Antonio Bryant signs with Bengals

[wpeldios]

First of all,why did we give this guy so much money when we were pretty much the only team going after the guy.

Large enough a deal that it could crimp plans to sign its own free agents? In a year that there is no cap , and you give a guy that nobody else wants a 4 year $28 million doallar deal.

That 4 year $28 mil. deal is what we just cut when we cut Coles so it should put us even to where we were before the move.

I think what we may have done is to basicaly re-signed Coles.

I vote we cut Geathers if they need money to sign free agents.

Wow, after hearing all week how they aren't making a move, they sign the #1 ranked fa wr on the open market. A guy who has averaged over 15 ypc his entire career. And people still moan and complain. And rather than complain about the 4 teams, lets show some love for a guy who has averaged 15 ypc with a QB crew of Trent Dilfer, Charlie Frye, Quincy Carter, Chad Hutchinson, Josh Freeman, Jeff Garcia. And his #2 in his times in Tampa was Mark Clayton. He will be in the best situation he has ever been. The downside is Bratkowski is still his offensive coordinator.

[Baraka]

The only problem in signing T.O. would be, who to cut? If you figure they keep 6 WR's. You've got T.O. , Chad, Antonio Bryant, Matt Jones, Caldwell, then one last spot for either Quan Cosby or Jerome Simpson. That's also assuming Purify is on practice squad, and they don't draft a WR.

You've spelled out quite succinctly why they can't sign TO. They don't have room. Where do you put the WR that MB will surely draft next month?

hopefully bey-bey thomas in the first . . . i'm serious

[icehole3]

Dave Lapham's take on Bryant and T.O.

I think T.O may eventually end up in Cincy, his take is basically grab everybody

/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwyTyXAF5X8

[wpeldios]

Dave Lapham's take on Bryant and T.O.

I think T.O may eventually end up in Cincy, his take is basically grab everybody

/>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwyTyXAF5X8

I really like Lapham as the commentator on the radio. He brings a lot of passion. So much so that often times it seems like his info is completely wrong. That said, He just seems lost when talking off season.

Still I love this signing.

[HAPPYJAQ]

After much internal debate, I love this signing.

Better than the signing, this was the guy that Marv wanted and the fact they've signed him long-term might say something to Marvin's desire to be here after the season.

If I was only interested in winning this upcoming year for a Franchise that needs an upgrade at WR, I'm going with T.O, as a HC.

I love the fact that the Bucs fans are absolutely depressed that AB is leaving to come to the Bengals, which admittedly wasn't what I expected (although a very happy surprise), for a guy that was injured for much of last season.

I also like the fact that Chad likes it, which is more than he acknowledged about bringing in Matt Jones.

All in all, Bryant was deemed a player worthy for Top 5 pay at his position just twelve months ago. To get a player of this ability, while completely opening up the draft in the process, was an uncanny move by Mike and Co.

[skyline]

I also like the fact that Chad likes it, which is more than he acknowledged about bringing in Matt Jones.

I don't particularly care how Chad feels about personnel decisions one way or another, but I was happy not to see him pout about TO not coming to Cincy.

[derekshank]

I was originally fairly underwhelmed with the Antonio Bryant signing. Based on my limited knowledge of him as a player I thought (like many of you) that he was a decent signing… but likely not much of a considerable upgrade over Coles.

I’ve officially changed my mind. I saw the article on the dot com site about Brat retooling the passing game for a lot more big plays. Some might bristle at the idea that Brat can do anything… but as the site points out, he promised a similar retooling of the running game last year – and I think it’s fair to say he delivered on those promises.

The Bengals passing game lacked the threat of the big play. So much so that the loss of decoy (Henry) resulted in a dramatic drop in production. Well… Bryant, (unimpressive as his numbers may seem) if nothing else brings the threat of a big play.

I looked at his stats over the last 4 years compared to Coles and Housh.

Bryant: 70% of his catches are for 1st downs, and 26% of his catches are for 20+ yards.

Coles: 61% of his catches are for 1st downs, and 16% of his catches are for 20+ yards.

Housh: 62% of his catches are for 1st downs, and 13% of his catches are for 20+ yards.

Bryant had fewer overall catches (28 fewer than Coles, 142 fewer than Housh), so the stats could mean less. However, even with a smaller number of overall total of catches, his receptions of 20+ yards is 19 more than Coles and 11 more than Housh over the last 4 years.

So, what am I getting at? Well, even if he doesn’t fill Housh’s role of catching 100+ balls this season, he at the very least a much nicer big play threat than either Coles or Housh could bring to the table. Also, Bryant has been a #1 receiver lately… and with Chad demanding respect on the other side, this could certainly be a very nice fit.

I would not be at all surprised to see a much more productive overall offense this season, just because teams will have to respect the deep and intermediate passing game in a way that they didn’t last year.

And for the purposes of this thread... consider me one of the fappers.

[wpeldios]

I'm going to give you a list of the wr, rb, and qb that have played with bryant in his career, you tell me when he was in the best situation.

Josh Freeman(55% 1855yds 10td)/Josh Johnson(50% 685yds 4td)/Byron leftwich(55% 594 yds 4td), Jeff Garcia(65% 2712yds 12tds)/Brian Greise(60% 1073yds 5td), Alex Smith(58% 2890yds 16td), Trent Dilfer(59% 2321yds 11tds)/Charlie Frye(59% 1002yds 4td), Jeff Garcia(57% 1731yds 10td)/Luke McCown(49% 608yds 4td)/Kelly Holcomb(67% 737yds 7td), Quincy Carter(57% 3302yds 17td), Chad Hutchinson(50% 1555yds 7td)/Quincy Carter(56% 1465yds 7td)

Carnell Williams(823 yds 4tds), Warrick Dunn(786 yds 2td), Frank Gore(1695yds 8tds), Reuben Droughns(1232yds 2tds), Lee Suggs(744yds 2td), Troy Hambrick(972yds 5tds), emmitt smith(975yds 5td)

Maurice Stovall(24rec 366yds 1td), Ike Hilliard(47rec 424yds 4td), Arnaz Battle(59rec 686yds 3td), Braylon Edwards(32rec 532yds 3td), Dennis Northcutt(55rec 802yds 2tds), Terry Glenn(52rec 752yds 5tds), Joey Galloway(61rec 908yds 6td)

Compare to the Bengals numbers of last season, Carson Palmer(60% 3094yds 21tds), Cedric Benson(1251yds 6tds), Chad Johnson(72rec 1047yds 9tds)

So Palmer last year in what we saw as a bad year had the second most yards(Quincy Carter 2003), Most tds, and second highest completion percentage(Jeff Garcia 2008) of anyone to start more than 2 games of any qb Bryant has ever played with.

Benson had Second Most yards and second most tds behind Frank Gore.

And Chad had the most receptions, most yards, and most tds of any wr to play opposite him.

He has never been in a situation like this. Looking at this list, I would say this is by a wide margin the best QB, Best Wr, and 2nd best RB he has ever played with.

Also If you Cant tell from the statistics, I was bored.

Side note, thats an all star list of qbs.

[cincyhokie]

There's alot of talk on the Raven's boards that they got a steal in Boldin as we paid similar money for Bryant. Both solid players. I have to feel that Bryant has the most upside in coming from TB to Cincinnati as opposed to Boldin who is coming from Arizona to Baltimore and leaving behind Warner and Fitzgerald.

The big plus is that we still have our 3rd and 4th round picks, they don't.