Is It Time for the Bengals to Go All In?

[fredtoast]

BTW it is ridiculous to claim that a business worth a BILLION dollars with ZERO DEBT would ever be limited by "cash flow" problems.

They could always borrow a hundred million at a low rate; buy a hundred million in government bonds with guaranteed return; and use that to fund the guaranteed contract fund escrow fund.

If teams are able to use the tax deduction for the pre-paid salary when it is placed in escrow instead of years later when it is paid then there may be nearly zero impact on their cash flow.

[bk42]

Guess it all depends what all in us. I don’t think they should trade away future early draft picks as they’ll need those. I don’t think they should commit to long term deals that would hurt their salary cap in the future on a marginal player that may help their chance this year - but I do hope they explore all options and consider spending money as rosters are finalized (1 yr deals only). To me G and OT depth are the two key areas at this point - an Erick flowers or Daryl Williams at a reasonable price for 1 year would be great. I think the bengals have a great team - maybe just a late upgrade on OL as Carman maybe hasn’t developed as mgmt had hoped at this point would be big in my opinion

[Joelist]

For anyone who wants more numbers here is a recent financial analysis of the Bengals:

https://www.forbes.com/teams/cincinnati-bengals/?sh=5603665b4551

If you want to know why they (and other franchises) are shy about full guarantees just remember the NFL Funding Rule and realize that they have to put a BIG number into Escrow at signing. For Burrow the number will top $200 million. For Chase it is going to be around $100 million. And you can't just take out loans to do this because the loan still has to be repaid PLUS INTEREST. What this leaves is stacking up Cash to be ready for when they need to spend it. This is also why they are selling naming rights and other such things - if they want to stay competitive they have to increase their Cash Flow.

This is also why you're starting to hear the NFLPA pushing to abolish the Funding Rule - it is an artifact from the 1960s and is starting to render some franchises incapable of giving out the fully guaranteed deals the players desire.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(08-28-2022, 11:21 AM)samhain Wrote: I think they are right where they need to be.  Unlike a lot of teams on the extreme end of going all in, they've retained basically all of their draft capital while continuing to address weaknesses on the roster through FA.  The FAs they are bringing in aren't the dumpster dive signings of old, either.  

I suppose it would be nice to get a high end LG or interior d-lineman to shoe things up.  On the other hand, I fell pretty strongly that the best practice for roster building is still utilizing the ability to develop talent in-house while it's still affordable.  

Could we replace a Volson with a bigger name?  Could they pay money for a guy like Suh on the open market?  I guess.  I'd rather take some time to see if players like Carter and Volson can get the job done and perhaps even become major franchise building blocks in time.  

Maybe next year there will be a glaring need that they will have an opportunity to acquire in FA, and I'm good with it if they go that route.  I just want to see youth get a chance to prove out.  If they can't develop drafted talent, then long term success in the Burrow era is a mirage.  

The free agent game is a supplemental tool that needs to be used wisely to build a roster.  It's not the primary means of talent acquisition, and it definitely doesn't take precedent over in-house development.

Yes, they need to coach up the young guys that they draft in order for this team to have success for a long time.

I think they can too, love how they have built this roster to where we are only looking at a couple spots on the team that 
are questions. Used to be a lot of spots, now it is LG and backup 3-tech and I already like Volson and Carman and especially
Zach Carter who has shown some damn good pass rush moves this Preseason and got a Sack Fumble yesterday. Volson or 
Carman WILL look better with Jonah and Ted next to them instead of D'Ante Smith/Prince/Trey Hill/Gailliard.

[sandwedge]

(08-28-2022, 03:15 PM)ezekiel23 Wrote: Fact:The Bengals organization did not go all in on the Offensive line.This is ALL they needed to do to go back to the SB and win it.Plain and simple.It doesn’t take an expert to figure that out.It’s not that they haven’t tried over the past several years to fix this problem,but they’ve been unsuccessful for obvious reasons.The depth to this OL is terrible.An injury or two,and you’re right back where you were last year.Hopefully everybody stays healthy.

When Mike Brown gets involved,bad things happen.

They replaced over half the O-line? So if a rookie has to play, a very promising rookie, it might take a couple of weeks. As I said before, we haven't seen him play with Jonah or Ted. I'd venture to guess that 90% of the teams are screwed if they have injuries on the Oline.

[bk42]

Really interesting article and a consideration I didn’t know about in terms of the escrow requirement. Hope they collect good money on the naming rights and have their money ready as they will need it to keep their top level talent in Cinci.

And as for going all in, I think they have done enough to improve the team for this season (they should be in contention come playoff time) without mortgaging the next few years. Yes I’d prefer an upgrade at LG but if volson gets the opportunity and develops, that’s also big for the team going forward to have a starting lineman on a rookie 4th rd contract.

[*rfaulk34*]

(08-28-2022, 12:44 PM)Essex Johnson Wrote: Not saying he won;t but Chase has to put together a solid year this year to backup last year especially if Higgins has even a better year this year. that would really be interesting decision if Chase goes back and Higgins goes up this year to what to do with Higgins?

Peyote is a hell of a drug. 

[fredtoast]

(08-28-2022, 04:11 PM)Joelist Wrote:  And you can't just take out loans to do this because the loan still has to be repaid PLUS INTEREST.

But they can use the borrowed money to buy bonds that pay interest.  And it seems that if they have to put the funds in an escrow account then they should be able to immediately claim the tax benefit of paying the salary instead of waiting for the years when it is actually paid.

There would be some cost involved, but the Bengals would still generate massive profits for the Browns if they had to borrow to fund and escrow account.

No business worth a BILLION dollars with ZERO debt should be allowed to complain about cash flow problems.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(08-28-2022, 11:20 PM)rfaulk34 Wrote: Peyote is a hell of a drug. 

I don't know what the hell Essex was talkin' about there lol

[*ochocincos*]

(08-28-2022, 10:50 AM)Essex Johnson Wrote: I think every team wishes it had 5 quality starters and most don;t and depth across the board behind them i don;t think any team has that.... been stated before but Oline in the NFL seems to be the position with the least amount of quality starters especially at Tackle and have the worst depth in the league... though QB backups sure look thin too.  That does not mean we will stand pat, but the quality is not good out there and at what cost especially for a starter.. as for depth changes on the roster might happen but again those players are cuts too which then lead to question marks and now they have to learn a new system in a short amount of time.

Bengals arguably have at least a solid starter at every starting offensive and defensive position except LG.

The difference though with the Bengals compared to many other teams is they have/had the cap to add one more solid guy to cover LG if neither Carman nor their Rd 4 rookie panned out by Game 1.

My hope is they'd add someone just for insurance if anything, but I can see them choosing to roll with who they have so they don't have to make any additional cuts that they may not be comfortable with.

[*Nate (formerly eliminate08)*]

(08-29-2022, 04:37 PM)ochocincos Wrote: Bengals arguably have at least a solid starter at every starting offensive and defensive position except LG.

The difference though with the Bengals compared to many other teams is they have/had the cap to add one more solid guy to cover LG if neither Carman nor their Rd 4 rookie panned out by Game 1.

My hope is they'd add someone just for insurance if anything, but I can see them choosing to roll with who they have so they don't have to make any additional cuts that they may not be comfortable with.

We will see tomorrow Ocho, after cuts and see if we bring in someone.