WHY are you surprised? Most of our core left in free agency over the past 2 years...

[Shake n Blake]

(10-25-2017, 09:07 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Coles was 32 and you could see he was losing his speed. The year before with the Jets he was targeted 120 times and had only 70 receptions for 850 yards.

Houshmandzadeh had 92 receptions and 904 yards the season before for us. Plus, you know he worked in the offense.

A day after losing Houshmandzadeh we signed Coles to a 4 year $28 million deal. Housh signed with Seattle for 5 years and $40 million.

Housh was still good. Coles was at the end of his career.

I will say the Bengals do spend money on wide receivers. Too bad they don't have the same initiative with offensive line. 

Yeah they do, and years ago on the boards I remember talking about how teams that spend big bucks on a WR rarely win championships. Calvin Johnson, Andre Johnson, Chad Johnson, Larry Fitzgerald. So many of these guys put up big stats and get paid, but the team success just isn't there. Just makes me wonder if spending $15 million/year on AJ Green is truly a sound strategy. I'm sure I'll get killed for that, but whatev.

[THE PISTONS]

(10-25-2017, 01:35 AM)Shake n Blake Wrote: I don't think most of us are surprised, Pistons.

Outside of a small handful of homerific predictions, I saw mostly guys saying we'd win 6-7 games all off-season.

I don't think we're losing because the entire roster is bad. That's where you and I differ. It's just that this o-line is so epically bad that it completely cripples the offense. Yeah the defense was bad against the Steelers, but that was a typical Marvin choke job special. I do think this is still a top 10 defense at the end of the year.

If we had a competent o-line (not even great, just competent) I still think we'd have a 10 win team. Would they still lose in the first round? You betcha, but the talent is still there outside of o-line and maybe receivers.

Oh...I don't think the entire roster is bad. I think with a good offensive line we could get by with the other deficiencies we have.

We're about as far from a good offensive line as you could be though. They'll likely throw draft picks at it.

With a good line, we could run the ball which would lead to better clock control. We haven't done that in years.

[Shake n Blake]

(10-25-2017, 10:59 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Oh...I don't think the entire roster is bad. I think with a good offensive line we could get by with the other deficiencies we have.

We're about as far from a good offensive line as you could be though. They'll likely throw draft picks at it.

With a good line, we could run the ball which would lead to better clock control. We haven't done that in years.

Agreed and that's a problem. They need to seriously address it. Draft picks and free agents. It's at "disaster" level and the Bengals will probably approach it this offseason like it's a mild concern.

Heck, they might not address it at all. It's not like it wasn't crystal clear that the line was a major issue last year.

But yeah, we haven't been able to run effectively since 2006. We've been 20th or worse in YPC in 10 of the last 11 seasons, including 31st right now.

[THE PISTONS]

This is still our MAJOR issue.

Losing free agents and bad drafts.

[THE PISTONS]

I think we're still closer to rebuilding than from being a playoff contender.

We lose free agents, that we've never replaced.

[Nicomo Cosca]

The first part of rebuild needs to be HC. Nothing else really matters until we do that.

[THE PISTONS]

(11-18-2018, 08:32 PM)Nicomo Cosca Wrote: The first part of rebuild needs to be HC. Nothing else really matters until we do that.

Agreed. I doubt they do that though.