AMPHAR

Agree. I guess it depends on what you define a "Breakout year". A healthy roster will make it tough for an alternate pass catcher like Yoshi individually top Boyd's numbers. You automatically know Chase/Higgins and some RB suck up 98% of snaps when healthy. That leaves 2 spots. Sample is going to suck up 40% of a games snap in some form of blocking scheme. I'd imagine "2 TEs" formations will increase with Gesicki basically acting as 3rd WR with TE designation. If they remain healthy, Burrow is going to need to push the snaps up to around 67-70 game for player like Yoshi wanting to put up enough snaps for people to declare "break out" year. The number of times they snap the ball also falls greatly on the O-line to remove a significant portion of negative plays they've been know to create.

Arbys biggest mistakes: 1. Removing the slicer. Blame Jersey Mikes, I don't know what it is but people love watching their meat being sliced. I guess you have to take Subway at its word because they now have signs indicating the meat is being freshly sliced in the back room. 2. The Italian Sub. Why would you take that off the menu? Subway still makes the spicy Italian although its not listed anywhere. This void led to the rise of Jimmys Johns!

3. Is probably my biggest fear. I know its in jest but if you remember Palmer and his elbow. At first, its no big deal. Then one day your tailgating get ready to whoop the Giants ass and after 11 am you hear Carson isn't active. What? Then he needed some time to get back up to top QB. He's due to have a drama free training camp, I just hope wrist issues don't pop up. I know they've given reasons for the brace pre game, but its just weird. Joe has some brace, then pops his wrist on a non contact throw.

I somehow doubt that the fan will get what they want once this lawsuit is finished. A fan that is out of market wants to flip on a TV, choose the game, pay a 1 time cheap price for that game, like renting a moving $3.99 or something. Then done. No future canceling, signing up for multiple weeks or a whole season. That's just not how this stuff works. The resulting product post lawsuit probably look like cord cutting today. A complete fucking mess. There's always going to be some sort of bundling of crap because the provider can't make money off singular offerings because of the distribution rights they pay. I'm also guessing sports bars are fucked afterward. Most that I've visited mark the TVs and have a section of fans occupying that section. I doubt its going to be cheaper and easier for them post lawsuit to do what they are doing now. Hopefully it will be, but I doubt it. The more interesting part will be paying of the fine. Do the owners try to get salary cap reduction? I would say the fine they are paying it really a rebate on the revenue they collected during those years. So will the cap go down since its based on league revenues. What if a 1 time rental fee approached the cost of a lower level ticket? $150-170 per game? Hard pass for me.

Exactly what the thinking was in 1994/95.

The potential loss of Reader pre-FA and the actual loss of Reader has always been an non-factor in my eyes. Rankins isn't a replacement for Reader. I view it as their attempt to recreate Hill/Ogunjobi pass rush combo in which NT snaps were only 53% (Mostly Reader). 2021. The run Defense for this team is going to be greatly influenced on how well Burrow generates points, the secondary gets stops. Which hopefully gets the help of more interior pass rush. Last year when the game flow resulted in the opponents being able to pound the ball and play conservative. Reader being on the roster didn't flip any of those results. Its going to be about putting scoring pressure on the other offense which allows Lou's bend but don't break defense to eventually keep them out of endzone. If game flows come up and teams can sit and play ground and pound they aren't stopping it with or without Reader, IMO. If Burrow is playing at the top of his game its going to be very hard for any team to start the game off trying to win it with ground and pound.

Hamilton County is fucked IF the Bengals leave, period. The half cent sales tax increase would not expire AND neither would the debt service. Somehow the Jags stadium built before PBS/Paycor and also received two major renovations prior to the recent $1.4 B project and that's 3 times more than Paycor projections. The Bengals could be dicks and put themselves out as Free Agents to get the biggest stadium possible and would probably come close to getting it. Their proposal put forward is quite reasonable don't fall for the County propaganda. The time to move on from the Bengals was 1995. County could have hedged their bets and tried to get UC or FC in PBS vs. investing in their own. Didn't happen. Sure anyone on the sidelines can make overtures about what is fair and what isn't. Hamilton county knows Bengals on the riverfront draws a ton of tax dollars to the county. Every other county in the country knows it too. Just save all the political BS and get it done because anyone with common sense knows the Bengals aren't losing this battle.

Nah. He owns Premier League team, wrestling. Shad Khan has sports "investments" as hobbies. More interesting, IMO, is most thought the Jags would be the first team to jump at any London opportunity. Jags are staying for a while with local investment. Also interesting that Jags stadium was originally a highschool stadium then Gator Bowl etc. They tore down everything but a portion of the upper deck prior to Bengals moving into PBS/Paycore. They've done big renovations before that to that stadium to host a Superbowl. Yet, its 1.4billion to renovate again? Paycore is only $400m something. Those Florida/Georgia cocktail party games must really put stress on the stadium.

Arby's is all over the place with that menu. Its like the fast food version of Cheese Cake factory.

I assume Joe did not pick out his outfits. There would be no greater statement in how the world of fashion is fake, IF the fashion starts following his pre-game attires. MUGATU - Joe Burrow is so hot right NOW!

I don't think I could identify 1 person only for the Bengals. Mostly eras of Bengal teams. The 1988 squad is still probably my favorite and when you look up team offensive stats from that era. Its still hard to believe no offensive unit has approached the Boomer/Wyche era since. Amazing really considering the 88 offense was running game and play action and all the offensive favoring rule changes and the Bengals since have never produce a unit that can approach season long averages of that team.

More fuel for the fire for the "NFL is fixed" crowd. Bengals have been featured on Hard Knocks twice. 2009 and 2013. Both division winning seasons for the Bengals. 2009 was such a fun season, IMO.

IMO, tagging Tee was the first and best move that could be made to having a great off season. The summer extensions always get lost in the March FA period too. Next March Karras and hopefully a couple other Bengals won't be hitting anyone's top 50 FA lists.

The 90s were so dumb for the Bengals. First, the first 4 draft picks of any given draft class seemed like they would walk into starting jobs almost automatically and be trumpeted as franchise saviors. Of course the Brown family would fight tooth and nail to prevent contract language they thought would end the world no matter what the other rookies were getting. What a nightmare approach to building a team and promoting your new up and coming season. They weren't the only ones with holdouts but thank god those days are over.

Sweet. See if they can knock a couple more off the pile needed extensions.

Tomlin is always going to have them playing hard and prepared to be a thorn in the side of any AFC North contending team. How ever he will always prevent them from choking and screwing their draft position and will he ever rally the team far enough to get back to a Superbowl?

Yeah. People can go back and forth all day long about whether or not Higgins is elite/No. 1 or not. Bottomline whatever Higgins is or isn't on his own don't matter. You know Higgins with Burrow/Chase is elite. I never view it as positional thing. Its a matter of having something that works very well so keep it. Its a zero sum game, IMO. At somepoint they'll have to find a diamond in the rough to fill a number of spots once the franchise talents get their market contracts.

Another counter point will be the Chiefs traded Hill and won 2 superbowls. However, that was not a function of the Chiefs thinking the best way to build a team was not paying WR. It was influenced by the amount of money and Hill being sort of a loose cannon. Secondly - KC has been on the ropes. The Bengals don't drop 3 linemen by the AFC Champ game then the narrative is flipped by what a colossal mistake it was to trade Hill. Ravens choking same story.

I will always go back to the Atkins, Dunlap, MJ days. There were countless posts from Bengals fans proclaiming they could only keep 1 or 2. Then tons of hot-air downgrading the 2 they thought wouldn't or couldn't be retained. Long story short. MJ played 1 season with Tampa but other than that all 3 played their prime years together. They never won a Superbowl or even a playoff game but they formed some the best Defenses we've ever had and the function of not winning a Superbowl/playoff game can be laid at the feet of lady luck and Dalton/Marvin choking, IMO.

The counter point to keeping Chase/Higgins will always be the "draft class". The draft classes for the forseeable future will fill the top 150 picks with plenty of WR prospects that look good running around in T-shirt and shorts at considerable cheaper prices. However, that doesn't necessarily translate into NFL production because I did a rough count posted it on here that less than 40% of the WR taken in the top 35/40 (can't remember) produce a singular 1,000 yard season. But fans will always talk themselves into saving that cap room to go sign a Center for goodness sake. I will always look at it as Burrow is the best back shoulder thrower in the NFL and Higgins excels at that. Then Chase is just elite as elite gets. So, in my mind the best way to knock over the Superbowl target is keeping both. Not to say that's the only way it can happen.

When I think of potential next Bengal HOFer. It goes like this 1. Ken Anderson - I think he's criminally overlooked and have lost hope it will ever happend - Already Ring of Honor inducted. 2. Willie Anderson - I hope this happens. Completely deserving - Already Ring of Honor inducted. 3. Geno Atkins - All Decade Team. He's deserving and when he comes up he'll at least get to the finals round which is a lot further than some of the 80s Bengals will get. 4. Andrew Whitworth - Deserving. When he comes up he'll at least get as far as Willie Anderson has gotten. Long story short. Bengals will need to figure out a way to have Atkins and Whit cut the line AT the same time their critical HOF voting is going on.

1. With Lions giving a mega deal to Sewell that was the alternate popular choice from that draft. It just won't play well and it shouldn't play well if the Bengals/Chase hit a rough patch that somehow leads Burrow playing games without Chase for an extended period of time. 2. Chase/Higgins together forever. Yes, I still think its feasible and makes perfect roster building sense. The NFL just got $75m a piece for 2 games from Netflix. The salary cap is going to continue to grow AND there is cap flexibility considering all of Tee's franchise tag is hitting now and Chase's option year will hit in full. Burrow's deal is not and won't hit full rate for a few seasons.

The Bengals and Chase know he's under control for 3 years. Contract year, Option Year, Tag Year. Which combined would pay him somewhere in the range of $50m. He reasonably can say $27m of that is 100% his. Tag year is questionable if he were to suffer a decline in performance in the next two years. Sign a long term deal before the season and he can more than double that amount of money in the same time period without beating JJs deal. That's the leverage point Bengals have. Chase sitting out this year is a major leverage point for him. There's no way this team would will want to suffer an public nightmare not appearing to do all they can to win with Burrow after the last few years of image change and at a time they'll probably be asking for $300-$400m of Hamilton county money. Makes sense for both sides to get it done.

Tupou and Scharping are just getting ahead of the "turk". They probably wisely looking at the numbers crunch and realizing they aren't making it. 3 interior DL added that are all making it. Zac Carter a former 3rd but I think played more than Tupou is probably on his way out as a result. With the OL. Brown, Brown, Ford, and Mims. Seem like a good bet for the 4 tackles. So guard spots are going to get squeezed by former tackles trying to hang on (Carman, Smith). Plus they'll have Lee or Hill trying to fit in there which ever one doesn't win back up Center job. All 3 interior OL starting spots are locks. There really is no excuse for Lou or Pollack to not have a top half unit this year. Other than the injury factor.

With JJ deal done and about this time of year we'll start getting some rumblings from the local scribes hinting at what the extension forecast looks like. At $24m under it would be a negative not to lock up some future players in the summer like they typically do.