Irv Smith and Nick Scott

[WeezyBengal]

(02-17-2024, 08:47 AM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I won't go as far as saying they're two of the worst ever, but there's more than just money that a bad signing costs a team. There's also opportunity cost. They were both given starting jobs and playing time because of their signings and because of their signing they didn't actually try to get actual NFL caliber starters. 

Both of them started and played the majority of the snaps in Week 2 when we lost by 3. Would a better TE or a better S have been able to change that L into a W in an important division game? The Houston game was another one. I am not saying that they definitively were the reason we lost and we would have won if they weren't on the team, but they were taking starts and playing time away from someone who could have been better and games can really swing on thin margins and having two really bad starters on your team makes it that much harder.

Jake Browning joined the Bengals in 2021, so that would actually be a re-signing.

Exactly. 

The signing themselves in a vaccum were meh. The signings, based on who they replaced, coming off of two back to back AFC Championship games...were disastrous. 

This wasn't us signing Antonio Bryant coming off a 5 win season. This was us replacing Jessie Bates with Nick Scott and Hayden Hurst with Irv Smith, then losing Vonn Bell, Perine, etc. All during a Super Bowl window.

Disaster of an off-season.