{The Ultimate Bengals Offseason Extravaganza Thread}

[Luvnit2]

(04-06-2025, 06:30 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: That would be a disrespectful proposal for what he's done for the team. The need to give him 3/$100M, wiping this year's remaining deal and guarantee the first two years. Anything less is telling the two time sack leader that he's nothing more that a "hired hand". If they found the creativity to give often injured Tee Higgins a "big boy" deal, they can at least do the same for lunch pail Trey.

I a am not sure why you feel it is dispectful for the FO to ask Trey to honor his current contract. I agree he deserves more in 2025, the question becoes how much more. The other issue becomes if they just tear up the contract he signed, then to be fair anytime a player outplays his contract FO would be forced to do it over and over again. The rookie punter was of the best at his position, wh didn't they offer him 3 to 5 million versus the 1.1, he earned it also.

My point is it could make contracts a floor for the Bengals versus a ceiling.

Trey current deal, he only has 15.8 million guaranteed for 2025. I would think any deal where he gets an additional 25 to 40 million guaranteed he should consider and not feel disrespected knowing it is a busness and he is 1 contract standard the Bengals will set moving forward. He is not a 28 year old, he is past his prime in football years and playing on borrowed time if you look at league averages.

An example is Watt. Is he getting better with age or starting to drop off? The Bosa brothers better or dropping off. Just too many that were at the mountan top and now are slowing rolling down the hill.

As for anyone thinking we can replace Trey with a 2025 draft pick. According to ESPN, the top pass rusher is Carter and they say he will get almost 29 sacks.........problem is that is 5 years. Others are less than 4 sack per year. Will some overperform? Yes,  but picking the over performer in round 1 or 2 is not an exact science. Below is top 3.

https://www.espn.com/nfl/draft2025/insider/story/_/id/44508421/2025-nfl-draft-edge-rusher-projections-rankings-stats-historical-comps-prospects

1. Abdul Carter, Penn State

SackSEER projection: 28.0 sacks through five NFL seasons
Scouts Inc. ranking: 1
Similar historical prospects: Marcus Davenport, T.J. Watt

It's tough to project Carter because he was originally an off-ball linebacker in college. This might have given him artificially low sack totals in his first couple of seasons at Penn State -- 6.5 in 2022 and 4.5 sacks in 2023. But it also may give him artificially high passes defensed totals -- four in 2022 and five passes defensed in 2023. The first stat gives him a disadvantage in our projections, while the second gives him an advantage.

Making things even more complicated is that Carter didn't do any predraft workouts at the combine or his pro day. That leaves us trying to project his workout numbers based on what edge rushers taken at the top of the draft have done in the past.

For example, we end up projecting him with a 40-yard dash time of 4.59 seconds. Some reports claim he has put up better numbers than those in college workouts, but unstandardized numbers for player workouts tend to be unreliable.

Only three top-five edge rusher picks since 1998 did not run a predraft 40: Chase Young, Andre Wadsworth and Clelin Ferrell. That's not the best company, and it is an incredibly small sample size.

Overall, Carter comes out with an impressive SackSEER projection, but he's not one of the all-time greats. His final college season featured 12 sacks in 16 games, which is good but not historic. I would not be deterred from picking Carter near the top of the draft, but be aware there might be more risk than conventional wisdom believes.


2. Shemar Stewart, Texas A&M
SackSEER projection: 25.2 sacks through five NFL seasons
Scouts Inc. ranking: 19
Similar historical prospects: Danielle Hunter (but much larger)

There really are no historical prospects similar to Stewart. He ran a 4.59-second 40 at the combine with a 40-inch vertical and a broad jump of 10-foot-11. But he was unproductive over three years at Texas A&M, with just 1.5 sacks per season. It's not rare to have a player with very few college sacks who dominates the athletic drills at the combine and turn outs as a success in the NFL. But these players in the past primarily had only one season of experience as a starting edge rusher, such as Jason Pierre-Paul, Clay Matthews and Ezekiel Ansah.

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Hunter is the one player who comes out remotely close to Stewart in the variables used in SackSEER. Hunter also had just 4.5 sacks in college, in his case as a two-year starter. But he was 240 pounds when he came out of LSU in 2015. Stewart is a lot bigger (267 pounds vs. 252).

There are also some similarities to Cornelius Washington, who came out of Georgia in 2013. Washington ran a 4.53-second 40 at 265 pounds with a 39-inch vertical and a broad jump of 10 feet, 8 inches. However, Washington had 10.5 sacks in four years at Georgia and was only considered a fringe prospect. He was drafted by the Bears in the sixth round. Stewart is going to be a first-round pick. Most scouts agree that his tape is better than his sack totals. But our projections really don't know what to do with him.


3. Mike Green, Marshall
SackSEER projection: 23.9 sacks through five NFL seasons
Scouts Inc. ranking: 21
Similar historical prospects: Damontre Moore, Aidan Hutchinson

Green started out at Virginia and then transferred to Marshall, where he led the FBS with 17 sacks and 23 tackles for loss last season. He has both speed and power moves, plus he's another former off-ball linebacker, so teams can occasionally drop him into coverage. At his pro day, Green chose to run the three-cone drill and shuttle but did no other workouts, which was very unusual. Perhaps Green knew to focus on what he did best because his three-cone time of 6.85 seconds was the fastest in this year's edge rusher class and among the top times for all edge rushers in SackSEER's database. For other workouts, we had to use projections based on weight.

It is difficult to predict the future success of college players. That's why the two most similar prospects to Green are Moore, who finished his NFL career with 11 sacks, and Hutchinson, who might be the best edge rusher in the game today other than Myles Garrett. Projections are hard.