10-21-2020, 05:46 PM
(10-21-2020, 04:36 PM)Bengalholic Wrote: The huge free agency doesn't happen without Zac. This front office has never believed in spending big in free agency...until Zac.
I know a lot of people on here think this, and my opinion is in the minority. But I don't really buy this at all.
That's not to say Zac didn't have some say in the process, or input on who to target. I'm sure he was invlolved.
What I think really drove this change in approach was the following:
1.) Tons of empty seats.
There were times last season where I would guess that actual attendance was around 20k. The stadium was about 1/3 of the way full. Now, we've seen empty seats before, but nothing like this in the PBS era.
And it had been getting steadily worse over the last few years. This wasn't a fan reaction to just one historically bad season, it had been building.
This was a team that enjoyed sellouts, I think, for 8 straight years from when PBS opened. We've had lean years before, and the Marvin reign was all together rather mediocre. But from 2000-2016 attendance was relatively strong and consistent.
Something changed around late in 2016. It's had been getting worse and worse. And I think their hope was that having a new head coach, and a "New Day" would help reverse that trend. Yet it still got worse.
2.) Obvious spending from obvious cuts.
Everyone knew Andy Dalton was as good as gone. There was no way they would bring him back with the pick they had, and with fans being upset.
Cordy Glenn basically forced their hand, and was an obvious cut. Same goes with Dre Kirkpatrick. These are clear cap casualities.
We're already going into free agency with a decent amount of room, before these moves. When you add them, you're adding another 30+ million in space.
Money had to spent somewhere. Even AJ's tag, and Mixon's deal weren't going to do much in using it up. And there's really no one left we could have paid a ton to internally to close the gap.
To each their own, but I think this is more of front office reacting to disgruntled fans and being forced to use freed up cap space than it Zac Taylor going in and changing the approach.
I just don't buy Zac having more say or more pull after one 2-14 year than Marvin did in any of his 16 years. And if Zac does have the power to force a change like this, where was the spending in 2019?
