The Raiders = Bengals West

[GodFather]

And wouldn't it be a real kick in the ass if they won a playoff game before the real Bengals?

[*jason*]

(09-03-2018, 04:20 PM)Shady Wrote: Yeah, Zimmer cut Lemur. Chucky thought he'd be a good replacement for Mack. 

I remember Hobson comaparing Lamur to Kam Chancellor after the Seahawks won the Super Bowl.

[Bengalitis]

(09-03-2018, 02:53 PM)pally Wrote: Yeah, the old and broken Bengals west

 
Hue Jackson's legacy is still strong in Oakland it seems.

[Shake n Blake]

(09-03-2018, 09:59 PM)Bengalitis Wrote:  
Hue Jackson's legacy is still strong in Oakland it seems.

I think it's more than Jon has a crush on his bro's former team.

[Bengalitis]

(09-03-2018, 03:08 PM)Sweetness Wrote: Idk. You can't give 20% of your income to 1 player. Mack is great but I'd bet you can get close to the same production from exponentially cheaper players.

So much for Football being a team sport..   So if the team loses, suffice to say the blame should go to Mack, just in terms of $$$ earn.

[CornerBlitz]

I think the Bears gave up too much as well but if I'm the Raiders i figure out a way to keep him. The whole point is to groom the players you draft and reward them if they become beasts. Look at how the Bengals have done it with Geno Atkins and Carlos Dunlap. You don't draft players, groom them to become elite at their position, then let them go.

[TKUHL]

(09-03-2018, 03:08 PM)Sweetness Wrote: Idk. You can't give 20% of your income to 1 player. Mack is great but I'd bet you can get close to the same production from exponentially cheaper players.

Agree, it's a team sport but most importantly it's sustainability. If you can stay competitive with 5th year or less players while only paying key players QB or whoever it is on the team the big contracts you will have a winning program. That is if your key players are really worth it. The problem is Mack was a key player on a team with too many key player contracts already.

[grampahol]

I'm thinking the Raiders absolutely have to knock those picks out of the park. Missing on just one will set them back, but as many have alluded to Mack is good, but  not over 10% of the entire teams salaries good. For the Bears they better hope Mack stays a great player for at least another 4 years because if he drops off to mediocreville or gets seriously injured and out for a couple of years they'll pay dearly for it .

[JWW1971]

Surprise that McCarron got traded.
I don't get a lot of news here and never noticed it when I had NFL Network on.

[jorev5]

(09-03-2018, 02:54 PM)CornerBlitz Wrote: Only difference being i'd actually have faith that our front office would retain the services of a player like Khalil Mack.

I don't know, I was upset when we lost Justin Smith 

[*Go Cards*]

(09-03-2018, 04:02 PM)corpjet Wrote: I was going to say don't forget the D Coordinator.... :andy:

Also their LBers coach is David Lippincot, another former coach here....

Plus the brother of one of Bengals former coaches is their HC. 

Ok maybe OI am reaching here, but certain he did some scouting and advising for Jay. 

But as good as Mack is believe the Raiders made the right move considering their present circumstances. 

[*Go Cards*]

(09-04-2018, 12:01 AM)jorev5 Wrote: I don't know, I was upset when we lost Justin Smith 

Me too but for some silly reason a bunch of Bengals fans were always down on Justin. 

Never agreed though

[*SHRacerX*]

(09-03-2018, 02:50 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: Brandon LaFell just signed with the Raiders. Their roster now includes:

AJ McCarron
Brandon LaFell
Leon Hall
Reggie Nelson
Emmanuel Lamur
Frostee Rucker
Mike Nugent

13% of their 53 man roster is former Bengals. Full disclosure: I didn't even know Frostee was still playing.

I didn't know Nugent was, either! 

Leon Hall?  Isn't he like 137 years old?

The Raiders were getting a TON of media attention from their one good year with Carr, but they are going to take a while to be good.  I like Gruden, but really question the decision (I understand the financials) of letting Mack go.  What message does that send?  And he is one of the best 5 defensive players in the league and stays healthy.  

I was kind of rooting for them because I like Gruden and Carr, but I think they will struggle in their division. 

[*Nately120*]

(09-03-2018, 07:07 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: In all, the Bears gave a pair of 1st rounders, a 3rd rounder and $141 million over 6 years.

It was a move to generate (casual) fan excitement, but it wasn't a smart move from a team standpoint, IMO.

Ehh, the Bears may as well make a big move while their QB is on the cheap.  Plus, this sort of reminds me (the Bears are my NFC team) when I preached the Bears should trade up to get Carson Palmer in the 2003 draft to go all-in while their defense was elite.  I was told they could hang on to those picks and get by with Rex Grossman or Kyler Boller.

Sometimes you just have to make a big move.  Plus, the Packers were players in the get Mack sweepstakes, so the prospect of the Bears starting the season in Green Bay and seeing Rodgers and Jimmy Graham on the field and then watching Khalil Mack line up to drive Trubisky into the turf would have been too much to stomach.

I'm not assuming the Bears will win anything of note any time soon because of this trade, but there are a lot of NFL fans that like the idea of having a roster with the potential to win it all within the next 3-5 years and letting that hope carry on for 20-30 years or so.  Decades of keeping that window open forever and ever.  Don't trade up for a QB, don't sign any big free agents and so on.  

[Shake n Blake]

(09-04-2018, 12:01 AM)jorev5 Wrote: I don't know, I was upset when we lost Justin Smith 

Same here. I was also upset when we lost Housh, JJo, Nelson, Whit, Steinbach, Zeitler, etc.

Just because the Bengals are good at retaining key guys doesn't mean they've never let key guys go. 

(09-04-2018, 08:07 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: I didn't know Nugent was, either! 

Leon Hall?  Isn't he like 137 years old?

The Raiders were getting a TON of media attention from their one good year with Carr, but they are going to take a while to be good.  I like Gruden, but really question the decision (I understand the financials) of letting Mack go.  What message does that send?  And he is one of the best 5 defensive players in the league and stays healthy.  

I was kind of rooting for them because I like Gruden and Carr, but I think they will struggle in their division. 

This pretty much became a lock when they signed Jon Gruden. As far as I know, Jon has always had a 4-3 defense. He hired Guenther who has always run a 4-3. Mack is a 3-4 OLB. He's really too small to earn a $23.5 million yearly salary as a 4-3 DE...and good luck getting 10+ sacks in a 4-3 defense led by Gruden and Guenther.

People get hung up on "the message" (talking about the media), but how is this any different than the Patriots trading Richard Seymour, Logan Mankins, etc etc? Were the Patriots sending any messages about not paying their top guys?

I guess I see both sides. I understand "keeping your own", but the teams that usually win the most, are teams with young affordable talent. Just to put this in perspective, Mack is now making what Atkins and Burfict will be combined. Meanwhile, the Raiders now have a wealth of great picks. It's a tough pill for their fans to swallow, but only time will tell if it was the right move or not. 

Fwiw, Mack is 27 and these picks "should" set the Raiders up well for when they make their move to Vegas.

Btw, Leon Hall is actually younger than Jonathan Joseph, although Joseph has aged MUCH better. We kept the wrong guy there.

(09-04-2018, 10:13 AM)Nately120 Wrote: Ehh, the Bears may as well make a big move while their QB is on the cheap.  Plus, this sort of reminds me (the Bears are my NFC team) when I preached the Bears should trade up to get Carson Palmer in the 2003 draft to go all-in while their defense was elite.  I was told they could hang on to those picks and get by with Rex Grossman or Kyler Boller.

Sometimes you just have to make a big move.  Plus, the Packers were players in the get Mack sweepstakes, so the prospect of the Bears starting the season in Green Bay and seeing Rodgers and Jimmy Graham on the field and then watching Khalil Mack line up to drive Trubisky into the turf would have been too much to stomach.

I'm not assuming the Bears will win anything of note any time soon because of this trade, but there are a lot of NFL fans that like the idea of having a roster with the potential to win it all within the next 3-5 years and letting that hope carry on for 20-30 years or so.  Decades of keeping that window open forever and ever.  Don't trade up for a QB, don't sign any big free agents and so on.  

I get that angle as well, and it crossed my mind. The Bears really aren't that close though, and swinging and missing on a move this huge could set them back for a decade. They'd better hope Nagy is the next Doug Pederson.

[*Go Cards*]

(09-04-2018, 08:07 AM)SHRacerX Wrote: I didn't know Nugent was, either! 

Leon Hall?  Isn't he like 137 years old?

The Raiders were getting a TON of media attention from their one good year with Carr, but they are going to take a while to be good.  I like Gruden, but really question the decision (I understand the financials) of letting Mack go.  What message does that send?  And he is one of the best 5 defensive players in the league and stays healthy.  

I was kind of rooting for them because I like Gruden and Carr, but I think they will struggle in their division. 

Not saying this is why he did it, but it certainly takes the pressure off of him to win now. 

Yet if he does win now the excitement level is off the hook for their fans with all those draft picks to use still coming. 

Most thought the Bengals losing Carson, Chad, and TO that they would have trouble. Yet the opposite happened. 

It is my opinion that a contract like that is not good for the team unless it is on an elite QB.  

[*Nately120*]

(09-04-2018, 12:53 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I get that angle as well, and it crossed my mind. The Bears really aren't that close though, and swinging and missing on a move this huge could set them back for a decade. They'd better hope Nagy is the next Doug Pederson.

I hear ya, but they have to do something while they have Trubisky on the cheap, assuming he's even going to be all that good.  And when you consider they spent a #7 overall pick on Kevin White I can't see the fanbase getting too upset with tossing picks at a known commodity like Mack.

Plus, the last time they made a bold move was for Cutler and at least they were playoff relevant and made it to the NFC Championship game with him.  The other years where they haven't been taking big swings that could set them back they've done very little winning.  Basically, they winning 3-7 games when they are playing it safe, so let's see what a risk gets them.

They're also a team that has been trapped in a division with "the best QB to play the game" for the last 25 years with no end in sight.  If Mack doesn't pan out they can go right back to winning 6 games per year, either way. Setting back a franchise 10 years when they're still living off a single SB win 33 years ago isn't too daunting a threat, ha.

[Shake n Blake]

(09-04-2018, 01:03 PM)Nately120 Wrote: I hear ya, but they have to do something while they have Trubisky on the cheap, assuming he's even going to be all that good.  And when you consider they spent a #7 overall pick on Kevin White I can't see the fanbase getting too upset with tossing picks at a known commodity like Mack.

Plus, the last time they made a bold move was for Cutler and at least they were playoff relevant and made it to the NFC Championship game with him.  The other years where they haven't been taking big swings that could set them back they've done very little winning.  Basically, they winning 3-7 games when they are playing it safe, so let's see what a risk gets them.

They're also a team that has been trapped in a division with "the best QB to play the game" for the last 25 years with no end in sight.  If Mack doesn't pan out they can go right back to winning 6 games per year, either way.  Setting back a franchise 10 years when they're still living off a single SB win 33 years ago isn't too daunting a threat, ha.

Well as a Bengals fan, I certainly shouldn't bash them too much for swinging toward the fences.

Lord knows I've had a lot of times where I wished the Bengals were that ballsy. To the bolded, good point.

[fredtoast]

I did not even know Hall and Rucker were still in the league, but Frostee played over 600 snaps for the Cards last year.

Remember when Rucker was a "sexual predator" who the Bengals had messed up in drafting because they supposedly didn't do a background check?

[Shake n Blake]

I miss having good depth like Fanene and Frostee, then Gilberry on the d-line.

I think we might have that kind of depth this year, though.