Low Positive

Those stats are meaningless without targets. Adams 114 targets in 11 games with NYJ Cooper 32 targets in 8 games in Buffalo Aaron Rodgers was forcing the ball to Adams.

Ja'marr Chase is publically demanding 40 million. Stafford demanded more money and got what he wanted. Barkley and Josh Jacobs did this exact thing last offseason. Players negotiate on social media all the time.

Beane needs to draw up a contract that Cook's agent can brag about being 15 per, but structure in such a way that the guaranteed money and cap hits are nowhere near 15. That makes it a win-win.

It's a production company that has been doing some work with the league over the last few years. They did that Aaron Rodgers doc and the off-season Hard Knocks last summer: https://skydance.com/sports/

Usually attributed to Nietzsche. It's fitting that Rust would quote him.

Because they are pushing it all down the road with void years. I expect Howie Roseman to "retire" in about 5 years and let it all be someone else's problem.

By the time we kick off the 2025 season, Ja'marr Chase will make more money than mid-level starters like Baker Mayfield and Geno Smith.

I'm not sure anybody really thought that. The problem with RBs is that they tend to fall off really quickly. Look at Dalvin Cook. He was one of the best RBs in the NFL three years ago and now he's out of the league. Jonathan Taylor has also really fallen off since being paid. Barkley was great this year, but his history tells us that he's due to miss half of next year with injury. Same case with Derrick Henry. It's a physically demanding position that relies almost entirely on athleticism. The shelf life is short so long-term deals are a huge risk.

I doubt it. The tag is not often applied because it creates a negative reputation amongst the players league-wide. Barkley got tagged in 2023 and was so mad about it that he refused to bring his Eagles offer back to the Giants to match. This year, only two players have been tagged (and the deadline is in 10 minutes) and Trey Smith got the "non-exclusive" tag. Tee Higgins is the only player to get the exclusive in the entire NFL. It's really a raw deal for Tee but he doesn't seem likely to hold out and punish Cincinnati for doing this.

This was nixed because the owners have a collective ax to grind with Belichick: https://www.nbcsports.com/nfl/profootballtalk/rumor-mill/news/bill-belichicks-hard-knocks-turn-raises-eyebrows-in-league-circles

I think Lurie and Roseman are not so subtly trolling the Giants.

Buffalo fans have a high opinion of him because he was particularly good at scheming against Josh Allen for some reason. Although all those games were against Ken Dorsey's offense so that may have had something to do with it.

31 teams in the NFL have to build rosters within the salary cap. And then there’s the Eagles.

But that's not the only thing. Trey Hendrickson led the league in sacks and Cincinnati put up elite offensive production, but the Bengals missed the playoffs because their coverage was so bad. It all has to come together.

They tried that with Jermaine Burton last year and failed. Everyone here thought that they got the "steal" of the draft, but no amount of talent overcomes a low work ethic. It's the one character flaw that a player can't have, even if they play for a team that will accept all manner of off-field problems. Pacman Jones was a crazy man who stalked women in hotels, but he worked hard in practice and showed up for team meetings on time.

That’s what they should do. But Joe Burrow is de facto GM and is calling the shots. The interesting thing to note is that Joe Burrow’s career took off in college only when he got an all-pro team at WR. Same thing in the NFL. He doesn’t really elevate those around him as much as Allen and Lamar. Remember, the Bengals almost made the playoffs with Jake Browning at QB for half a season.

We don't know if Crosby and Garrett are actually available. In fact, both teams insist that they are not.

People forget that 3/4 of a season before his knee injury. He was a force, and would have continued like that. Him getting hurt on Thanksgiving was the thing that started derailing the 2022 season. He hasn't been the same since.

Rappaport's comments about "not in the business of letting good players walk away" is such BS and comes straight from Duke Tobin. They let Jesse Bates, Joe Mixon, Tyler Boyd, and DJ Reeder walk away just in the last two years. All those guys, except for Boyd, are excellent players still in their prime and were replaced with much weaker players. Yet more proof that Rappaport is the mouthpiece of front offices just like Schefter is the shill for agents.

Unfortunately, Lockett has fallen off the WR cliff over the past two years. Good WRs don't usually hit FA or the trade market until after their production has collapsed. The only exceptions are guys that are such divas that teams need to clear the lockerroom like Diggs in Minnesota or OBJ for every team. Also, the sad fact is that most of the best young WRs are on bad teams because they get drafted so high. So guys like Marvin Harrison Jr., Brian Thomas Jr., and Malik Nabors will waste their prime on bad teams. An elite WR can make a good team great, but he can't make a bad team good. Only a QB and an elite OL can do that.

I want to say that is just due to longevity, but looking at QB stats from the 70's is really eye-opening. Even the top guys like Roger Staubach and Terry Bradshaw rarely cleared 3,000 yards and no one had a completion % over 60%. It really illustrates the greatness of Montana (over 60% almost from the start) and Marino (over 4,000 yards almost every year) as much as anything else. I was only 10 so I don't really remember it, but Marino's '84 season must have had the whole NFL world on notice.

Jack Kemp was a winner in his league and time, but his highest completion percentage while he played for the Bills was 50.3%. Jim Kelly, as great as he was, never threw for 4,000 yards in a season in the NFL. Yet, both were great in their era. That's why comparing stats across eras is a futile exercise. But those three are obviously the best three in Bills history. After that, we're just getting nostalgic about Joe Fergusson. He played for the Bills for a generation, but Ken O'Brien played for the Jets for a generation and nobody but Jets fans remember him.

And they need DL and DBs in the worst way. And they have an owner who lacks cash flow. That is always the primary concern in Cincinnati. They have the potential cap space to do everything they need to do, but ownership doesn't have the cash to pay the upfront bonuses to kick cap space into void years. They're not even spending cask to the cap. They played with over 20 million in space this year.

Tee is such a low-key guy that he'll play on the tag with little complaint. And Joe Burrow is demanding that they keep the gang together, defense be damned. He's used every media outlet here in Cincinnati to put that pressure on the team. He just can't function without two #1 WRs. He never has.

I didn't know any of that, but those are the vibes I got. Featherd blonde hair, from Utah, and outsized confidence in his abilities as a "leader" even though he ran away from Caleb Williams. I think he spends more time on teeth whitening than studying film.