Lou speaks on the state of the defense

[SunsetBengal]

(12-29-2023, 07:46 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: There are only around 1,000 veteran NFL players who have gotten through a rookie contract and thus have actually had the ability to have their services bidded on rather than fixed cost. Only about 600 veterans who are making at least $2m/yr and anyone under that are generally interchangeable depth. 10% of the ~600 vets making $2m+/yr is 60, 10% of the ~1,000 vets in the NFL is 100. The middle of that is 80.

You start expanding it too much to 10% of 2,000 or 20% of 2,000 and it just get dumb. The 198th, 199th, and 200th cap hits have to combine together to equal the 19th cap hit, you can't be putting them all in the same category. The 393rd-400th are all below $4m. You've nearly reached Nick Scott at that point. Heck, Tee Higgins is the 396th cap hit at $3.962m... are we really calling 2023 Tee Higgins an "expensive offensive talent"?

Which would put him in the top 40% of all contracts.  However, in order to retain him, it would require a deal that would certainly put him in the top 5% of contracts, which is fine as anyone who is among the best at their job should have their compensation reflect as such. Remember back that this discussion spun off of another post where it was suggested to let players walk and just draft new ones.

What I was proposing is for the league to put a cap on position pay as a percentage of a team's cap.  For example, limit QB contracts to a max of 15% of a team's yearly cap, make positional players 10% max, etc. (I don't know if those values are fair, but just numbers for discussion)  Because as it is now, teams face the real possibility of having nearly half of a team's cap invested in as little as two players.  Is it really fair to have two players consuming half of a number that is supposed to cover 53?  

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(12-29-2023, 07:41 PM)007BengalsFan Wrote: You dont need to be in the top 80 to save money.   Jonah is making 12.6 million this year.  Next year he is predicted to make the same or more.   Let Jonah walk and replace him with a 1st round draft pick.  Currently the Bengals are sitting at the #18 draft spot which is expected to count 2.7 million against the cap in 2024.  Instead of re-signing Jonah at 12.6 or more, if the Bengals instead used the 1st round draft pick at RT, the Bengals would save 10 million or more against next years cap.  Tyler Boyd is making 10 million this year.  Let Boyd walk and you save another 10 million. Tee Higgins would make about 23 million next year if tagged and would likely try to ask for even more to re-sign on a longer term contract.  Let Tee walk replace him with a 2nd round pick and you save 22+ million.  Joe Mixon redid his contract to pay him 8.5 million next year. If he is cut next year the dead cap space would be 2.75 million but the Bengals could save around 6 million with the cut.

Savings

10m Jonah
10m Boyd
22m Higgins
  6m Mixon

48 million in savings by not having Jonah, Boyd, Higgins and Mixon on the team next year.  This is money that could be spent on adding defensive talent while replacing the lost offensive talent with draft picks.

You're not saving anything by letting Tee leave. He's currently a $3.96m cap hit. You'd spend more money by keeping him, but you're not "saving" money that magically opens up more, because it already isn't being spent. You have $10/month to spend, you're spending $5/month on Netflix, they say that next month it will rise to be $40/month.. unsubscribing to Netflix doesn't give you $50 to spend next month, you only saved $5 and you're back to $10/month.

Jonah and Boyd come off the books, but other guys make even more. Hendrickson's cap hit rises by $5m, Orlando's cap hit rises by $6m, Burrow's cap hit rises by $10m... there goes Jonah and Boyd's "savings" plus another $1m. The expectations of those guys coming off the books are baked into other players contracts having their cap hits rise and now you need a new starting RT, new WR2, and new WR3.

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The Bengals spent the 3rd most % cap space on defense in all of the NFL in 2022 if I remember correctly and were still 16th in overall defense and 6th in scoring defense. No matter how much money you pour into Lou's defense, it's not going to carry the team to the SB. 

You also can't just stick Joe Burrow with an even worse offense loaded with more unproven and untested rookies. At that point you're going to have Volson, a rookie RT, unproven WR #2-4, unproven and/or rookie RB, and we have ZERO TEs under contract for 2024. Why get and pay a Joe Burrow and then drain resources from the offense to double down on a bad defense? 

The team is always going to run through Burrow, so make sure he's protected (and thus healthy) and has solid options around him.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(12-29-2023, 08:04 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Which would put him in the top 40% of all contracts.  However, in order to retain him, it would require a deal that would certainly put him in the top 5% of contracts, which is fine as anyone who is among the best at their job should have their compensation reflect as such. Remember back that this discussion spun off of another post where it was suggested to let players walk and just draft new ones.

What I was proposing is for the league to put a cap on position pay as a percentage of a team's cap.  For example, limit QB contracts to a max of 15% of a team's yearly cap, make positional players 10% max, etc. (I don't know if those values are fair, but just numbers for discussion)  Because as it is now, teams face the real possibility of having nearly half of a team's cap invested in as little as two players.  Is it really fair to have two players consuming half of a number that is supposed to cover 53?  

It wouldn't. Higgins isn't a veteran contractually speaking, he's still on a rookie contract. 

I've never said the Bengals should keep Higgins, but I am railing against the idea that we have a ton of expensive offensive guys, and really not agreeing with the idea that we strip cap space away from the offense and send it to the defense. We have a franchise QB who needs to continue to be supported, any money saved from moving on from Jonah, Boyd, etc, needs to be put back into the offense. We need 2 OL, 1 veteran WR (a Boyd/Juju level guy), 1 rookie WR, at LEAST 1 TE, 1-2 RBs. You can't just get all of that in the draft, and even if you could you can't just saddle Burrow with a 1/2 rookie offense. It would be and offense of Burrow, Chase, 3 OL, and a bunch of schmucks.

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Great QBs taking a huge chunk of the salary cap is a giant competitive balance that shoudn't be removed. It's not helping us now with Burrow being the highest paid, but there are simply not enough good QBs for every NFL team so that huge salary cap savings is one of the few things that let teams potentially stay competitive if they don't have a great QB.

[SunsetBengal]

(12-29-2023, 08:10 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: It wouldn't. Higgins isn't a veteran contractually speaking, he's still on a rookie contract. 

I've never said the Bengals should keep Higgins, but I am railing against the idea that we have a ton of expensive offensive guys, and really not agreeing with the idea that we strip cap space away from the offense and send it to the defense. We have a franchise QB who needs to continue to be supported, any money saved from moving on from Jonah, Boyd, etc, needs to be put back into the offense. We need 2 OL, 1 veteran WR (a Boyd/Juju level guy), 1 rookie WR, at LEAST 1 TE, 1-2 RBs. You can't just get all of that in the draft, and even if you could you can't just saddle Burrow with a 1/2 rookie offense. It would be and offense of Burrow, Chase, 3 OL, and a bunch of schmucks.

Agreed, so the plan for defense is just hope a starting capable star NT falls to us in rounds 2-4 and allow the other young guys to keep developing.  On offense, we need to keep one of the premier QBs in the league stocked with top notch talent (just to keep him in that top talent qualifier) and just hope the defense can hold it together with new guys and spare parts?

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(12-29-2023, 08:19 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: Agreed, so the plan for defense is just hope a starting capable star NT falls to us in rounds 2-4 and allow the other young guys to keep developing.  On offense, we need to keep one of the premier QBs in the league stocked with top notch talent (just to keep him in that top talent qualifier) and just hope the defense can hold it together with new guys and spare parts?

I mean you can call it spare parts, but the 2024 defense already has 3 paid DL, 2 paid LBs, 1 paid DB... and then the last 2 drafts they've added 2 2nd round CBs, 1 1st round S, 1 3rd round S... plus 1 1st round DL and 1 3rd round DL as backups.

Lou just needs to get his shit together with the guys he has at some point in time because they have already paid a lot of guys and spent a ton of high draft picks on more guys for him.

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Burrow doesn't need top notch talent, but we DO need at least a mediocre starting caliber cast of talent around him.

We need a starting caliber TE (we have none now and 0 TEs under contract in 2024).
Our current #2 WR for 2024 has 80 career receiving yards at 8.0 yards per catch.
Our current #3 WR for 2024 has 15 career receiving yards at 3.8 yards per catch.
We have no #4 WR under contract for 2024.
Our current starting RT for 2024 is Jackson Carman.
Our current starting RB for 2024 has been under 4.0ypc each of the last two years and three of the last four years.
Volson still just isn't doing it for me at LG.

That's not asking for top notch talent, that's just recognizing that as things stand right now our offense is terrible in 2024, and we can't afford to just neglect it in favor of giving even MORE paid veterans and even MORE high draft picks on the defense that already has a lot of both and is just simply underperforming.

[SunsetBengal]

(12-29-2023, 08:42 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I mean you can call it spare parts, but the 2024 defense already has 3 paid DL, 2 paid LBs, 1 paid DB... and then the last 2 drafts they've added 2 2nd round CBs, 1 1st round S, 1 3rd round S... plus 1 1st round DL and 1 3rd round DL as backups.

Lou just needs to get his shit together with the guys he has at some point in time because they have already paid a lot of guys and spent a ton of high draft picks on more guys for him.

- - - - - -

Burrow doesn't need top notch talent, but we DO need at least a mediocre starting caliber cast of talent around him.

We need a starting caliber TE (we have none now and 0 TEs under contract in 2024).
Our current #2 WR for 2024 has 80 career receiving yards at 8.0 yards per catch.
Our current #3 WR for 2024 has 15 career receiving yards at 3.8 yards per catch.
We have no #4 WR under contract for 2024.
Our current starting RT for 2024 is Jackson Carman.
Our current starting RB for 2024 has been under 4.0ypc each of the last two years and three of the last four years.
Volson still just isn't doing it for me at LG.

That's not asking for top notch talent, that's just recognizing that as things stand right now our offense is terrible in 2024, and we can't afford to just neglect it in favor of giving even MORE paid veterans and even MORE high draft picks on the defense that already has a lot of both and is just simply underperforming.

So, are you saying that they should spend the money to keep Tee Higgins and shop free agency for a RT better than Williams?  Or should they just rely on high picks in the draft?  If they go the first option, you can bet that both of those deals will be in the top 10% of NFL contracts.

[Joelist]

The biggest need on defense is for the dumb mistakes to stop. These kids have the physical tools in spades to be great but it is not coming together mentally. The DL looks worse than it actually is because the secondary keeps failing to read plays correctly and react promptly resulting in receivers having huge holes in the zones to go to. That said the DL is not blameless as the run game issues are tackling and failure to set edges. The thing is that either these kids need to start executing Lou's system correctly and fast or Lou needs to reshape the system to something the kids CAN execute correctly. In offseason I would think IDL needs to be addressed in both free agency and the draft.

[WeezyBengal]

FO decided to cheap out and let both of our starting safeties walk. Lou told you last year it'd be devastating before it even happened.

Hope the 12 million rolled over in cap space and the fourth most cap space in the league next year was worth it.

[*TheLeonardLeap*]

(12-29-2023, 08:47 PM)SunsetBengal Wrote: So, are you saying that they should spend the money to keep Tee Higgins and shop free agency for a RT better than Williams?  Or should they just rely on high picks in the draft?  If they go the first option, you can bet that both of those deals will be in the top 10% of NFL contracts.

Where did I say that I wanted them to spend money to keep Tee? I have literally been on record that they are going to have to accept the need to move on from Tee for about two years now while people were deluding themselves that Burrow and the WRs were going to take a huge discount to stay together. I have always been vocal about this.

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They do need to add a solid veteran WR to add some stability and baseline competency in the WR room behind Chase. Think someone like Darnell Mooney (PFF projected $10.4m/yr) on the low end or Gabe Davis (PFF projected $13.5m/yr) on the high end. Then they can just use a mid round draft pick to add more WR depth.

They also need to add a solid veteran TE again to go with a draft pick. Hunter Henry is projected for $7.1m/yr. Then they can use a late pick on another TE since they're not relying on him to be a starter.

-RT probably needs to be addressed with their 1st round pick, as I don't believe it's a a good OL FA class.
-RB in the 2nd round.
-LG/C in the 3rd round to either replace Volson, or to prepare a future starting C because 2024 is Karras will be a FA in 2025 and he will be heading into his age 32 season.

Their first 3 picks have been defense each of the last two years. Time to focus on offense, but those two solid veteran additions don't put the Bengals entire hope on 5-6 rookies in one year. Sure would help a lot more if the OL FA class was better this year.

[HarleyDog]

The article doesn't go deep enough for me. I mean, yeah, it's rare that a coach does what Lou is doing by calling himself and the defense out. But I want to know why we can't stop the middle and why it's been a problem for this organization for so long?

I would love for Frank to explain why this o-line continues to fail with consistency. Or Zac to explain his stupid screens.

Every failure does not need to be candy coated. So, I commend Lou for trying to admit & address the shortcomings.

[007BengalsFan]

(12-29-2023, 08:04 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: - - - - - - -

The Bengals spent the 3rd most % cap space on defense in all of the NFL in 2022 if I remember correctly and were still 16th in overall defense and 6th in scoring defense. No matter how much money you pour into Lou's defense, it's not going to carry the team to the SB.

The defense IS what carried this team to the Super Bowl and AFC championship not the offense.

(12-29-2023, 08:04 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: You also can't just stick Joe Burrow with an even worse offense loaded with more unproven and untested rookies. At that point you're going to have Volson, a rookie RT, unproven WR #2-4, unproven and/or rookie RB, and we have ZERO TEs under contract for 2024. Why get and pay a Joe Burrow and then drain resources from the offense to double down on a bad defense? 

The team is always going to run through Burrow, so make sure he's protected (and thus healthy) and has solid options around him.

If Burrow wanted a loaded offense around him, he should have thought of that before he demanded 55 million a year.  When you get greedy and take so much of the cap there is only so much money left the team can spend for talent to surround you with.  As it is, Burrow has talent around him.  Burrow has Cappa and Karras who blocked from Brady.  The Bengals went out and got Brown who blocked for Mahomes.  They have drafted Ja'marr Chase to help Burrow, they drafted Iosivas they drafted Chase Brown at RB who is averaging more YPC 4.4 than Pacheco 4.3 this year.   Burrow would only have a rookie at RT and one as the #3 WR next year if they let go the guys I suggested.  If Burrow cant win with that amount of talent around him, he is not that good a QB.   Any decent QB would be able to win with the insane amount of talent Burrow is currently surrounded with.  You dont think Mahomes would love to have Chase, Higgins, Boyd, Iosivas?   Its not realistic to keep the amount of talent Burrow currently has around him when he will be taking up such a large percentage of cap space in future year.

(12-29-2023, 08:04 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: Why get and pay a Joe Burrow and then drain resources from the offense to double down on a bad defense?

Why pay Burrow 55 million a year and drain the defense of talent when the offense is bad? especially considering it was the defense that carried the team to the Super Bowl and AFCC?  It wasnt the offense.  The Bengals in free agency went out and got Burrow even more talent to surround him with when they signed Orlando Brown Jr.  While the the Bengals were improving the offensive talent, they took away talent from the defense.   Somehow the Bengals offense this year is worse than last year currently ranked #20 in scoring. The Bengals scoring defense is ranked #22 in the NFL so not much difference in where the offense and defense rank but for whatever reason some of you want to keep blaming the defense when the offense has been just as bad.   At least the defense has an excuse to be worse this year when you let guys like Bates, Bell and Apple leave.  What is the excuse for the offense being worse this year when they added a Pro Bowl LT for Burrow?

[Nicomo Cosca]

I like Yoshi, and I think he has the potential to be good, but it’s pretty funny seeing him included under “look at all the talent the offense has.”

Dude is a 6th round rookie with 80 yards in 15 games. :lol: