Philly ownership is way more wealthy and willing to spend. The Bengals can't build a team the way Philly has with their ownership.

Plus Philly drafts MUCH better than Cincy.

Last year.

They can, it's just a matter of if they will. It involves kicking the can down the road and you're going to have to pay the piper at some point.

That has always been the sticking point with the Bengals on operating that way. Not that they can't. They just won't.

Teams that really want the hardware are willing to do it and when you have a capable QB, you should.

Mike Brown the cheapest owner in sports.

I’m very much enjoying the Bengals downfall and Joe Burrow running to every single pod and media interview last week to basically shit on their owner

When saying "can't" I was talking about the actual staff. They won't be able to build a team that way because ownership won't let them.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Sources: The Bengals&#39; plan to use the franchise tag on Tee Higgins. Here&#39;s what it means for a long-term deal, when it could happen and other details that we have on the star wide receiver⬇️<a href="https://t.co/TdLrFWc6Bn">https://t.co/TdLrFWc6Bn</a></p>&mdash; James Rapien (@JamesRapien) <a href="https://twitter.com/JamesRapien/status/1891569698648555693?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 17, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

25.7M Fully guaranteed.

EDIT: Provided he signs it.

Best thing for opponents would be them keeping the oft-injured WR who will now command $25m+.

Seriously, paying Higgins that kind of money to play 70% of the games at most while the rest of your roster is kinda ass…. Yeah, that’s how you don’t get back to a SB 101.

Bengals risk fracturing their core irreparably if this goes sideways. Burrow is already public with his displeasure and another long and drawn out tag fight is the last thing they need.

Burrow is just setting them up to pull the rug out, mark my words…

If/when they don’t meet his perceived expectations and don’t win at the highest level, he will use this time as his excuse for demanding a trade.

Deep down he knows his demands are largely disingenuous and won’t be met, but at least if they aren’t, he can use that to hit the eject button.

And the window for trading him seems closed now that Burrow has been publicly campaigning to retain him.

They screwed the pooch so badly with this last off-season. The fact that they didn't trade him then just blows my mind. It would've headed so much of this off and given them a nice little bit of draft capital to rebuild their defense.

Anyone see the report that the Bengals only have 4 people working in their scouting department which is the fewest in the league?

That certainly explains a lot

ROFLROFLROFLROFL

cheapass mike brown

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GjsQ9CPb...pg&name=medium

What’s more concerning is 26 scouting staffers couldn’t see the Deshaun implosion coming for Cleveland

Feels like that many staffers is someone handing out a lot of jobs to nephews and cousins.

I'd bet everything he does. He knows that franchise isn't serious about winning and is wasting his career.

Lotsa fun fan fiction here lately. Keep em coming, ladies.

Genuine q - do you think signing Higgins long term is the best thing for the team?

They fired a good DC because they needed a scape goat, when the defense faltered due to letting tons of talent walk out + not drafting any good defenders for multiple years.

How do you fix that by paying three offensive players upwards of $130m per year? Three guys who were unable to win the trophy while collectively making about $30M a year for a 2-3 year window.

For the Bengals, i think it's a good idea because the goal of every team is to get better, not worse by losing your good players and not replacing them with quality. The Bengals have a track record of not wanting to pay premium for certain players, then not replacing them properly through free agency and the draft.

With this team, the best scenario is keep what is good and make replacements elsewhere. Joe, Ja'Marr, Tee, Trey H should all get (new contracts/raises). OBj, Gesicki, Logan Wilson and to a lesser extent, Jordan Battle, Mike Hilton and CTB and behind them, Dax Hill, DJ Turner and BJ Hill, should be the focus.

They have the ability to start using creative cap manipulations and they have enough money (contrary to popular belief) and cap space to sign them all as well as a couple big name free agents, without crushing the team for the future. It requires more work than they've done and a willingness to do it, which we haven't seen yet as Burrow is the only player currently with void years on his contract.

The willingness is the key, not the ability. Along with that, they can't afford to continue to miss so badly on the draft year in and year out. Those rookie contracts help immensely when you're (somewhat) mortaging your future with cap dances.

They also have the ability, through structure to make sure the cap hit doesn't become too big in any given year. The standard practice is lower cap hit early with each subsequent year increasing. They could stagger the hits each year so that only 2 of the 3 big contracts have large numbers in any given year, while the 3rd is a lower number, thereby giving them roughly the same bottom line each year. The cap continues to go up, so that total number could go up each year, without a financial burden.

Re: that "good" DC they just fired. Lou was ok when he had all the pieces. By ok i mean he was never better than the 16th rated D on either metric the entire time he was here, save one time. They were 6th in scoring in 2022. Other than that, it was 16th or lower every other instance. They were "good" in '21 and '22 but as soon as pieces started getting replaced, they weren't so good anymore. Lou would drive me crazy with the rush 3 drop 8 in the worst times, constantly giving up a first down because the QB had all day to sit in the pocket and wait for someone to get open. Not blitzing the crap out of Mahomes on a bad ankle in '22 and the stupid 4th down in '24 being chief among the instances.

Silver lining is they've drafted so poorly over the past 3 drafts that they really don't have anyone in imminent need of resigning. Seriously, is there a single player that's been drafted by the Bengals since 2022 that's going to get a second contract?

2024
Mims (starter)
All (2nd string that could be #1 some day if he stops blowing out his knee)
Jenkins and Jackson (IDL who are maybes at best right now)

2023
Chase Brown (good starter)
Turner, Battle, Iosivas (average starters)

2022
Dax Hill, CTB (average starters)

it's over for joe

bengos won't pay this

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Cincinnati Bengals Ja&#39;marr Chase is seeking around $40M per season. <a href="https://t.co/zBFp33TVYP">pic.twitter.com/zBFp33TVYP</a></p>&mdash; NFL Rumors (@nflrums) <a href="https://twitter.com/nflrums/status/1892302235494724000?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 19, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

no shot Mike Brown pays that

he's getting traded

He deserves it. Dude is ****ing incredible. But as Reek has shown it’s awful tough to win by yourself at WR

Wasting all the talent on that offense because they would t move on from Tua. Was already clear as day what his ceiling was, they paid him anyway. MOAR WEAPONS! We’ve been there how many times?

Not taking anything away from Andy, love him despite his flaws. But pre Mahomes era Reid still was having because Chiefs moments. Although he did finally get us a playoff win before Mahomes was starter. If you don’t have the quarterback, even with an elite HC…. Still difficult to make it all the way, as every other AFC team is finding out. Might catch lightning and win one. But you’ll never make more than that without that quarterback.

The last AFC quarterbacks that weren’t Mahomes/Brady/Manning was Flacco. That was 13 years ago. Before that was 17 years and Big Ben. Before that? Elway.

I’d bet a good amount of money that Joe Burrow pulls a Carson Palmer in the next 2-3 years.

Mike Brown isn’t gonna change. It was hard enough to get that guy to give Burrow himself a deal like he received.

Burrow was going to every podcast and radio interview on radio row practically begging Mike Brown to no be so cheap. He’s gonna get sick of it when they trade Chase.

I wanna see Ja'marr on that commanders roster....that would be fun to watch.

Broncos have a good amount of cap space. I’m sure Payton would love to have arguably the best WR at his disposal. Chase has had some pretty big games against KC (thanks Jaylen Watson 2022), but last 2 games we’ve managed to keep a cap on him. Chase’s skills would be great to pair with Nix and make their offense a lot more deadly.

Serious question- as Chiefs fans, don't we want the Bengals to blow their load on keeping their star players intact, so they don't have anything else? As we are learning, you can't pay 'em all.

Their window slammed shut. Now their DC was a scapegoat for horrific GMing, Chase wants 40 million per year. Their was window slammed shut by KC in tge 2022 AFCCG, rest of their team just hasn’t realized it yet.

at least one person has a ring in this photo

https://scontent-ord5-2.xx.fbcdn.net...vg&oe=67C081A8

Joe must be slumming. He keeps getting trailer popcorn ceiling in his hair

Is he wearing his bathrobe?

He dresses like ass. Looks like a cheap man hooker.

I think it's a classic Japanese kimhomo styling.

That's so cool! He's so cool! Call him Joe Cool because that's really really really cool!

Flamingos will urinate on themselves to keep cool in hot temperatures

Burrow does the same thing

He looks like a douche

https://media3.giphy.com/media/3otPo...n4n6/giphy.gif


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

It's a kimono. He just got back from whipping some ass at the local dojo and he's at this event flashing how many people are currently in the hospital due to his badassery.

This dude gets it. Next time i'm in KC, you get a free handy.

LMAO

Most people won't get this.

Looking for a little bit of serious discussion for a minute. This is something i posted over on the mothership and i wonder if some people who knows way more than me about finances and maybe have a little insight on how an NFL team might operate, could tell me where i could be wrong or right here. There are still a good number of Bengals fans who believe the Bengals are actually "cash poor" and that just makes me laugh in this day and age of revenue sharing. Here's the post.




**** me running with this damn laptop! I had a gigantic post all typed out and i was down to my last line or two and i fat palmed something and it all disappeared...mfsob. Here's the end of the post.

Look at it this way. The Bengals are valued at roughly $4B. Liquid assets should be about 2-10% of value, depending on individual wants and needs. The Bengals are in a business that requires them to put large sums of money in escrow for guarantees, just like every other NFL franchise. If their liquid is only 5% of that 4B, that means they have 200,000,000 cash available to put in escrow, which would be about 37M more than the Eagles who have the largest amount of money in guarantees right now.

The average NFL operating expense for an NFL franchise in 2023 was 541M. In 2023 the Bengals received 549M in revenue sharing. That means the NFL paid for 100% of the Bengals operating expenses for the 2023 season. The NFL has paid for at least a portion of the Bengals expenditures for a loooong while now.

Anyone trying to say the Bengals simply can't pay whatever other teams pay, are "cash poor" or whatever hobspin someone wants to put on it, is either trolling or not willing to look at or believe the large sums of money the team has made for many years and how they've had heaps of money dropped on them for the last 10+ years.

INb4 someone yells, "they barely broke even!!!!". Don't forget they get to keep 100% of ticket sales, concessions and corporate sponsorships.

I know nothing about the Bengals and their finances, but these two word are very important.

Davis had very little cash even though the Raid were worth billions.

I can see why a team(s) might have cash issues year to year due to bad contracts, multiple contracts (fired coaches) and things like that. The thing is, the Bengals don't have any of that. I'm not sure if dead cap (i don't think it does) has anything to do with coaches, but if you're paying out money to guys who don't work for you and you're carrying 50+M in dead cap money, it would make it hard to escrow.

I know jack crap about NFL finances. I nod my head in discussions and pretend I know what people are talking about, but in reality when it comes to cap discussions and whatnot, I don't know what's going on.

That being said, people ask, "Why doesn't Mike Brown demand greater degrees of excellence from his coaches? Why does he hold onto these guys for so long?" Or we'll talk about things like that discussion item from a few days ago about the super tiny number of employed front office personnel compared to most teams around the league.

"Why does the team operate in such a way that it hamstrings the franchise in unnecessary ways?"

Well, the kindest and most logical answer to me is because ownership isn't as rife with resources to make those things happen. Because any other alternative answer involves calling the guy incompetent or just plain stupid.

But again, I recognize that my opinion/outlook could be uninformed and incorrect because I don't have my facts straight.

He's the ultimate 'can't teach an old dog new tricks' kind of guy. He's loyal to a fault and that loyalty is the money he has to pay in contracts. He will wring the last penny out of them, results be damned. As long as he's can use black ink, that's all that matters.

Old ways, set in stone. Unwilling to adapt and change with the times. He's always been cheap, just like his dad because that's what he knows and he's locked into it.


Anyway, to my question. I was looking at it wrong. I think i have it now. The escrow a team has to put aside is the total number of guaranteed money, minus the first year salary and signing bonus (and maybe options etc). Anyway, to make it easier i'm just going to calculate total guarantee - first year salary + signing bonus.

So for a guy like Burrow, Mike Brown would have to put about $178M in escrow for his guarantees. So, i can see where the numbers might get big enough for some serious sticker shock for a guy like Mike, or for a guy(s) who don't manage their caps well and/or hire/fire guys like it's going out of style, ala Faid.

Paul Brown was an OG football guru. Mike played FB in college but he's more lawyer/business man than football guy.

Thanks for the input, homie.

only two years before reality sets in for rfaulk34

Yes! Only 2 more years and Burrow will be one SB ring behind Mahomes.


https://media.tenor.com/SEcwOH1uK-EAAAAM/waiting.gif

How’s that? I haven’t heard of any league investigation that plans to punish the Chiefs by stripping titles from them.

Let’s say just one ring in the next 2 seasons. Care to make a $50 bottle of alcohol bet on one ring in the next 2 seasons?

One thing that plays a part is guaranteed contracts. When the team has to guarantee a contract for a big money player, they don't get to just live on the promise. The team actually has to put that money into escrow so that if the owner goes bankrupt, the player still gets paid. In the modern age of enormous contracts for quarterbacks and some other players, that amounts to a lot of cash. Therefore, owners that are not very liquid have more trouble signing players to long term contracts than cash rich owners.

https://media.tenor.com/bFY_W7mb024A...re-serious.gif

Yep. That's a discussion i've been having today with a couple other Bengals fans on my home board.

The Bengals are going to have a melt down next season and will miss the playoffs even harder than they did last season.

I see them as an upscale version of the Trent Green Chiefs.

Great memories though!!!

They shit talk so as not be confused with the whiny ass Bills

That 03 season was fun

Regular season anyway

They wasted Joes cheap years. Now everyone wants money, and it gets harder to get a ring. That's why our staff and Mahomes are special. We work off rookies and low budget skill players and won 3.

That's so ****ing weird to me. Wouldn't you want to ensure the players are getting the best meals possible while they're busting ass in OTAs and Camp?

I thought they ate 6 meals a day. Those weight conscious Bengals

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bengals placed the $26.2 million franchise tag on WR Tee Higgins. This marks the second straight year that the Bengals have used their franchise tag on Higgins. <a href="https://t.co/CBENnQe6FM">pic.twitter.com/CBENnQe6FM</a></p>&mdash; Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) <a href="https://twitter.com/AdamSchefter/status/1896645425379389872?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 3, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

That’s.

…

Something. Not what I’d do but something.

Higgins taking a big risk signing the tag this time.

The real comedy will be watching them try to navigate the Chase deal.

LOL...oh I love watching that team unravel.

They tried getting brady. Thankfully that failed.

Skyline chili at every meal apparently

I actually like the move for them. They know they can field an elite-ish offense even with a bad OL as long as they’ve got weapons like Chase and Higgins.

I’m not sure they can retool the OL in one offseason given this FA market and draft class so they may as well hang on to Higgins for one more year. They have the cap space at the moment and could create more if they’re able to get a backloaded Chase deal done.

I did read reports that they are hoping to be able to sign Higgins long-term, though. I’m not sure if that’s the actual truth or just lip service to appease Burrow but I don’t think inking Higgins to a long-term deal will be the best route.

If Higgins wants to max out his money he must get out of there. He will never get max pay there as long as Chase is there.

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Bengals DE Sam Hubbard announces retirement from the NFL after a 7-year career. <a href="https://t.co/LvUAMGbmHw">pic.twitter.com/LvUAMGbmHw</a></p>&mdash; NFL (@NFL) <a href="https://twitter.com/NFL/status/1897317601346568418?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 5, 2025</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

oof

that team is falling apart

Only 7 years....