10-19-2022, 08:29 AM
(10-18-2022, 10:36 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: It's a whole lot easier to pass on high talent high risk players if your FO is shelling out money for tons of decent/good outside FA signings. If you're exclusively having to build your team out of drafted players/UDFAs/extremely cheap bottom-of-the-barrel FAs/redemption project FAs, you have to make some compromises if you want enough talent to compete with other teams.
Pacman was signed for under $600k/yr, Burfict was signed for under $500k/yr. The Bengals don't have that playoff appearance streak without them because the alternative wasn't going out and signing Chidobe Awuzie or Vonn Bell caliber players, it was likely having Brandon Ghee and JK Schaffer being starters instead.
Bengals never even stood a chance to win that Steelers playoff game without Burfict. 1 Sack, 2 TFL, 1 PDef, 1 INT, 1 FF... holding the 4th scoring offense to 18 points despite the Bengals offense scoring 0 points for the first 46 minutes while giving the Steelers the ball 4 times that directly led to 9 of those 18 points.
Antwan Odom and the receiver that tore his knee day 1 come to mind. Delta and Tory James came in an played great, as well as Chido and Hilton likely. Roy Williams had some good years and John Thornton. Sam Adams. I think the current regime did a better job scouting and vetting good fits in FA.
