We're still not in good shape at LB. Any ideas?

[THE PISTONS]

(04-30-2019, 02:27 PM)Jakeypoo Wrote: Agreed to an extent I have no problem with signing 2nd tier free agents like they did when Zimmer came here. Adam Jones, Chris Crocker, Wallace Gilberry, Terrence Newman, Thomas Howard, Manny Lawson, Reggie Nelson, Brandon Johnson, and Nate Clemments. 
Now they don't even do that maybe a fringe LB but other than that nothing. They definitely need to be more aggressive than what they are. Signing Brown and Hart we're embarrassing dumbass moves. 

Why can't it be Pratt exactly ?Dude has all the Athletic ability, high PFF college grade, and is  pretty smart and dedicated to football from all accounts. 

Oh it could be Pratt...I just don't think it's sound roster management to bank on that happening without a Plan B.

Nice post though. You get it.

It's interesting how much hostility people had towards me during free agency. Now that the dust settles, it feels like a lot more people view our 'haul' as underwhelming. Which puts a lot of pressure on the draft and coaching.

I think we had a nice draft. I think a lot of teams also think they had a nice draft too.

[fredtoast]

(04-30-2019, 03:16 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: Oh it could be Pratt...I just don't think it's sound roster management to bank on that happening without a Plan B.

Plan B was Brown being healthy and our third round pick from last year.

(04-30-2019, 03:16 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: It's interesting how much hostility people had towards me during free agency. Now that the dust settles, it feels like a lot more people view our 'haul' as underwhelming. 

I see the opposit.  When we signed Hart the ENTIRE BOARD went into meltdown mode, but now that the details of the contract are more clearly understood most fans are more understanding.

[Shouldamapads]

If I remember correctly, we were pretty good last year without Burfict and stunk when he came back. He looked slow and out of shape.

I have to think he was as much to blame for poor coverage as anyone. Add to the mix some injury and suddenly the team was suspect even on 3rd and 15.

I am not sold we are solid at LB. There might still have to be another acquisition. Will this mgt pull the trigger though?

This might be a Hoosiers quote.... my team is on the floor (field).

[Shake n Blake]

(04-30-2019, 03:37 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I see the opposit.  When we signed Hart the ENTIRE BOARD went into meltdown mode, but now that the details of the contract are more clearly understood most fans are more understanding.

Tbh, I still don't think it was a good deal. We're paying that dude $7.5 million this year, which is frankly ridiculous. I just think some people calmed down once they saw the total figure was $16 million, not $21 million. It was still a bad deal though.

Btw, you're focusing on ONE THING about free agency. Pretty sure Pistons was talking about his overall outlook and how we didn't really add anyone of note. And most would agree with that now. So Pistons wasn't wrong.

[fredtoast]

(04-30-2019, 05:26 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: And most would agree with that now. So Pistons wasn't wrong.

My point was that most have agreed with that all along.

[Fan_in_Kettering]

Improving the defensive line is another way to take pressure off inexperienced linebackers. Just sayin’.....

[Andy2AJ]

Maybe we can convert fisher or one of our running backs to linebacker.

[Nicomo Cosca]

(04-30-2019, 05:47 PM)Andy2AJ Wrote: Maybe we can convert fisher or one of our running backs to linebacker.

[THE PISTONS]

(04-30-2019, 05:32 PM)fredtoast Wrote: My point was that most have agreed with that all along.

I just wish that we'd come out of free agency with 1 or 2 really clear upgrades. We had some $50+ million in cap space.

Sure the draft is viewed as positive. It's viewed as a major upgrade basically every year on the board. Other teams view their drafts the same way.

Couple that with 2 good free agent signings, and wow the team will really start to get ahead.

Instead, we're banking on health, coaching, and draft picks to turn this ship around. That puts a lot of pressure on coaching and the draft.

[Nicomo Cosca]

(04-30-2019, 05:42 PM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: Improving the defensive line is another way to take pressure off inexperienced linebackers. Just sayin’.....

Or DL in fine. Lot of talent there. I’d say it’s the other way around. Need better LB’s behind them so QB’s can’t check down so easily.

[NATI BENGALS]

(04-30-2019, 10:44 PM)THE PISTONS Wrote: I just wish that we'd come out of free agency with 1 or 2 really clear upgrades. We had some $50+ million in cap space.

Sure the draft is viewed as positive. It's viewed as a major upgrade basically every year on the board. Other teams view their drafts the same way.

Couple that with 2 good free agent signings, and wow the team will really start to get ahead.

Instead, we're banking on health, coaching, and draft picks to turn this ship around. That puts a lot of pressure on coaching and the draft.

We did.

John Miller was better than what we had at RG. Upgrade
We had Glenn and Kent Perkins on the roster at T. So signing Hart as bad as he is was an upgrade. 
We had Hardy Nickerson and ??? at MLB. So signing free agent Preston Brown was huge.
We had Shrek and Carter at TE. We signed Uzi and Eifert. Huge.

We had two late round picks behind WJ3 and Kirk at CB. We signed DD and Webb. Huge.

 Our roster was not very deep and needed a lot of work. I really wanted guys that seemed to be clear upgrades. But Trent Brown and CJ Mosley would have cost a combined almost 34 million. We basically had to spread the wealth or even after a draft haul of 10+ players we would have had glaring holes on our 53 man roster. I still have a hard time filling out a 53 man roster after our draft. Quality over quantity in this free agency class would have been a bad move. I don't always view it like that. But I think things started to unravel here as ol shithead marv went off the rails. 

We have 10 draft picks who could all easily make the roster. And we didn't even draft a WR. Our top two WRs entering the year are in contract years. So having some money left over to spend on them is huge. 

[Fan_in_Kettering]

There is a gaggle of free agent linebackers available but the only one I recognized was Manti Te’o.

[Hoofhearted]

(05-01-2019, 09:11 AM)Fan_in_Kettering Wrote: There is a gaggle of free agent linebackers available but the only one I recognized was Manti Te’o.

Bostic and Zach Brown are still available. 

[Luvnit2]

(05-01-2019, 12:17 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: We did.

John Miller was better than what we had at RG. Upgrade
We had Glenn and Kent Perkins on the roster at T. So signing Hart as bad as he is was an upgrade. 
We had Hardy Nickerson and ??? at MLB. So signing free agent Preston Brown was huge.
We had Shrek and Carter at TE. We signed Uzi and Eifert. Huge.

We had two late round picks behind WJ3 and Kirk at CB. We signed DD and Webb. Huge.

 Our roster was not very deep and needed a lot of work. I really wanted guys that seemed to be clear upgrades. But Trent Brown and CJ Mosley would have cost a combined almost 34 million. We basically had to spread the wealth or even after a draft haul of 10+ players we would have had glaring holes on our 53 man roster. I still have a hard time filling out a 53 man roster after our draft. Quality over quantity in this free agency class would have been a bad move. I don't always view it like that. But I think things started to unravel here as ol shithead marv went off the rails. 

We have 10 draft picks who could all easily make the roster. And we didn't even draft a WR. Our top two WRs entering the year are in contract years. So having some money left over to spend on them is huge. 

Great points. Many of us have a tendency to ignore our re-signing of our guys. But, then when we don't re-sign one like Whittworth or Joseph and the sky is falling. We generally do a great job of re-signing our own overall but many fans shrug it off.

As for overall in FA, many of us would like to see us be more aggressive at times, show the fans they are all in. That is risky if it does not pan out, but I feel risk = reward so they should trust their ability to take risks on the right players. I have never seen anyone say go out and sign the highest paid FA's every year. I want a combination of FA and draft. I was encouraged the Bengals got Glenn a year ago, to me that was a risk. Has it worked out? No, not yet but maybe it will in 2019 and beyond.

Now make my day and go get Collins in FA or trade for Lee to shore up the LB group. They do that and I think they can compete in 2019.

[Hammerstripes]

(05-01-2019, 12:17 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: We did.

John Miller was better than what we had at RG. Upgrade
We had Glenn and Kent Perkins on the roster at T. So signing Hart as bad as he is was an upgrade. 
We had Hardy Nickerson and ??? at MLB. So signing free agent Preston Brown was huge.
We had Shrek and Carter at TE. We signed Uzi and Eifert. Huge.

We had two late round picks behind WJ3 and Kirk at CB. We signed DD and Webb. Huge.

 Our roster was not very deep and needed a lot of work. I really wanted guys that seemed to be clear upgrades. But Trent Brown and CJ Mosley would have cost a combined almost 34 million. We basically had to spread the wealth or even after a draft haul of 10+ players we would have had glaring holes on our 53 man roster. I still have a hard time filling out a 53 man roster after our draft. Quality over quantity in this free agency class would have been a bad move. I don't always view it like that. But I think things started to unravel here as ol shithead marv went off the rails. 

We have 10 draft picks who could all easily make the roster. And we didn't even draft a WR. Our top two WRs entering the year are in contract years. So having some money left over to spend on them is huge. 

We are comparing to the team we had last year - so anyone that resigned is not a clear upgrade.

Miller is an upgrade

As far as "spreading the wealth,"  you can't tell me that we couldn't have fit a guy like Mosley or another guy under the cap if we hadn't wasted the money on Brown and Hart.  

[Shake n Blake]

(05-01-2019, 12:17 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: We did.

John Miller was better than what we had at RG. Upgrade
We had Glenn and Kent Perkins on the roster at T. So signing Hart as bad as he is was an upgrade. 
We had Hardy Nickerson and ??? at MLB. So signing free agent Preston Brown was huge.
We had Shrek and Carter at TE. We signed Uzi and Eifert. Huge.

We had two late round picks behind WJ3 and Kirk at CB. We signed DD and Webb. Huge.

 Our roster was not very deep and needed a lot of work. I really wanted guys that seemed to be clear upgrades. But Trent Brown and CJ Mosley would have cost a combined almost 34 million. We basically had to spread the wealth or even after a draft haul of 10+ players we would have had glaring holes on our 53 man roster. I still have a hard time filling out a 53 man roster after our draft. Quality over quantity in this free agency class would have been a bad move. I don't always view it like that. But I think things started to unravel here as ol shithead marv went off the rails. 

We have 10 draft picks who could all easily make the roster. And we didn't even draft a WR. Our top two WRs entering the year are in contract years. So having some money left over to spend on them is huge. 

His point is that our 2019 roster wasn't any better after free agency than our 2018 roster. We have to rely almost 100% on the draft for upgrades. Miller is barely better than what we had. Be honest. Everything else you listed was re-signing internal free agents. That's not upgrading, it's treading water. We had a losing team last year (last 3 years). Treading water isn't going to cut it.

[THE PISTONS]

(05-01-2019, 01:11 PM)Shake n Blake Wrote: His point is that our 2019 roster wasn't any better after free agency than our 2018 roster. We have to rely almost 100% on the draft for upgrades. Miller is barely better than what we had. Be honest. Everything else you listed was re-signing internal free agents. That's not upgrading, it's treading water. We had a losing team last year (last 3 years). Treading water isn't going to cut it.

Yep. And EVERY TEAM adds talent through the draft. By choosing to not upgrade in sizeable ways in free agency, we're putting ourselves at a disadvantage.

We had some $50+ million of cap space...and didn't spend it wisely in my mind.

IF we were an 11 win team, then keeping the team together is a good strategy.

We have been a 6-7 win team for 3 years now though. Clearly relying on the draft alone isn't cutting it.

[fredtoast]

I am not going to defend our free agency activity this year, butI still want to point out a flaw in the logic a lot of people use.

Many fans act like every team in the league upgrades in free agency, but that just is not true. Every good free agent added by a team is a loss to another team. Too many fans just look at additions and ignore losses. A team can sign a couple of expensive free agents, but if they also lose a couple they are not improving their roster.

When you look at free agency across the entire league it is a zero net sum gain. For every addition there is a subtraction. So you can not ignore our signings of Brown and Dennard. Preventing a loss of talent is important and counts as a free agent move.

[BenZoo2]

(05-01-2019, 01:49 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I am not going to defend our free agency activity this year, butI still want to point out a flaw in the logic a lot of people use.

Many fans act like every team in the league upgrades in free agency, but that just is not true. Every good free agent added by a team is a loss to another team. Too many fans just look at additions and ignore losses. A team can sign a couple of expensive free agents, but if they also lose a couple they are not improving their roster.

When you look at free agency across the entire league it is a zero net sum gain. For every addition there is a subtraction. So you can not ignore our signings of Brown and Dennard. Preventing a loss of talent is important and counts as a free agent move.

That’s not entirely accurate. It depends on the players and the roster. A team can sign younger, better players while losing over paid aging veterans. So while the zero sum game of sign two, lose two may be in effect, the team could still improve itself


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Shake n Blake]

(05-01-2019, 01:49 PM)fredtoast Wrote: I am not going to defend our free agency activity this year, butI still want to point out a flaw in the logic a lot of people use.

Many fans act like every team in the league upgrades in free agency, but that just is not true.  Every good free agent added by a team is a loss to another team.  Too many fans just look at additions and ignore losses.  A team can sign a couple of expensive free agents, but if they also lose a couple they are not improving their roster.

When you look at free agency across the entire league it is a zero net sum gain.  For every addition there is a subtraction.  So you can not ignore our signings of Brown and Dennard.  Preventing a loss of talent is important and counts as a free agent move.

Name one person who said that.

What people complain about is having $50 million at the start of free agency and walking away with no real upgrades. Teams that are coming off of a losing season (especially 3 straight) with $50 million to spend, tend to be way more active than the Bengals. No one says that all 32 teams upgrade in free agency every year.