Eifert cleared

[*psychdoctor*]

(02-27-2018, 03:33 PM)Trademark Wrote: I expect Eifert to go to another team and never be injured again while Kroft goes down with an injury

I think i understand why you would make this statement; that is, bad luck tends to happen to the Bengals.  But in all likelihood  Eifert will have some sort of injury based on his time here with the Bengals.  Has never played an entire season for 16 games.  Performance laden contract is the only way to re-sign him and another team will do such a contract and overpay because the talent is there.  


I do think the Bengals need another good TE, maybe two.   

[redwood]

(02-26-2018, 04:31 PM)Synric Wrote: I hope they can bring him back for a 1 year prove it deal.

Yes he is always injured, but when he's on the field he's an AJ Green type receiving talent.

Exactly. All Stars, RD 1 guys don't grow on trees.    it's certainly a gamble but the Bengals  likely take the risk.

[BengalsRocker]

Cut bait on a some questionable existing player's salaries and perhaps you can sign a decent one instead of rolling the dice in the draft or resigning an injury prone guy.

Damn.  Forgot...  BENGALS!

[RiverRat13]

Why worry about giving Eifert a performance-laden contract? I'll take the Bengals being $10 million under the cap with Eifert instead of $15-$18 million under the cap without him. They aren't going to give the money to anyone else.

[masterpanthera_t]

(02-26-2018, 03:17 PM)phil413 Wrote: The TE tag is "only" about 10M, so I wonder if they could call around and ask if anyone would give them compensation (say a 4th or high 5th rd pick) for a tagged Eifert (if that's even legal).  If not, an incentive deal is the only way to go.

If that number is correct, I would rather they just franchised him this year, took a risk to see if he could stay healthy and revisit the situation next year. If he can stay healthy, offer him a 3-4 year contract, if not, one less year of his "prime" for another team to steal and a strong certainty he'll never make us regret losing him. Taking a 10 million dollar risk for a player like Eifert, for one year, doesn't seem like much of a risk, especially the way this team will otherwise just not use the saved money to spend up to the cap limit.

[phil413]

(03-01-2018, 06:12 PM)masterpanthera_t Wrote: If that number is correct, I would rather they just franchised him this year, took a risk to see if he could stay healthy and revisit the situation next year. If he can stay healthy, offer him a 3-4 year contract, if not, one less year of his "prime" for another team to steal and a strong certainty he'll never make us regret losing him. Taking a 10 million dollar risk for a player like Eifert, for one year, doesn't seem like much of a risk, especially the way this team will otherwise just not use the saved money to spend up to the cap limit.

I have to disagree, he has missed literally half the games of his 5 yr career.  That's 10M that should go toward a good OL.  If he has a solid season you're still posed with resigning an injury prone player.  I'll match that one more year of his prime with one year of a quality Offensive Lineman getting chemistry with the current group.   

[masterpanthera_t]

(03-01-2018, 07:25 PM)phil413 Wrote: I have to disagree, he has missed literally half the games of his 5 yr career.  That's 10M that should go toward a good OL.  If he has a solid season you're still posed with resigning an injury prone player.  I'll match that one more year of his prime with one year of a quality Offensive Lineman getting chemistry with the current group.   

I don't disagree with your take on the surface level. But when you look at the context of how the team invests in free agency on OL, I'm not sure that they would put the savings to good use. You do have a Bobby Williams here, and a Travelle Wharton there (I thought he was a great FA pickup, too bad he got hurt), but my impression is that they mainly address OL through the draft. Even if they chose to go OL via free agency, I would bet that the type of free agents they would go after, wouldn't cost enough that they would have to dig into the 10M from Eifert's salary. That's why it's worth the risk IMO to bring Eifert back on a 1 year franchise tag. I can also see your opinion that we've basically seen Eifert for a reasonable amount of time (5 years) to know him well enough. If I'm being truly objective, as a GM, I would probably lean towards that view. I'm however slightly less objective as a fan, and think about how with the Bengals' luck letting Eifert go might come back and bite them. If that were to happen, I can't blame the Bengals for making a solid decision, but as a fan, it's going to sting a bit.

Edit:

I will add that maybe because we have new OL coach, the team might tweak their approach and start going after higher tier OL FAs. But we'll see.