03-08-2017, 01:47 PM
(03-08-2017, 01:20 PM)ochocincos Wrote: The Bengals FO has a philosophy to succeed. They have tried to live or die by that philosophy. It's actually worked...to a certain extent. It has the team to a consistently good team with the rare off year. But it's never taken them where we as fans want to see since the turn of the millenium, which is at least the AFC championship game.
There are things this team does or doesn't do that other teams are different about:
- Other teams will constantly restructure deals with players to find ways to open up cap space to further improve the team. The Bengals typically do not restructure deals. They pride themselves on getting a "fair" deal done at the time of the signing.
- Other teams seem to have no problem cutting underperforming players, even if they have to take on a decent amount of dead money. The Bengals typically do not do this. They typically have their signed players play out the entire length of their contracts, thus honoring their contracts. It's noble, but it also seems to be a bit too loyal.
- The Bengals typically don't rush to play their youth, even the first and second rounders, who many of the fans expect should start as rookies. While the fans may be blind to the fact that these young players actually could be worse than their veteran peers, the fans would like to hope that they are actually better because the fans see definite room for improvement in some of the veteran starters. Fred started a thread that the Bengals actually start an average amount of youth, but the fans want to see more start, especially after seeing the Falcons get to the Super Bowl with youth on defense.
- A good amount of teams will make a splash here and there in FA, bringing in what many consider great FA acquisitions. The Bengals typically wait for the initial overspending then look for bargain purchases to get what they hope is good value. This paid off very well for them in the case of Brandon LaFell last year for just $2 million. The activity for the Bengals at the start of FA is typically that of retaining their own FAs. However, the Bengals typically have an upper limit they are willing to spend on a particular player/position and will let very good players go elsewhere if that player at a particular position is offered more than the Bengals are willing to pay (likely the case for Zeitler this year).
The Bengals had 2 monster drafts with Green/Dalton and Atkins/Dunlap that makes the strategy appear to be working. That's 4 Pro Bowl players in 2 years.
Take those 2 drafts out of the mix...and their strategy isn't looking very good.
