Roster Bonuses & the Cap

[Essex Johnson]

(02-02-2021, 01:43 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Thoughts are I would rather the Bengals have benefitted from trying harder earlier, if it meant that their cap situation was a mess now.

The 10 teams in worst cap space problems right now?

Saints (4 playoffs, 1 NFCC game in the last 5 years)
Eagles (3 playoffs, 1 NFCC win, 1 SB win in the last 5 years)
Falcons (2 playoffs, 1 NFCC win in the last 5 years)
Steelers (3 playoffs, 1 AFCC game in the last 5 years)
Packers (3 playoffs, 3 NFCC games in the last 5 years)
Rams (3 playoffs, 1 NFCC win in the last 5 years)
Chiefs (5 playoffs, 3 AFCC games/2 wins, 1 SB win and another SB to play in the last 5 years)
Texans (3 playoffs in the last 5 years)
Vikings (2 playoffs in the last 5 years)
Bears (2 playoffs in the last 5 years)

The 7 worst cap situations have all been to a conference championship game in the last 5 years. Bengals need to stop "saving" for extensions 3 years from now and start getting the most possible talent they can squeeze out of cap space, no matter how they must manipulate it. Even if it results in a 2 year "reckoning" down the road, is that worse than losing for 5 years with no real hope anyway?

The Patriots started their cap reckoning this year, and I am sure they'd gladly keep the 3 SB wins over the previous 6 years even if they knew it would mean a couple years in 2020-2021 of pain.

So what did we do that was effective in the 5 year run of playoffs that is different now ?  do we need to go back to what we were doing from 2011-15 but improve on it to win in the post-season