COB

Keeping Tee = top four or five offense in the league. If we can just get an average defense, we’re a playoff team and maybe more. Tee has been hurt, true, and has missed games. But a side effect of that is to show how different the offense is when he’s healthy. They’re way better. Presumably there is a concerted strategy between him, his new agent, Chase, and Burrow. It seems like they’ve talked about it and have a plan. And part of that is Burrow trying to get the FO to go along with that plan. Team culture, team chemistry, whatever it is called, is hugely important. Football is a selfless game when it’s played at its highest level. Guys are putting their long term health and well-being on the line for a game. If you get it wrong, you’re the jets, you’re the 90s bengals, you’re the current Browns. The bengals have been getting it right for a while now. Picking Burton was a little slip. Chase sitting out camp and pre season was a little slip. I think they need to be careful how they deal with these negotiations. I think they need more personnel, staying in touch with the players and their agents, moving the discussions along faster.

PS - I remember laughing at Leveon Bell when the Steelers tagged him twice. I can’t remember if he played the second year or faked an injury and just rode it out.

Using the franchise tag twice on a player is a major violation. Of what? I’m not articulate enough to verbalize it, the best I can do is: it is a violation of an unspoken agreement between players and management that teams won’t put guys at long term risk twice. The first tag happens. It’s a risk. The second tag is like giving the guy the finger. I think it also sends the team the message that we straight up don’t care about you guys.

If you don’t care about the culture of this football team, what do you care about?

It felt like Pratt was going to get cut, it never occurred to me there would be a trade market for him. He looked hurt last year. Kind of like he was running in mud or something, far from the guy who played so well two and three years ago.

Dehner claims that once they’re done cutting the guys (they’ve telegraphed a lot of cuts, overpaid vets and injured guys are going) they’re going to cut, they’ll have a ton of room and can sign all those players Burrow keeps mentioning. I think they’re all doable, but I’m very pessimistic on Trey. Dude seemed bitter all year, and his comments at the SB about helping the team via the draft picks they can get for him - not encouraging. If they have to move forward without Trey, Golden has a monumental task ahead of him. Football is a team game and the culture of the team is a huge factor. Businesses have cultures too. The Brown family does business their way, and I don’t see it changing. Tee vs D line game changer: the only point I want to make is we have Tee. And we can tag or sign him to a new deal. We don’t have game changing D linemen. We’ve got players but they’re not on that level. We have a high level player at that particular receiver position. I say sign him, keep him. We know what we have. Keep looking for the defenders.

An excerpt from Dehner’s article in the Athletic: “That specifically means putting big smiles on the faces of Higgins and Chase this offseason. Don’t let it linger. Don’t let the negotiations become a distraction. Don’t go through another offseason of haggling for every last decimal point, trade requests and trying to win the negotiation at the expense of locker room culture health.”

I don’t know when I’ve enjoyed a Super Bowl quite that much. Eagles defensive line was amazing. And great to see Kenny Pickett get run out of Pittsburgh only to land on the eagles as depth and collect a ring.

Eagles had two rookies starting on defense who had great seasons.

Jake Elliot is 4 for 4, his last one was a 50 yarder. Congratulations Marvin you total fucking idiot.

Mahomes takes one to the chops, but America bullied these refs all week and now they’re afraid to call anything.

Brady continues to tell us how great Mahomes is.

The media has long had this weird theme of Herbert is equal to or better than Burrow. That choke job in the playoffs should have put that to rest.

Anyone have insight on the character questions? This dude is a player, but every time I try to read about him they bring up character issues, but they never elaborate. If Nolen is out due to brain difficulties, I’d think about Kenneth Grant. He can play, he’s huge, and I think he’d be able to play on running downs right away.

The disrespect.

Just calling my mom to wish her happy birthday.

He fired his agent and hired Chase’s agent. That speaks volumes.

They need a modern, experienced, GM. They need a full time cap guy. They need scouts.

Burrow is the league’s highest paid player. Chase deserves to be the highest paid receiver. Tee deserves to be the highest paid number 2 in the league. Hendrickson deserves to be a top 3 paid edge. If Tobin is a bitter douche, this is why. He knows he can’t accomplish all this within bengal parameters, knows he’s going to get torched in the media and by us on Bengalszone. Smoke is rolling off Mike’s abacus right now. Lotta ‘cipherin!

One other takeaway - he didn’t talk about Chase the way he talked about everyone else. They plan on paying Chase. I think they are pessimistic that Trey will agree to anything bengal reasonable, and I agree with them. Hendrickson doesn’t seem happy to play for us.

Reading between the lines on Tobin’s interview with Kelsey Conway: he’s almost growing resentful of players. There is a lot of “we can’t have league high salary guys at every position”, and “this guy wants a lot but other guys want a bite of the apple.” I think the negotiations with some of these hard agents might be wearing on him. He’s also clear that they were thinking Super Bowl last year. He said we kept a lot of guys around from that team, claims they had the league’s third highest payroll, but it didn’t work for some reason. He said we won’t be doing that again. Made a remark about guys who produced last year are going to get the resources that were spent last year on guys who didn’t produce. Biggest takeaway: in discussing new contracts and extensions for guys like Tee, Jamarr, Hendrickson, etc, he reveals himself and the Bengals. It’s always they have to agree to something that makes sense within the context of what we do here, both sides have to agree, etc. He never talks about the market or what guys might get offered or what they’re worth to others. It is strictly will they accept the number and the years that makes sense for us. It is very much as it was posted in here earlier, the offer is what it is, if the player doesn’t take it, we’ll find 3 lesser guys to spend it on. It’s why he talks about all the guys they retained and acts shocked they couldn’t get back to the Super Bowl. Yes you retained guys, but the really good guys, Bates and Reader, wouldn’t agree to a discount, so they walked. Come to think of it didn’t Vonn Bell and Hilton go elsewhere? What’s this fucking mid level manager talking about?

If you’re trying to outlive Mike I hope you’re a Highlander or a Gorgon or something.

34 days? Mike’s got a lot of ‘ciphering to do. You know he’s getting serious when you walk by his office and hear the beads clacking on his abacus.

Cooper Kupp getting shopped around as the Rams look to unload his 30 million cap hit next season. He’s not the player he was when they beat us in the Super Bowl.

Saints are going to get sued over this. It’s possible they’ll try to pull the league in.