Bengals 1st Week Of Practice Like O Line Changes

[Shake n Blake]

(04-14-2019, 06:18 PM)Whatever Wrote: Take it with a grain of salt, but Carpenter had a PFF grade of 56 and Fluker was 49.  Neither represents an upgrade.  In fact, Fluker is a big downgrade.

Williams is coming off a major knee injury and probably made the best decision he could have staying with the Panthers.  He doesn't have to adjust to a new scheme and teammates while recovering.

I liked James as a FA, but he got twice what he was projected to get.  While an average RT is a big upgrade, he is still getting elite money for being simply average.

Saffold is a good LG, but he's up there in age and maybe doesn't translate to RG.

Fair points with most of this, but I still say it's discouraging to see this team sit on its hands when the o-line has been an issue 3 years running. If they didn't like the linemen in free agency, why not target a LB and free up the draft to shore up the line?

Imo, the lackadaisical free agency is indefensible. You're coming off of 3 straight losing seasons and working in a regime. Show them you're serious about winning and give them some talent to work with.

(04-15-2019, 12:17 AM)samhain Wrote: I'm holding out hope that they can have a nice draft and alleviate some concerns.  They need to from a talent standpoint.  They have 2 position groups in o-line and linebacker that are going to hurt them badly.  

This offseason since the Taylor hire has been an unmitigated disaster IMO.  They looked at 6 or 7 dudes before they signed some guy that I guarantee 80 percent of this board has never heard of before the move in Louie Slapnuts.   Jim Turner is a proven trash heap of a man that has no real record of being a great line coach, either.  The other staff guys were just dudes.  These guys are the expendables of NFL assistants. Nobody in the league wanted them but they're old drinkin' buddy Zac.  Not real exciting.  

Then you had FA, which was basically bringing back the same guys from last year with a Buffalo reject thrown in.  How inspired.

We need to knock the draft out of the park and/or hope Taylor is the next McVay.

I agree about the coaching hires. It wasn't just that they were/are green. That's acceptable if their resumes suggest they were due for promotion. Callahan was okay. He interviewed for OC with the Titans last year, so that shows he's been on the radar at least.

Anarumo though? Nothing impressive about the resume and it smelled like settling after a pretty embarrassing DC search. Not a big fan of the Turner hire, and most of the other hires were pretty meh. I did like bringing Duffner back. Sadly though, he'll be the most experienced voice of the defense.