The Myth of Having to Go Into a Season With Cap Space

[*SHRacerX*]

(08-17-2017, 10:46 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Good post Jim. Fair points.

re: Football Management Theory - Modern free agency in the NFL began in 1992. The Bengals haven't won a single playoff game since then. Maybe they should start trying to be more like the rest of the league???

Since the so-called modern FA period began, the Bengals had an incredible run of bad luck on consensus draft picks that crippled this team before the advent of the rookie wage scale.  

You can argue that they shouldn't have drafted Akili Smith, but he was a consensus first round prospect.  Ki-Jana Carter, David Klingler, Dan Wilkinson, Reinard Wilson....Those bad picks (by misfortune, not all just bad players) had guaranteed contracts that made it impossible for teams to move on from bad first round picks.  The teams that picked at the bottom of the first round could miss but they weren't nearly as impacted.

Ironically, their luck changed as the rookie wage scale was created (which saved the butt of teams that had horrible picks like Gabbert, Locker, Ponder, etc) and the team has been very competitive since Marvin arrived in the early 2000s.  

The rallying cry of not having won a playoff game is so old and ESPN-tired.  So what?  They had one won two years ago, but they still weren't likely to win it all.  

When a team is solid and competitive, getting those last few pieces to put you over the top to become a championship squad isn't easy.  The talking heads around the league like to praise the steelers (puke), Patriots, and teams like Seattle for the way they built their teams, but the fact is that an injury to the starting QB in the case of the steelers and Pats made those teams better.  The Pats had no idea what they had in Brady or they wouldn't have waited until pick #199 to take him.  He was paid next to nothing and he wasn't much more than a game manager early, but they had assembled an amazing team around him...especially on defense.  They were able to keep a lot of that defense because once Bledsoe was gone, they weren't paying as much for their QB.  Ditto Wilson at Seattle:  a third-rounder that won the job and saved them a fortune on QBs.  They were able to keep a lot of other players because of that.  

The Bengals are close.  Very close.  They have offensive firepower akin to last year's Atlanta Falcons.  They have a better defense than Atlanta.  If they stay healthy, I believe they can do the same thing Atlanta did last year, without choking in the fourth quarter.