Bengals Are The SMARTEST Team In the AFC ???

[Soonerpeace]

(02-18-2024, 02:46 PM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: The Bengals are very responsible with their management of the salary cap and dead cap space. They don't sign contracts that they don't have at least a 90% assurance will be played out in their entirety or else structure them such that the last year or two of a contract has little or no dead cap if the player were to be cut.

They don't dabble much in void contracts or converting annual salary cap numbers into bonuses that can be spread out across multiple years to back load contracts with the intention of competing now and dealing with the consequences later.

These are generally accepted facts and admirable on an objective scale.

But I sure wish they'd bend their rules every once in a while just to get that impact player that might push us over the edge.

The combination of Katie Blackburn assuming a larger role and the arrival of Zac has been the difference . But in similar fashion I tell this story. FSU lost Jimbo Fisher to A&M not just because of the huge salary offer but their reluctance to upgrade their football facilities. It was a wake-up call. What’d they do? Improve their football facilities and Mike Norvell and the program rebounded. To a lesser extent Lincoln Riley left Oklahoma for USC because he perceived OU wasn’t ramping up for the SEC. At the Bengals they needed to make some changes. They wanted a young coach with fresh ideas. Duke looks like he may have been neutered under Mike’s thumb. Him and Zac work famously together. Zac had a plan and he wowed them with it in his interview as he did with Arizona & Denver. It was on the culture. Drafting team captains and EXTREMELY high character guys. Told the scouting department to exhaustively look at their mannerisms and interactions with their teammates and coaches. Research their character by asking people about them. It was also the same strategy with FA’s. No more Trey Wayne’s. See Ted Karras. See Orlando Brown.

And then of course Katie was more willing to do whatever it took to be competive but smart.

That being said 75% of this board doesn’t give 2 ______ because they haven’t won a Super Bowl. Or do they buy it. LOL KC has won a zillion SB’s who cares that we are 6-3 vs SF,KC, and the Bills the last 3 years or won an AFC title, played in the SB, or 2 straight AFC title games LOL