Geno Stone takes pay cut

[CJD]

This is a head scratcher for me.

He takes a pay cut after we did not sign anyone to compete with him in free agency nor did we draft anyone to compete with him in the draft.

So we go to him and ask him to take a pay cut of just 1.6 million dollars (which is, generally speaking, inconsequential from a cap perspective), and if he doesn't....what? We start Daijahn Anthony? Or sign Justin Simmons/Julian Blackmon?

Why not sign some depth regardless?

This is exactly how I feel about the guard position. What is the downside to signing a veteran to create an actual competition? Make a few players that were on the worst defense we've had in a long time, or the worst guard pair we've had in a long time, truly compete to win the starting job.

So many "starter by default" players on this roster to feel comfortable going into the 2025 season.

And what can you do with 1.6M dollars in the NFL? Stone mentioned he hoped it would go to Trey but...really? 1.6M isn't going to make a difference to Trey.

If we were 1.6M off from re-signing Trey and we haven't yet, I'd be so unbelievably pissed with this FO. Disenfranchising your best defender for what amounts to pocket change in the NFL...

The Bengals just operate on a fundamentally different level than every other franchise. We currently have nearly 27M dollars in cap space.

What are we going to spend that money on?

Are we just going to roll 20 million dollars over to 2026 in a season where we should be competing to win a Super Bowl?

It's just negligent behavior.