Breaking down the cap

[Whatever]

(03-03-2022, 05:11 PM)J24 Wrote: I don’t  get the  reasoning behind  letting Bates go. He was our best defender in the post season(all pro caliber), he is a team leader,  and has missed only 1 meaningful game in his career .
Everyone  acts like he will be easy  to replace but that just seems very silly to think that we can draft an all pro caliber player at 31 or later.

Also here's  the thing about the offense line. We don't need it to be great it just  can't suck like it did in the Playoffs. Burrow can help make the Offensive Line better  he can't do that for the defense. 

It's hard to pay any player elite money when they only play at an elite level about 25% of the time, especially when they're coming off the worst year of their career.

2020 Jessie Bates or playoffs Jessie Bates would be tough to replace.  2021 regular season and 2019 Jessie Bates are easily replaced or even upgraded upon.  Reality is, the only reason Bates had an opportunity to ball out in the playoffs is his teammates took up the slack for him in the regular season.

The other question is it better to allocate those cap dollars to other positions?  Do you need a sometimes elite S if you give Burrow a great OL, improve your pass rush, and/or get a top tier CB opposite Awuzie?