'It’s time for the Bengals to alter their offseason mindset.'

[Shake n Blake]

(01-16-2018, 03:41 PM)fredtoast Wrote: If a team is always looking "long term" then the Bengals approach is not that bad.  But once a team gets close to contending they have to take a chance on a free agent or two.

Teams re-sign their best players so the free agents are usually not the best players in the league.  However a player does not have to be the best at his position in the league to get paid like that.  All he has to be is the best free agent available at his position and he will get paid like the best.  So free agents are almost always over priced, and they often are complete flops when they have to play in a different scheme for a different team.

But even though free agents are over priced it is almost impossible to fill every spot on a team with draft picks alone.  If a team is desperate to fill one specific position in the draft they have to reach over a lot of higher ranked players to draft the best available at their position of need.

So the best tactic is to build through the draft until you are just one or two players away from contending and then take some chances in free agency.

I think 90% of the pro-FA crowd has been saying the same thing for years. I don't know many that have wanted to constantly splurge. We had 5 years where we were close, and Mike refused to push his chips in on any of those years.

And fwiw, these signings aren't nearly as dangerous as some would lead you to believe. Many of them have "easy outs" after 1-2 years. So if you have buyer's remorse, you can get out from under the contract. Of course, this would require a philosophy change on Mike's part. He's big on remaining loyal to these contracts, and in exchange, he offers smaller guaranteed money. 

I'm not sure why Mike likes to do business that way (and it hurts our flexibility with free agency), but Jim O has confirmed that's how he prefers to do things. That's why I don't think we'll see much in free agency this year. Again.

Btw, if you look at recent deals in free agency, many of them are fair money and low on risk. Only a small handful of deals are over the top, and really even those aren't as outrageous as some make it seem. Especially with the steep increase in cap over the last 5+ years.