigger crap shoot (even for the good teams) than any of the "experts" want to admit. Every team is going to miss on some draft picks or lose key players to injury. That is what free vagency is for. But uou can't afford to just go out and sign top level free agents at every position.
According to Sportrac the Bengal have $7.5 million in cap space left over this year (2021 NFL Team Salary Cap Space Tracker | Spotrac ). That is just barely above the league average of $6.2 million. That could have gotten one more established solid starter for our O-line. The 18th highest paid OG makes $7.5 million this year (but I think that is yearly average). Nothing close to the $15 million people wanted us to spend on singing the top free agent o-linemen available.
We had Su'a-Filo (58 career starts) and Spain (74 career starts) under contract. Thye felt those guys could hold down the fort for a year.
Even though I never expected Hopkins to be ready to start the season (his injury was in January) I can undretsand why they did not want to invest big money in a guy they might only need for one season.
Considering how cheap they got Spain I felt that they should have done more. But it is not like they just ignored the line or projected rookies and/or guys who had never started before to start. There was a big turnover. Five guys who started a combined 32 games for us last year are no longer on the roster. But they had experienced vets lined up for every spot.
