Lou’s Future in the Jungle

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-13-2023, 11:46 AM)Soonerpeace Wrote: Obviously he’s pretty good. Obviously the Browns made Duke’s job easier by being more receptive and aggressive in FA. I’m assuming ownership, Zac, and Duke all got on one page. But it WAS Zac who went after high character and hard working players. But there’s been too much success in FA and the draft since Zac arrived to not believe he had a huge impact

Spend money and sign actually good FAs, and you get good results. Whodathunkit? In the past they MIGHT sign 1 guy like Trae Waynes (but even he was too highly paid to be a past FA signing). If the signing failed? Well, I guess you got your FA for the decade, because now it's time to turtle up and treat quality Free Agents like they're poison again. Hope you can make lemonade from dogshit for the next couple years.

The Bengals draft success lately is largely a product of picking 1st and 5th overall. The last time they drafted in the top-5 they got AJ Green and Andy Dalton in the 1st and 2nd. The time before that they got Carson Palmer and Eric Steinbach in the 1st and 2nd. The time before that they got Justin Smith and Chad Johnson in the 1st and 2nd. Having top-5 picks makes it easier to have good drafts as that's where the blue chip guys are in the 1st round and the 2nd round that high is nearly a second 1st rounder. Being good at winning football games means harder drafts. It's why the Patriots don't traditionally kill it in the top of their drafts.

Being absolutely terrible for a couple years and getting real high draft picks while prying open 'ol Mikey's pocketbook for FA is why it's been better. Look at 2019 and 2022 drafts for a better example of what happens when you don't have top-5 picks and the Bengals starting defense coming into this year was 6/11ths outside FA signings with 5 of those 6 getting notable amounts of money.