Are the Bengals Really Good Cap Managers?

[HoosierCat]

Are they? The "fact" that they are seems to be a given among Bengals fans, a granted point, even among critics of their approach (like me). But over the last couple days I've begen to question that assumption.

Usually, being a good cap manager is shorthand for not overspending and then having to purge the roster, as happened some years ago in places like San Fran and Tennesse. Certainly, in that sense, the Bengals are good cap managers. There have been no roster purges here (at least, cap-related ones) and precious little overspending. But consider what else their cap management has wrought:

According to the Bengals, they have no cap space with which to be active in free agency. And we aren't just talking about not having enough space for a blockbuster signing, but allegedly not having enough space to even sign much in the way of role players. It is entirely possible that such non-luminaries as K2 and Reggie Kelly will be unaffordable.

Also, not only do they not (they say) have enough to play in FA, they also don't have enough to keep all of their own young talent, such as Eric Steinbach.

Looking around the league, I see that most teams aren't in any kind of overspending/roster purge trouble, so really, that traditional definition of "good cap management" doesn't seem very hard to meet. However, I also see that, around the lots of teams, even in smaller markets than Cincy -- like Buffalo, for example -- have money to spend both on their own talent and outside FAs.

I am forced to the conclusion that, contrary to popular belief, the Bengals are crappy cap managers.

[Kazkal]

Let's bring in floyd reese ignore the fact they had to cut almost every decent player they a few years back.

Oops

[kentjett]

The Bengals take care of their own players first. They made Carson the highest paid QB, Levi and Willie are among th highest paid tackles, Jeremi is the second highest paid fullback, Chad was given a raise, Bobbi was signed to a pretty healthy contract, and Smith was franchised for 8 million and all of these new contracts took place in the last 2 years. You can't always look at what we lost or what new players we haven't picked up, you have to look at what players we have retained before they have got a chance to become free agents.

[Kazkal]

You don't take care of your own though o_O I bet paul brown is rolling over in his grave when we tagged justin.

[HoosierCat]

The Bengals take care of their own players first.

That's certainly true. But that's also true of every other team in the league -- yet somehow most teams manage to keep their own talent and still have enough cap space to sign at least a few role players. The Bengals are struggling (they claim) to manage even that, and in a year with a record cap hike to boot. Even then, it wasn't enough. Steinbach slipped away, and the only way they could hang on to Justin was to franchise him, with all the tag's deleterious cap consequences.

[HairOnFire]

I am forced to the conclusion that, contrary to popular belief, the Bengals are crappy cap managers.

Fact: If the Bengals followed your cap management advice they'd have Corey Simon on their roster, but not TJ or Rudi, and Chris Perry would be the starting RB.

'nuff said.

Even then, it wasn't enough. Steinbach slipped away, and the only way they could hang on to Justin was to franchise him, with all the tag's deleterious cap consequences.

Steinbach is the first major free agent loss the Bengals have endured since Takeo Spikes, so you've had fewer reasons to complain about lost talent than fans of other teams. And yet you still do.

As for Smith, the tag brings with it a cap hit that hurts the Bengals today, but allows them to potentially keep long-term a player who would be making absolutely stupid money in this free agent market. Without that tag Smith would join Steinbach on another teams roster...prompting you to complain about his loss due to the Bengals poor cap managment skills.

[djdannos]

Exactly, we would have a bunch of dead money in the middle of the peak years, Cincy has a 3-4 yr window right now and they are giving themselves the best chance by retaining their own players for equal or less than market value mostly offense while trying to find the right Defense pieces...NE pieced together a team that won 3 SB without going out and breaking the bank and having tons of dead cap money...

Look at the Skins, every year sign big and go nowhere and have dead cap money...new players every two years, lame and nothing to show for it...

We could go out and sign whomever we want and go over the cap we would just have to cut people next yr to get under the cap and could do it again and again until you have 15 mill in dead cap space...they choose not to and use the money allotted to them and spend it accordingly...I really hope think they will get to the playoffs with the team they have and once in the playoffs it a whole new season...look how long it took Peyton and Co...even after all the perfect season runs...It will happen

[schweinhart]

I give them credit for watching Steiny move on and not just because of the bloated deal he got with the Clowns but more so because Whitworth will be the better LG IMO.

The Bengals are offense rich and pretty much team set on both sides of the ball. Aside from 2 real bad breaks in losing Pollack and Odumb, the Bengals look poised to get back to where they were in 2005 so long as the high-powered and high-priced offense can kick it up a notch.

I'd say they've managed their cap well enough to be in the position to contend for the prize. They just need some more bodies right now.

[HoosierCat]

We could go out and sign whomever we want and go over the cap we would just have to cut people next yr to get under the cap and could do it again and again until you have 15 mill in dead cap space...they choose not to and use the money allotted to them and spend it accordingly.

Again, that's just it: no teams do that, with the possible exception of the 'Skins. We call the Bengals good cap managers because they avoid the spend/purge cycle -- but so do virtually all other teams. Yet other teams manage to do that and keep their young talent and have money for FA. As schweinart so aptly points out, they just need more bodies right now -- which they could have, if (so they say) they had the cap space.

[Stripes]

According to every report I saw before free agency, the Bengals were 10th or so in terms of total free cap space. They tagged Justin Smith and extended Robert Geathers, neither of whom came cheap. Hobson has no choice but to take into account the rookie pool and extra regular season money when he offers his oft-criticized projections. The space remaining after those considerations should be enough for Kelly and/or Kaesviharn. If they can do that, I say job well done.

[HoosierCat]

According to every report I saw before free agency, the Bengals were 10th or so in terms of total free cap space. They tagged Justin Smith and extended Robert Geathers, neither of whom came cheap. Hobson has no choice but to take into account the rookie pool and extra regular season money when he offers his oft-criticized projections. The space remaining after those considerations should be enough for Kelly and/or Kaesviharn. If they can do that, I say job well done.

Oh, I think they will muddle through somehow this year, though it may cost us a Thornton or Robinson, depending on how things shake out. It's the future trend that's caught my attention. In order to do what they do -- to manage the cap while avoiding the boom/bust cycle as a first priority -- the Bengals prefer deals that spread the cap hit out evenly. Salaries go up a bit every year, everyone gets a raise, it's all nice and orderly and predictable.

When the cap was inching up a few million a year, this worked great. It also explains why we saw more spend/purge cycles years ago: the smaller hikes meant the cap consequences piled up faster. But in recent years, the cap has expanded at a much faster rate. The first effect was to let teams like DC out of cap jail without serving any time. The second effect was to reduce the quality of FAs because teams could better keep their own. Now, the rapid growth in NFL revenues that have to be given to the players in the form of salaries has led to the current explosion of money for even blah FAs.

In this environment, the bengals slow-and-steady-and-sensible approach runs aground. They are locked into long-term deals (not necessarily a bad thing), biased against renegotiating to free up cap space, and now (thanks to the FA money fountain) what they projected to be enough cap space to sign two or three starters suddenly looks like barely enough to hang on to a couple backups. And to get even that little bit of space they had to let a young starter go in Steinbach.

Like I said, they will probably be OK this year. But that young talent is going to keep coming up (see all this year's RFAs) and the team doesnt really have much in the way of old, pricey vets they can axe -- and the ones they do have are either getting it now (Simmons) or being talked about as possible cap casualties (Thornton). Either the Bengals are going to have to get more cap creative...or not only will they lack funds to play in FA (as usual), they will be increasingly unable to keep their home-grown talent.

[Stripes]

Like I said, they will probably be OK this year. But that young talent is going to keep coming up (see all this year's RFAs) and the team doesnt really have much in the way of old, pricey vets they can axe -- and the ones they do have are either getting it now (Simmons) or being talked about as possible cap casualties (Thornton). Either the Bengals are going to have to get more cap creative...or not only will they lack funds to play in FA (as usual), they will be increasingly unable to keep their home-grown talent.

If the cap continues increasing at this accelerated pace, then I would agree there may be trouble on the horizon. I think it's more likely, however, that things will level out in due time (maybe with the help of a new CBA, maybe not) and things will return to a more normal state. I can't help but think this year's market will be more an anomaly than a norm.

Maybe that's wishful thinking, but it's all speculation at this point either way.

[HoosierCat]

If the cap continues increasing at this accelerated pace, then I would agree there may be trouble on the horizon. I think it's more likely, however, that things will level out in due time (maybe with the help of a new CBA, maybe not) and things will return to a more normal state. I can't help but think this year's market will be more an anomaly than a norm.

Maybe that's wishful thinking, but it's all speculation at this point either way.

To an extent, but you can see which way the proverbial wind is blowing.

We have a few more years, at least, of bigger increases. Big enough that you can find Mike Brown talking about how the cap is going to climb higher than the shared revenues in 3-4 years, as he did in those articles published on bengals.com and in the Enquirer during the combine. His answers are that either the players take less or the big market teams give more -- two ideas that appear to me to fall in the category of non-starters.

I dont know what will happen if they blow up the CBA again in '08, but I'm starting to believe that dynamiting the NFL might not be the worst idea ever. Let competition reign. Multiple leagues, multiple TV contracts, probably cheaper for all of us and certainly the end of all the crazy big money stuff, since competition always drives down price. But yeah, we'll see what happens. Maybe they'll figure out that eating the goose that lays the golden eggs is a bad idea...stranger things have happened.

[SkinneymulleT]

According to every report I saw before free agency, the Bengals were 10th or so in terms of total free cap space. They tagged Justin Smith and extended Robert Geathers, neither of whom came cheap. Hobson has no choice but to take into account the rookie pool and extra regular season money when he offers his oft-criticized projections. The space remaining after those considerations should be enough for Kelly and/or Kaesviharn. If they can do that, I say job well done.

Oh, I think they will muddle through somehow this year, though it may cost us a Thornton or Robinson, depending on how things shake out. It's the future trend that's caught my attention. In order to do what they do -- to manage the cap while avoiding the boom/bust cycle as a first priority -- the Bengals prefer deals that spread the cap hit out evenly. Salaries go up a bit every year, everyone gets a raise, it's all nice and orderly and predictable.

When the cap was inching up a few million a year, this worked great. It also explains why we saw more spend/purge cycles years ago: the smaller hikes meant the cap consequences piled up faster. But in recent years, the cap has expanded at a much faster rate. The first effect was to let teams like DC out of cap jail without serving any time. The second effect was to reduce the quality of FAs because teams could better keep their own. Now, the rapid growth in NFL revenues that have to be given to the players in the form of salaries has led to the current explosion of money for even blah FAs.

In this environment, the bengals slow-and-steady-and-sensible approach runs aground. They are locked into long-term deals (not necessarily a bad thing), biased against renegotiating to free up cap space, and now (thanks to the FA money fountain) what they projected to be enough cap space to sign two or three starters suddenly looks like barely enough to hang on to a couple backups. And to get even that little bit of space they had to let a young starter go in Steinbach.

Like I said, they will probably be OK this year. But that young talent is going to keep coming up (see all this year's RFAs) and the team doesnt really have much in the way of old, pricey vets they can axe -- and the ones they do have are either getting it now (Simmons) or being talked about as possible cap casualties (Thornton). Either the Bengals are going to have to get more cap creative...or not only will they lack funds to play in FA (as usual), they will be increasingly unable to keep their home-grown talent.

How? Show us the light. Where is their bias about renegotiating to free cap space? Every post you have you make general assertions without support. They let steiny go because they felt the value of his play vs. his replacement was not worth 49 million, and imo i have to agree. Whitworth and andrews, though not as versitale, can play pretty well when allow to develop (see http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&def...on&ct=title]http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&def...on&ct=title ) thus no real drop in performance and a greater value. Who have they not wanted to renegotiate with? and if you mean putting money at the back end of the K, that is well...dumb. I say quite the contrary. They extended carson, cj, willie and TJ under the old CBA and saved us a ton of cash. Was that cap creative enough? Home grown talent? I thought the bengals were unable to develop their own talent? Which is it?

[djdannos]

If you looks at the cap, Cncy has huge cap figure for 2007 since they have recently done a bunch of deals and trie dot front load them to eat up current vs. future space...

Palmer 13.5 mill

Ocho Cinco - 7.8

Rudi J - 5.0

Levi 5.0

Willie 5.0

Smith - 8.5

Geathers 5.0

Pollack - 2.5

That is 50 mill cap space for 8 players, 56 million in cap for the other 45 players...

I think if Cincy gets to the playoffs in 2007 and figure it needs a player or two next yr, they will have more rooms as the cap is higher at 116 and all these players cap hit will lower..not a bad system..

[HoosierCat]

How? Show us the light. Where is their bias about renegotiating to free cap space?

How often have they done that? Very rarely. Extensions to Carson and Willie and Chad et. al. were not done to free up cap space, they were done to lock up players for the long term. They simply stretch the cap hit out cleanly and evenly, as I said.

They let steiny go because they felt the value of his play vs. his replacement was not worth 49 million, and imo i have to agree.

They let Steiney go because they could not afford the going rate for his services (see deals signed by Hutchinson, Dockery, today Leonard Davis). You really think that if they could have, they would have let him go? Or would have drafted Whitworth last year in the second had they been able to afford both him and Levi? Couldn't that pick had been used better on the D?

[kentjett]

You cannot pay every single player on your line or offense top money. We have no high priced defensive player. We had to make a decision whether to allocate more money on the offensive side of the ball or allocate it to the defense and secure one of our better defenders. A long term deal would be crucial but we cannot afford to lose a quality defender when our defense already sucks. It is time to start spending money on the defense but Marvin isn't going to pay a s**t load of money to a 30 year player and risk hurting our team in the long run. The draft is everything and our two high draft pick LB's have been out of football. We will draft a LB in one of the first 2 rounds and he should make a huge difference. Patrick Willis, Beason, or Timmons would make our defense better rightaway.

[HoosierCat]

If you looks at the cap, Cncy has huge cap figure for 2007 since they have recently done a bunch of deals and trie dot front load them to eat up current vs. future space...

..not a bad system..

No, it's not. But that doesn't make it a good system, either. The Bengals do accellerate bonuses when they can (as do all teams) to free up money down the road. Problem is that the Bengals never seem to free up any real coin. The last time they dove seriously into FA was back in Marvin's first year, when they had all the cap space they didn't use on Spikes. In other words, the Bengals' system is set up not to be able to play in FA unless the cough up corresponding talent. Thats great financially, but not necessarily so great for what ends up on the field.

[HoosierCat]

You cannot pay every single player on your line or offense top money. We have no high priced defensive player. We had to make a decision whether to allocate more money on the offensive side of the ball or allocate it to the defense and secure one of our better defenders. A long term deal would be crucial but we cannot afford to lose a quality defender when our defense already sucks.

I agree. That's the primary reason I defended the franchising on Justin Smith. However, there are those who disagree with me (perhaps a majority -- franchising Smith seems an unpopular decision). As far as the cap is concerned, any time you have to pull out the tag, something has gotten out of hand. Sometimes it's the player, sometime its the team, sometime it's both. What worries me here is, again, that it's a portent of things to come, that the Bengals are going to find themselves both increasingly bleeding talent, and forced to make questionable calls with tags in order to hang on to bits and pieces here and there.

[DC_Bengals_Fan]

Usually, being a good cap manager is shorthand for not overspending and then having to purge the roster, as happened some years ago in places like San Fran and Tennesse. Certainly, in that sense, the Bengals are good cap managers. There have been no roster purges here (at least, cap-related ones) and precious little overspending. But consider what else their cap management has wrought:

Well, I think there's two strategies to good cap management: 1) keep an even burn so you can give yourself a chance of winning every year, or 2) figure out when your window is and go balls-out to win then. Under #2, I think the 49ers you're talking about did a fantastic job of managing the cap; they were good forever, blew up the team for a couple of years, then were good again within 2 years. Of course, they've since gotten bad again but that's due to the York family and general bad management. To pull off #1, you have to bleed off older players who aren't cutting it anymore; the Eagles did that with Trotter and Simon (among others), that Patriots with McGinest. The Bengals really haven't done that (unless the Simmons decision is a change in direction). The Patriots would have let Willie walk and locked up Steinbach before free agency. Just sayin'.

So I'd agree, they could probably do better at cap management, but then they don't really have an accomplished football brain in the front office either.

[HairOnFire]

In order to do what they do -- to manage the cap while avoiding the boom/bust cycle as a first priority -- the Bengals prefer deals that spread the cap hit out evenly. Salaries go up a bit every year, everyone gets a raise, it's all nice and orderly and predictable.

When the cap was inching up a few million a year, this worked great. It also explains why we saw more spend/purge cycles years ago: the smaller hikes meant the cap consequences piled up faster.

And isn't it interesting that the Bengals preferred free agent strategy, one that you now admit "worked great", was the exact same one that you belittled, mocked, and claimed was inept for years and years. Granted, you're warning of dark storm clouds on the horizon....just like Chicken Little once did.

[HairOnFire]

You cannot pay every single player on your line or offense top money. We have no high priced defensive player. We had to make a decision whether to allocate more money on the offensive side of the ball or allocate it to the defense and secure one of our better defenders. A long term deal would be crucial but we cannot afford to lose a quality defender when our defense already sucks.

I agree. That's the primary reason I defended the franchising on Justin Smith.

And yet you've already reversed yourself on that one, complaining that the franchise tag used to keep Smith was now tying up too much cap space. Cap space that could be used to chase the overpriced talent in todays overheated free agent marketplace.

Face it, if you were managing the cap the Bengals would have lost Steinbach, lost Smith too, and then found themselves overpaying for a player that had been cast off from another team.

No disrespect intended, but I prefer the Bengals way of managing the cap....especially if Smith is eventually signed to a long-term contract. And just for the record, I don't care if it takes several months to get that done.

[djdannos]

They did that in Marvins first year becuase the talent was so weak and Marvin brought in enough talent to turn the disaster that was Cincy into a competitive team and then is trying to build off the draft now...if Marvin thought there was a player in FA that could help the team better than J Smith he would not have tagged him and used the money as he did yrs ago with the Spikes money (as you mentioned)...there is not an impact D player that fits their system, maybe if Pollack was healthy and we knew about Odell, Thomas might have been that guy but he isn't and nobody else is out there on D....on the TE picture ridiculous money was thrown at Shinicoe who has 35 catches in 4 yrs...insane...but if we decide to match an offer for Kelly and Kase I would be happy to have them back but would not break the bank...either..

[HoosierCat]

just like Chicken Little once did.

Like I said elsewhere, you got nothing left but calling people names, do you?

Anyhow, it appears the Bengals may be waking up to the fact their management has been somewhat less than stellar. Writes Hobson today:

Monday could be the turning point in free agency for the Bengals because if they re-sign one of their two free agents, as well as make a play for Porter, they'll have to make salary cap changes that could involve re-negotiations or releases.

So they finally notice the are in a situation where they'll either have to bleed off more talent to fill needs...or start playing the renegotiate-and-extend game to free up cap space, something they've had little taste for in the past. Well, I never said the FO was stupid. A bit slow, perhaps, but they eventually catch on.

[HoosierCat]

Well, I think there's two strategies to good cap management: 1) keep an even burn so you can give yourself a chance of winning every year, or 2) figure out when your window is and go balls-out to win then. Under #2, I think the 49ers you're talking about did a fantastic job of managing the cap; they were good forever, blew up the team for a couple of years, then were good again within 2 years. Of course, they've since gotten bad again but that's due to the York family and general bad management. To pull off #1, you have to bleed off older players who aren't cutting it anymore; the Eagles did that with Trotter and Simon (among others), that Patriots with McGinest. The Bengals really haven't done that (unless the Simmons decision is a change in direction). The Patriots would have let Willie walk and locked up Steinbach before free agency. Just sayin'.

So I'd agree, they could probably do better at cap management, but then they don't really have an accomplished football brain in the front office either.

I would actually say that the Bengals are fans of the "even burn" strategy. It's pretty much what they did all through the Nineties. The only reason you didn't see them cutting like other teams is, well, they didn't have any older, high-priced talent to cut because they didn't have much talent to begin with. Now, though, they have lots of rich, long-term deals automatically chewing up big chunks of every yearly cap hike, but what's left is suddenly third-tier-player cash.

Yeah, I think the Simmons cut may be a change in direction. It was unlike the Bengals. Even if his play had declined the team is famously loyal...but not in Brian's case.