They need to start drafting really well and based upon what their history says they can’t. There drafts recently have not been good

I remember in the Vermeil era when we went 9-0. People were so excited, they thought this was the year, including me. I was one of the fans chanting 9-0 after that game. And we knew we had no defense but we still believed. Guess thats what it is to be a fan.

“deserves got nothing to do with it” is the correct line before Munny blew little Bills head off.. Kind of like when one or more of these guys get hurt after getting a big contract… Seems like that happens a lot..

Burrow is going to be the modern day Dan Marino. Looking forward to his cameo appearance in the remake of Ace Ventura when he's done playing.

Chase is fine. They should have done it much earlier. Tee… I just don’t get. Good get for most teams but not a team with this much money tied up to qb and wr.

https://media2.giphy.com/media/v1.Y2...hUa/giphy.webp

That's a lot of moola for an oft injured WR2.

Tee is THE perfect #2 to Chase's #1, so there's no mystery as to "why" there. Guarantee Burrow at some point demanded they find a way to keep them both.

It's just too big of a resource drain. You have to have a semblance of a little balance these days. If, IF they can retain Hendrickson, they could have a shot. But if not, nah, they're done before they get started. They'll be a 35ppg offense and have a 10-7 record that gets them bounced in the wild card round 45-41.

This is the issue I see as much or more than simply cutting Higgins the check.

Last year proved they haven’t drafted well enough to be a high level playoff team, even with Chase and Higgins.

These contracts double down that they can make up for those draft day wrongs and do it FAST.

They don’t just need a good draft if they want to contend for SB LX — they’re going to need a great one.

And that was true with or without Higgins, but now with this deal done, the target to achieve that goal got a lot smaller.

Whether it was flipping him for a pick or two or simply having $28.5m to put toward 2-3 other starters, you’re just up shits creek if you’re Duke Tobin trying to have the great draft needed to vault back atop the AFC. I don’t see it.

Burrow will get his stats, but this isn’t a team I fear deep in the AFC playoffs next year.

We will see. The best offense we ever saw was the 07 pats and they didn't win the SB even with a top 5 defense. You haven't exactly lit up Arrowhead with these two so whoo knows.

There is only one football so one of them is massively overpaid.

I know that...

I WAS TWEAKING THE QUOTE TO FIT MY POST!!!!!!!

The Bengals are supposed to... :hmmm:

:evil:

I went and counted. I only came up with 1. So I counted again and I still came up with just 1. Are there supposed to be more?

Trade Hendrickson and draft well. Make that shitty defense into a top 20 to 15 and they’ve got a shot.

Keeping Hendrickson only makes it harder.

It's going to take a top 15 or so pick to replace his production. This team has big holes everywhere. I don't see how creating yet another helps.

Is the NFL eventually going to kill the salary cap and let teams pay whatever like MLB does with the luxury tax?

*Early 90's Jerry Jones likes your post*

Frees up cap space to go younger, cheaper.

Think of taking that 10 and turning it into 2 5’s that will replace trash.

Make the entire defense average instead of having just one strong position.


Few teams have the front office smart enough to pull it off.

Absolutely not. They fought hard for the cap and league parity and are the gold standard in that regard.

yeah, I'm not seeing that happening

Remember when the Chargers had the number one offense, and defense, but missed the playoffs cuz their special teams was horrific?? LMAOLMAO

The salary cap is also what allows the NFL to artificially deflate NFL salaries. It keeps costs down.

I personally disagree with that but love a capped league that allows every team to be competitive.

It's going to take more than a top 15 pick to replace consecutive 17 sack seasons...it's going to take a shit ton of luck.

Should have traded Higgins for a high 2nd (Patriots?) and used #19 on a WR...extended Hendrickson then back filled the defense.

Higgins annual 900 yards is a lot easier to replace...

I honestly don't get it, your defense was atrocious last year, you had to outscore people and you couldn't do it. Should've let Tee Higgins walk and put that money into the defense, if Burrow is the God you claim he is then he can make another Tee Higgins or make due without him.

Might not even be a team in KC without the cap.

They decided to double down on the strength of their team. Offense sells tickets.

They are saying going to pay Hendrickson too. They are pushing all their chips in.

Trey is already on the books for 18M this year. He's looking for a long term extension. Apparently, they're close but i have no idea about the numbers.

Since Tee is off the tag, they could use it on Trey next year if they wanted to for around 22M (that's this years number for DE). I don't really see him anywhere other than in stripes next year. He's done nothing but speak glowingly about the Bengals and how they've treated him and his family.

Huge hole at guard.
Big hole at pass rush, either LDE or DT.
Medium hole at safety.

Logan Wilson will be back this year. Jermaine Pratt is a good 2 down LB but not the 3 down LB he thought he was. They signed Oren Burks from the Eagles so they're ok at LB for this season.

There is still a chance they get one guard in FA and they're sure to draft another one early. Dax Hill and DJ Turner back in the secondary. That leaves them "ok" at CB.

I'd prefer they go safety and guard 1/2 in the draft but it wouldn't surprise me at all if they look ED to boost the pass rush. I can't see them going IDL since they drafted 2 last year and just signed Slaton from GB as a 0/1/2i tech to go with the young guys.

They could sign a guy like Scherff for 2 years and take either Booker in rd 1 or Ratledge in rd 2 and they're fine at guard for a bit, which would still allow them to get a safety in rd 2, though they'd probably have to trade up (which i don't really see).

In any event, they're not so far away that they can't fix last year...with who they get this year. There's no 2 or 3 year rebuilding plan.

As long as all 3 are healthy the Bangles will be competitive. Perhaps playoff wins, perhaps not, but competitive at worst.

Any of those 3 goes down and there isn't enough there to win consistently. Perhaps they draft well enough to round things out on the cheap. That's not been the case since the 80's but perhaps there really is a change going on. Perhaps they play to attack things differently.

Would be the best case for Bangles fans. While I certainly hope you eat shit you definitely deserve better.

I don’t get signing tee when you have Isiovas or however you spell it. He could replace the number 2 position production. Just strange to me.

I would think if they have another year like last year they would sack Zac Taylor??

At the end of this past year, i would have poo-poo'd any thought of that.

With the investment they're making this offseason, i'd say missing the PO again would make his seat red hot.

The Bengals seem to be following the Cowboy's strategy. Pay 4-5 guys ALL the money and use the scraps on everyone else.

How has that worked out?

Lot of rumors that Burrow went to the owner and basically threatened him to do this or all 3 would ask for a trade at the same time.

I totally understand why Eli did what he did. He knew Spanos was a cheap prick who never cared about winning.

Yeah, good point. They're basically paying Higgins #1 money to be a #2. They constantly have pass protection and defensive issues.

This move makes no sense. If Burrow and his Cody Rhodes wannabee haircut don't like it, the GM and owner should have have sat him down like a child and explained to him how the salary cap works.

I'm not one of those 'i have a source' guys but...

I can legitimately confirm that nothing like that ever happened.

We saw one instance with KC moving that direction at WR, and I’m not so sure KC wouldn’t have paid Hill his asking price if they weren’t perhaps a little worried with his legal issues, and even then it seems like they were still in the ballpark.

I’ll personally be disappointed if we see KC continue the trend and end up letting someone like Rice walk if he puts up an elite’s on the next year or 2. We had the ultimate cheat code with Kelce and paying him a TE salary to perform like a WR1. We no longer have that luxury. With all of the struggles we have on offense lately and the inability to find a successor at WR for Hill until we found Rice, if Rice puts together a 1,400 yard 10 TD type of season in 2026 I don’t think it would be wise to let him walk under this faulty idea that Mahomes will just elevate subpar talent around him.

Maybe it’s Worthy and not Rice, I wouldn’t advise paying both but you can’t just have a constant revolving door at WR every year. We need some consistency there and at least one elite target.

I get paying Chase but not 40 mil per year. That's insane. Wrs don't move the needle enough. They had them both and missed the playoffs. How is paying them both different? Should have traded Higgins and got more picks for defense.

With the unlikely to repeat itself amount of fortunate turnovers and not turnovers in Buffalo. Taylor and McDermott can switch teams next season

If they truly believed that Joe is HIM, they should have traded Chase and got a ****ing HAUL. Which would have gone a long way to replacing the upper tier players they’ve lost, as well as bolstering the OL to protect Joe. Why can’t he operate an offense without having a top 3 WR to throw to?

The Bengals know that Joe won’t be able to carry that team without Chase. So this is their plan. Seems that he’s not as good as quarterbacks who still compete without a stud WR1. Pat, Josh, Lamar have all seemed to do it. But those 3 teams actually have good to great defenses. Which is where part of their problem is, the other is the GM.

I asked more rhetorically than anything. I just have a hard time wrapping my head around dedicating so much cap space to so few bodies. It's almost like they are trying to be the Dodgers, but they forgot they have a hard cap to work under. Just seems odd, unless they know something nobody else does.

They're trying to buck the current trend. The Bills, Chiefs, and Ravens are spreading WR resources while the Bengals are consolidating.

It's a bold yet risky strategy. If it pays off, they will be way ahead of the rest of their peers. If it fails, they probably no longer have a Super Bowl window.

Yup, that's where I'm at. Guard, Safety, DL

I mean they'll be able to score, there's no denying that, but they still got to get the D right. Good luck with those two contracts plus Burrow but I'm no salary cap expert

Hey they spent money, they never do that so it's a step.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A key factor in the Ja&#39;Marr Chase/Tee Higgins negotiations was Joe Burrow’s influence. Beyond his public comments, Burrow also applied private pressure, making it clear deals must get done for both. If Cincy failed, this could have gotten VERY interesting. <a href="https://t.co/PLJjj1E7qg">pic.twitter.com/PLJjj1E7qg</a> <a href="https://t.co/dOBTlqYZ7m">https://t.co/dOBTlqYZ7m</a></p>&mdash; Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) <a href="https://twitter.com/Schultz_Report/status/1902170546072133866?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 19, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

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The hell is Joe even doing in the facility? Lol.

You’re rich, bro. It’s the offseason. Go to Ibiza and do coke off a few chicks’ asses or something.