The biggest off season moves after Tee & Chase were Scott Peters, Al Golden, and Jerry Montgomery. Golden is not a better DC than Lou schematically necessarily but I think you’ll see less mistakes in personnel. Peters is infinitely better than Pollack and Montgomery is also a great talent evaluator. He was at Oklahoma a few years back.
But the offense will be improved with the OL under Peters and the further emergence of Isovias & Gesicki. I think Joe is so Tee & Chase focused too often. The defense sadly has to have some things materialize. Maybe too much.
Romo “ so impressed with Zac ...1 of the best in the NFL… they are just fundamentally sound. Taylor the best winning % in the Playoffs of current coaches. Joe Burrow” Zac is the best head coach in the NFL & that gives me a lot of confidence." Taylor led the Bengals to their first playoff win since 1990, ending the longest active drought in the four major North American sports, en and appeared in Super Bowl LVI, the first since 1988.
(Yesterday, 04:08 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: That's just the NFL.
The Jags had 10 one-score losses.
The Giants had 8.
The Jets and Bears had 7.
The Patriots, Saints, Falcons, 49ers, Broncos, and Titans had 6.
A bunch of other teams had 4 or 5.
If everyone won their 1-score losses, the vast majority of teams would have winning records and I don't think there'd be any teams with less than 7 wins.
(Yesterday, 01:41 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: I think we can agree Higgins will easily surpass 1000 yards if he pplays all 17 games. The great news is if he misses 5 games again, he does not get paid all 17 per game bonus, then we get back additional cap in 2026. Also, if he does not help us win the AFC championship he misses out on that incentive which also goes back to the 2026 cap and also if we do not win the Super Bowl, team gets back that incentive in 2026.
Tee's contract is awesome, if we do not win the AFC championship or Super Bowl, team gets back 2.7 million in cap space in 2026.
So if we don't win the AFCCG or superbowl we get .83% of the cap the Bengals can unnecessarily pack into someone's cap hit next year. Yippee!!! Well the future is bright.
Lost Rankins, Cappa, Davis-Gaither, Vonn Bell, Hubbard, and Trent Brown. Gained Slaton, Burks, Perine, and Patrick. Everything else was inside the building.
Apparently we improved by letting starters be replaced by players lower on the depth chart, addition by subtraction. We seem to be happy to see 5 players who were starters to begin the season leave.
It's gotta be one the most underwhelming roster turnovers ever going into the draft.
A closer look mainly indicates that teams like the Chargers, Packers, and Cowboys dropped a bunch due to their poor handling of FA, not necessarily that the Bengals added a bunch of talent.
They still have KC, BUF, and BAL ahead of the Bengals.
The only true contender who dropped below Bengals in these is HOU, but IMO that's way too far of a drop.
They did trade away Tunsil and haven't re-signed Diggs, but they did add Cam Robinson and Laken Tomlinson to their OL (and Trent Brown lol), plus they have 4 picks in the Top 100 to help address guys they lost.
They could add a new OT and WR early in the draft and likely will win the AFC South again with a 10+ win season.
The question is did the Bengals either add enough to get them better than KC, BUF, and BAL, or will guys they have perform like they did the last month of this past season, but through the entirety of 2025?
As of right now, I'm predicting around 10-11 wins. 4th, 5th, or 6th seed.
I could potentially see around 12-13 wins if they handle the division better, which they hopefully should with Slaton added to stop the run.
Zac Taylor 2019-2020: 6 total wins
Zac Taylor 2021-2022: Double-digit wins each season, plus 5 postseason wins
Zac Taylor 2023: 9 wins despite losing Burrow half the season
Zac Taylor 2024: Started 1-4. Ended 9-8 but barely missed playoffs
Changes needed to do better in Sept/Oct moving forward.
(Yesterday, 05:51 PM)Atomic Orange Wrote: Right and the Chiefs had 11 one score wins.
So again, there's hope.
My point was "luck" doesn't just magically "change" and it's not a matter of hope. It's about if your team is good or not, not if you're lucky or not. The NFL routinely has a ton of one score games, the good teams win the 1-score games, bad teams lose them.
(Yesterday, 10:28 AM)Luvnit2 Wrote: Many of our own fans are trashing the FO. Some are calling us Bungles, same name used by our enemies to trash us. ESPN ranks the Bengals as the 7th best tem in the NFL rght now. They finished 18th in 2024.
Maybe we do have hope in 2025 in spite of the naysayers opinions.
I don't put any stock in espn, but yeah, we are better going into this season than last season for sure already and we haven't had the Draft yet,
extended Trey or added another Guard after Patrick. Lou, Pollack and the bad coaching are gone replaced with Golden, Peters and company who
could be big upgrades, cannot be worse. We brought back all our good players and added a decent Guard and a decent NT. Brought in Samaje
who adds physicality to the RB position, Oren Burkes who adds athleticism and smarts to the LB core and getting rid of Rankins and Cappa was
addition by subtraction.
The rookies from last year should really grow in their sophomore season and all of Mims, Jenkins and Jackson got some damn good experience
as rookies.
(Yesterday, 07:16 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: My point was "luck" doesn't just magically "change" and it's not a matter of hope. It's about if your team is good or not, not if you're lucky or not. The NFL routinely has a ton of one score games, the good teams win the 1-score games, bad teams lose them.
(Yesterday, 04:21 PM)Luvnit2 Wrote: 2025 is a new year, but at least the Eagles lost some starters so maybe the will not be as dominant in 2025. Bengals need to start by winning a lot more AFC and AFCC games. I think home field for the AFC in 2025 is going to be wide open. Bengals need to jump into the mix.
If I had to pick a Team to win Home Field in AFC, it would be the Bills.
The North and West, each has three Team fighting for their division and I see the Jags and Colts standing in the way of Texans in the South.
Although I believe we will truly compete for SB next year, I also feel that we can beat the Bills in Buffalo - if it gets to that.
The primary starters on defense in 2020 was
Sam Hubbard / Mike Daniels / Christian Covington / Carl Lawson
Josh Bynes / Germaine Pratt
Darius Phillips / Vonn Bell / Jessie Bates / Mackenzie Alexander / William Jackson
The primary starters on defense in 2021 was
Sam Hubbard / Larry Ogunjobi / DJ Reader / Trey Hendrickson
Logan Wilson / Germaine Pratt
Chidobe Awuzie / Vonn Bell / Jessie Bates / Mike Hilton / Eli Apple
They got a 2nd year healthy Joe Burrow, and added Ja'Marr Chase, Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie, Mike Hilton, Larry Ogunjobi, even Riley Reiff and Eli Apple... plus replaced Randy Bullock with Evan McPherson.
- - - - - - -
That's the exact opposite of "hoping that our luck changes". That's making significant changes to improve.
The primary starters on defense in 2020 was
Sam Hubbard / Mike Daniels / Christian Covington / Carl Lawson
Josh Bynes / Germaine Pratt
Darius Phillips / Vonn Bell / Jessie Bates / Mackenzie Alexander / William Jackson
The primary starters on defense in 2021 was
Sam Hubbard / Larry Ogunjobi / DJ Reader / Trey Hendrickson
Logan Wilson / Germaine Pratt
Chidobe Awuzie / Vonn Bell / Jessie Bates / Mike Hilton / Eli Apple
They got a 2nd year healthy Joe Burrow, and added Ja'Marr Chase, Trey Hendrickson, Chidobe Awuzie, Mike Hilton, Larry Ogunjobi, even Riley Reiff and Eli Apple... plus replaced Randy Bullock with Evan McPherson.
- - - - - - -
That's the exact opposite of "hoping that our luck changes". That's making significant changes to improve.
It is also a team with Burrow, Chase, Higgins, Bates, Wilson, and Pratt on rookie contracts. Maybe Hubbard, too?
Look, I fully embrace the idea that the FO has failed to maximize our cap space so that we can max out out talent while Trey is still a wrecking ball, and Joe/Tee/Chase are in their prime. 2-3 years, max. We should have restructured Burrow and maximized our space with the extensions.
As no one is that stupid, it had to be on purpose.
However, I don't think it is fair to compare to 2020. We had TONS more space. And a better FA class to draw from. And we absolutely hit HE after HR in FA. Trey, Reader, Chido, Hilton, Bell, Hill/Price trade, Larey O, even Apple on a cheap.
Both things are true. The FO coukd/should have done more to maximize our space AND our hands were, if not tied, at least constrained somewhat.
It is also true that the criticism bothers them. That little burn video they put out is telling. Keep on them. Maybe if they take enough heat Mike will actually push all his chips in for once.
(Yesterday, 09:18 PM)Isaac Curtis: The Real #85 Wrote: However, I don't think it is fair to compare to 2020.
I am not comparing this offseason to the 2020-2021 offseason. I was pointing out that Atomic using the 2021 season as an example of getting "lucky" was nonsense, because we vastly improved our roster from 2020, which means it's not a matter of luck there. If we had the exact same (or nearly the same) roster in 2021 as we did in 2020 and still went to the SB, THAT would have been lucky, but we didn't, we made significant improvements in order to get those better results.
(Yesterday, 09:29 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I am not comparing this offseason to the 2020-2021 offseason. I was pointing out that Atomic using the 2021 season as an example of getting "lucky" was nonsense, because we vastly improved our roster from 2020, which means it's not a matter of luck there. If we had the exact same (or nearly the same) roster in 2021 as we did in 2020 and still went to the SB, THAT would have been lucky, but we didn't, we made significant improvements in order to get those better results.
My bad. Apologies. I did not read the whole thread back far enough to get the context.
(Yesterday, 09:29 PM)TheLeonardLeap Wrote: I am not comparing this offseason to the 2020-2021 offseason. I was pointing out that Atomic using the 2021 season as an example of getting "lucky" was nonsense, because we vastly improved our roster from 2020, which means it's not a matter of luck there. If we had the exact same (or nearly the same) roster in 2021 as we did in 2020 and still went to the SB, THAT would have been lucky, but we didn't, we made significant improvements in order to get those better results.
I agree with you, but Bengals also were a 4 win team in 2020 and a 9 win team in 2024. The 2024 roster was a lot better than the 2020 roster and JB was on a rookie contract as was Chase.
Bengals had Chase and money Mac do great as rookies, but the other 8 picks did not do much of anything. In 2020 we had 7 picks and top 2 did well by year 2. Higgins and Wilson. In 2020 we had 10 picks again. Only Jonah Williams in round 1, Sample in round 2 and Pratt in year 3 were signiifciant contributors by 2021.
The 2021 free agent class + Burrow year 2 and healthy + homeruns with Chase and Mac = Super Bowl. Tee also was better in his year 2.
To be succsessful Bengals need Mims, Jenkins, McKinley, Newton, Johnson and Anthony to improve. Alli is out for year, but if they get anything from Butron and McLachlan this could go down as our best draft class in a very long time.
I would argue Newton, Johnson and eventually Alli can become very good NFL players. The jury is out on Anthony, but he is very athletic abd raw
We need at least 1 more vet guard prior to the draft, if so our options will be open with pick 17 and may give us leeway to trade back in round 1 to grab ore picks.
Please use 2025 free agency to fix the trenches, not the draft!!!!!!!!
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