AMPHAR

There's been a lot of rumblings over on the Ravens board before the AFC Championship game about Zay Flowers. Some bad rumors and now more heat is coming down. If you want to snoop around and get details its over there. Raven's fans on message boards are all about to start studying criminal law real quick.

Higgins is the biggest priority right now. 1. Tags are due by end of February. So they will have to commit cap room to him that soon. They won't know enough about DJ by the end of this month. Don't tag Tee, he's gone. 2. Boyd is probably gone. 3. Chase should be the overall off season priority. If he's not expect a hold out. He's set to make less than $5m. An extension could put $30m in his pocket this season and guarantee him $70+ the next 3 seasons. So No Tee, No Boyd they basically fuck themselves on the draft board and in negotiations with Chase.

Nah. Burrow was cleared, Burrow played, Burrow wasn't the same for several weeks. If some team wants to sign DJ Reader in March, more power to them. I'd say prove it deal in July and would not worry about losing him.

Already explained this several times above. A 2nd round pick will count somewhere around $1.4m. A UDFA that makes the roster $0.7m. Irv at $1.7 fits and his potential does too. That's it. He's got the talent that fits in that range. He's got a little more cap cost but not much. There's no loss if he's not active the entire year. He also will not preclude them from drafting any TE they may like. Irv Smith could match Hurst's 2022 if the position group suffered those same injuries they did in 2022. If he don't play, then they are literally out nothing.

I would put it more on Lou. Big plays is the issue they admit to. The secondary as a whole screams youth and potential. Figure out the best roles adapt the scheme as necessary.

The projections of DJ Reader's contract makes him a hard pass for me at this point. The D-line run defense was problem most of the year followed strongly by Dax, Scott, and Battle taking bad angles, followed by the unit as a whole tackling the ball. He's the wrong side of 30 and major injury. He could prove to come back from all that but I'd pass at anything over a prove it deal at this point.

lol. In the first 6 games, 4 games the offense ran less than 55 plays. Burrow's calf effected EVERY offensive stat. Bad point. Depth chart? What does that matter? Irv was paid slightly more than UDFA. So your saying a guy with 2nd round talent shouldn't be considered anywhere on the roster for an extra $1m of cap space. Who runs around screaming about Mike Brown being cheap all the time? Injury pad, lol.

lol. This pissed off over a guy that made a notch over league min. Alrighty then. Fuck him, lol. I'm going to say it'd be a good move to sign him up again for about the same level. Ahhhh panic.

Overall point being. Money your going to spend and cap allocated for Irv Smith and any other TE from 2023 will be close to a 2nd round pick or lower. $1.3m to .7m. At the same time not precluding them from using a 2nd round pick or lower to try to better the position if opportunity arises. Sign those guys up. Try to find more of them if you can (any position). If you can do better, fine. Cut them when you do. Its the same deal as Eli Apple. It was a gamble. Eli proved to be way more successful than Irv at this point but I believe Burrow's calf and wrist hurt a lot of individual players stats and I wouldn't blindly ignore good value because of 2023 stats. Based on what I saw you sign Irv and the rest of the TEs at around the same cap allocation. Who ends up TE1 or TE4? Who cares? Irv and Tanner can put up comparable numbers to 2021/2022 if given the targets. Sample gets playing time because he fits the blocking role well.

Chase didn't score a TD until week 5! I change my mind, the Bengals shouldn't extend him. Why should they franchise tag a WR that didn't catch 650 yards? We should fire coaches because our AFC North record was 1-5. If there's only a underlining factor we could understand to explains ALL these deviations from the norm. Oh wait there is..... Burrow's calf. Fans all piss off about a former 2nd round pick making $1.7m, lol. ALL MY GOD we can't have that. Don't want that. WTF?

Disagree. There was a lot of misplace emotion over Irv and the TE group as a whole during the season. It was misplaced because the way things worked out the group was more platoon vs. 2021 and 2022 that saw a singular TE get the majority of snaps, targets, catches. However the 2023 group was more productive in yards and cheaper than both years. Irv in particular has 2 major plays taken from him that would have changed his perception that I saw during All 22 reviews. I'm not sure what his future demands will be or the Bengals thoughts I would certainly welcome back the entire TE group at the same percentage of cap. 2021 TE production - 590 yards 5 TD, Main contributor CJ - Accumulative Cap 8.4m 2022 TE production - 553 yards 3 TD, Main contributor Hurst - Accumulative Cap 5.2m 2023 TE production - 686 yards 4 TD, Platoon leading receiver Tanner, - Accumulative Cap 4.4m Was that extra TD from CJ worth the extra 4m in cap room? Mid season there was a bunch of misplaced hand wringing over TE group from Media and Fans because the franchise QB couldn't throw and the OL can't block until after the bye week.

LBs news: Trevin Wallace - just got a mention as being impressive from the NFL network crew.

Lockeroom culture is important.

A couple times its been mentioned about Guyton not looking strong up top. Mentioned Day 1 and now Day 2. Basically edge guys can jerk him off balance getting a hold of his shoulders, I guess.

From Bengals.com. Should also be noted that Cody Ford was a Orlando Brown teammate.

If they can bring back the same TE group with a slight increase in cap room its a win, IMO. All 4 are FA. 2 restricted and 2 unrestricted. Last year the group was under 2% cap room. I think its possible to give them all a raise (if they want too) and keep it under 2% of cap this year. I'd only want to see high priced TE or highly drafted TE, to replace void of losing Higgins and them committing to that TE playing 95%+ snaps. With the assumption of tagging/keeping Tee. There's no room for a big investment in TE. Burrow/Chase/Higgins/5 OL/some RB are going to be on the field 95%+. That leaves you 2 slots to rotate the following: 1. They always use some form of blocking TE. 2. They'll have some form of slot WR rotation. 3. A few time empty, a few times 2 Rb, a few times 2 TE. The current TE group. I assume they are happy with Sample and his duties. Tanner appears good enough to get balls when coverage dictates. Irv Smith the same (fans act like he's $8m player when he's cheap as hell).

Yeah more power to Goodberry. I find it odd people would pay it, but whatever.

I think WR/DBs have entered the same level of importance as the trenches. As referenced before in the "why offenses suck" the defenses are playing way more complicated coverages that the average JOE media and fan don't realize. Even though defenses have clawed back some of the gains offenses have achieved since the rule emphasis/changes after 2010 there's still a world of difference. 2009 - 171K of yards gained with 10,991 points scored 2010 - 172K of yards gained with 11,283 points scored Even the declined numbers of 2023 are greater than those levels.

Senior bowl bias - Mitchell CB from Toledo has become my favorite for 18. I reserve the right to change this a 100 times.

I would like to have Jonah Williams back but its not going to happen if the Jawan Taylor market of last year exists this year. Can't justify a multi year deal at 12-16m cap hit or more with the long term contracts that need to be done. Higgins is in the top 15 of a lot of Free Agent lists. Just because he's been a Bengal doesn't discount the impact. If they would sign any other top 15 Free Agent to a 1 year deal everyone would love that move. Tag is the the easiest move. If he plays under the tag its not the best outcome but its still a good outcome. Then they've simply locked him away for 2024. Come to terms that a long term deal isn't happening and start handing out his 2025 and beyond money to other extendable Bengals on their list. A trade? I would want them to get 3/4 top 150 picks otherwise it feels like they are spinning their wheels and accepting risk in the 2024 season. Chase deal? I hope. But like Burrow last year some pieces are going to have to fall in place and they will.

I could be wrong but the 2nd practice was the one with Guyton.

Interior OL There's been several positive updates about him. There's a UCONN guard (Haynes) that looks pretty good to me. Wonder if he'll show up on the Day 2 winners report. Just had a rep a Center and pissed the LSU NT off so bad, the LSU guys ripped his helmet off. He's won every rep LG, RG, and C vs. whoever he's faced. Oregon Center - updates have been slowed because he left with a hamstring injury.

Kinda a weird update but Interior DL. Loves the swim move. Sweat; NT from Texas is back to power game today and impressing. FSU; Fiske - has good interior rush moves. (Edit Fiske from FSU). The interior group during 3rd down period can't block him.

I can attest McConkey was open all day. Impressive slot candidate IF 1v1 represents reality.

DE news: When Mitchell was mentioned "best in class" by DJ. They also said Robinson was clearly the best along the line. At least that's the way I remember the comment.