08-05-2023, 11:13 PM
(08-05-2023, 07:34 PM)NotBigzo Wrote: He was so raw Lou didn’t give him any reps until he had too out of fear of emotionally stunting him. That’s Sus.
He had an established starter playing under the franchise tag ahead of him on the depth chart. I suspect in that situation the plan was to have Hill learn from Bates as well as the other roles of the secondary last year to prepare him to take over the starting FS role this year.
If they couldn’t get Bates to re-sign for a reasonable amount like they have done with Pratt and Wilson, it seems to me they prepared for his departure about as well as could be expected.
Making lemonade out of lemons basically.
As much as I have bitched about mismanagement for about 3 decades, it is damn hard to find fault with what they have done the past four years. When the Bengals drafted Mixon I turned the draft off, canceled Sunday Ticket because I was fed up with the personnel decisions, approach to free agency, turning the noses up to money from stadium naming rights while bickering with Hamilton County over money, and the general resistance to operating this team like a modern day franchise. All that’s changed. New management made a believer out of me over the past four years. It’s like they went down a check list of all my complaints and crossed them off the list. We might be living in a golden edge of being a Bengals fan. This is a Super Bowl caliber team that finally has a front office with a Super Bowl mentality to match. If you can’t recognize the difference you’re about as blind as Jpoore’s pre-draft analysis of Joe Burrow.
