Who to tag?

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(01-25-2016, 06:13 PM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: We are a little over a year removed from Burkhead being our #2 WR in a playoff game. We have nobody proven behind AJ at all. Going into the year with one proven WR can be problematic. Ask the Ravens. They had a line of thought like you do last year. Why pay this middle of the pack guy (Torrey Smith) when we can just draft a guy early and plug him in. Well. That didn't work out too well.

All those guys you mentioned will most likely be tagged. You know we won't throw a mega contract at an outside free agent like one of them anyway. And going into the draft with a glaring weakness and forcing a pick can be bad.

We are good because we have been developing talent and retaining it. MLJ and Iloka are next in line in that group.

It scares me we really are looking at a roster with Alford and Kumerow as our 2 and 3 WR right now. We play the Steelers, Mitchell head hunts Eifert, now all they have to do is double AJ and we are in bad shape.

We need to give MLJ incentive to sign early so we can use the transition tag on Iloka. It will be a little lower than the franchise tag. The tag for safeties is the 3rd lowest behind kickers and TEs. So if we want to be thrifty that is the position to give it to.

First off, if you really want to pay Marvin Jones exactly how Torrey Smith got paid, lets look at the stats...

Torrey Smith first 4 years: 64 games (62 starts) / 213 catches / 3,495 yards / 30 TD
Marvin Jones first 4 years: 43 games (21 starts) / 132 catches / 1,729 yards / 15 TD

Those don't look like two players who should be paid equally. The Ravens knew that was overpaying for Torrey Smith, and sure enough Smith ended up with 33/663/4 in his first year of that deal.

Secondly! Letting Torrey Smith go in FA isn't the reason they went from a 10 win team to a 5 win team. Lol.. they also lost their best pass rusher in game 1, their #1 WR in game 7, their running back in game 10, and their quarterback in game 10 as well. None of that would have been fixed by Torrey Smith.

Third and finally on this point! It DID work for them to just plug in a new guy. Kamar Aiken, undrafted nobody, who's been on four teams in the NFL stepped up and put up a 75/944/5 season even with subpar QBs throwing to him. With Smith and Perriman back in 2016, combined with Aiken, I would put the Ravens WRs ahead of the Bengals. You bash the Ravens losing their WR they drafted in the first round before the season started, but the exact same thing happened to Marvin Jones just last year, and yet you want to pay him $8m/yr instead. Doesn't make sense.

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Alex Mack actually can't be franchise tagged, he'll be almost certainly using an opt out clause.

Von Miller might not be tagged. The Broncos are currently projected for $13m in cap space in 2016. The LB tag is projected to be $14m and the DE tag is projected to be $15.5m. They could clear space to make the tag happen, but then they're basically saying goodbye to all their other FA.

Alshon Jeffery will probably get tagged because the Bears are projected to have a ton of cap space, but who knows if they think he'll be worth the $14.5m tag.

Rams have the cap space to tag Jenkins, but is he a $13.8m CB in their eyes? That'd put him behind only Revis, Sherman, and (lol) Brandon Carr (lol) in 2016 CB cap hits, but more likely just the first two since there's almost no chance Carr doesn't get cut.