The Difference Between Us and The Bengals...

[Bolt4Knob]

It is also worth noting that Cinci has most of their players are draft picks, with a few street and college FA mixed in.

https://www.ourlads.com/nfldepthcharts/depthchart/CIN

They have a lot of quality picks and they make the most of them. They have 12 starters who were their draft picks, they are 3-1st rounders, 4-2nd rounders, 3-3rd rounders, a 5th rounder (TE) and 6th (RG). They have a street FA at LG (Quinton Spain), and at CB (Eli Apple - former #1 pick), a waiver wire picked from Miami at RT (filling in for Riley Reiff) and CFA at C.

BJ Hill they got from the Giants by trading a former #1 pick (Billy Price - C), who while highly regarded, just never played well after getting hurt preparing for the draft.

DE - Henderickson - '21 (3rd rd in pick in '17 for NO) - $14.5 mill cap #
NT - Reader - '20 (5th rd in '16 for Hou) - $13.7 mill cap
CB - Awuzie - '20 (2nd rd in '17 for Dallas - $7.3 mill cap #
SS - Bell - '20 (2nd rd in '16 for NO) - $7.5 mill cap #
NB - Hiton - '21 (CFA 2016 for Jags, but only played for Pitt) - $5.0 mill cap #.

All those names mentioned are also in the middle of their careers - not on the downhill side.

This is where Telesco needs to work harder instead of taking the easy way out; and maybe its John Boy Spanii playing fantasy football and recognizing the name of the player (Bulaga, Thomas Davis, Joseph, Harris) instead of finding players from other teams that might be undervalued but on the right team, might perform better.

You can find good players for not so bad salary cap hits

[Guest]

Their defense definitely is better. And Burrow is better than Herbert IMO. And their receivers are better than ours. And their running back. Probably coach. Thats about it.

[Xenos]

Their defense definitely is better. And Burrow is better than Herbert IMO. And their receivers are better than ours. And their running back. Probably coach. Thats about it.

Defense is better. Burrow is currently further along mentally than Herbert. But that could change next year. Agree about receivers. Going to disagree about RB and coach.

[nomad1946]

The difference? They are in the Super Bowl and we are on the couch. opcorn:

[Bolt-O]

Defense is better. Burrow is currently further along mentally than Herbert. But that could change next year. Agree about receivers. Going to disagree about RB and coach.

I think Burrow is further along on his learning curve of his system, vs. Herbert with his, if that's what you mean by further along mentally. We have a huge thread on firing Joe Lombardi, which isn't going to happen and will again delay Herbert from reaching his full potential, but I submit that Herbert has a much higher ceiling than Burrow, mentally and physically.

[Xenos]

I think Burrow is further along on his learning curve of his system, vs. Herbert with his, if that's what you mean by further along mentally. We have a huge thread on firing Joe Lombardi, which isn't going to happen and will again delay Herbert from reaching his full potential, but I submit that Herbert has a much higher ceiling than Burrow, mentally and physically.

I mean Burrow is further along in terms of mental processing when it comes to reading defenses presnap and post snap. It probably helped greatly that he was in a pro scheme in college while Herbert had a different OC every year running gimmicky ones.

[foreigner]

Herbert is way better than Burrow... Burrow has a damn good Defense backing him up... Herbert doesnt....

[Bolt4Knob]

Herbert is way better than Burrow... Burrow has a damn good Defense backing him up... Herbert doesnt....

I am good if Burrow is better than Herbert - it doesn't diminish Justin Herbert's skillset as a QB.

That said - the Bengals do have some skill players that are very good and like you said, the defense is much better. Telesco and Staley have a lot of work to do - I think they know what needs fixing - but can they do it

[jamrock]

Burrow isn’t better than Herbert. Cincy has a better defense. Period.

[Steve]

What we need to shoot for 1st is being dominant on one side of the ball or the other. I always prefer D, but that is VERY hard to achieve anymore, and we are LONG way from being there. IF that is the goal, I think we pretty much need to gut the entire D except Bosa and James, plus maybe Adderley and Samuel. Everyone else, if you want a dominant D to dominate the current crop of explosive offenses is pretty much going to have to be replaced sooner or later. Even if we are just going for a VERY GOOD D, some of the player we have now either need to really step up their game or will be gone too.

The point is, we aren't going to have a really good D for some time, no matter how aggressive we are this year (unless we hit on every single FA and quality draft pick).

If we are shooting for a dominant O, then we need an RG, RT, TE (that person may be on the roster as Parham, McKitty or both together), slot WR and RB. Not easy to fill all those spots in one season, but if we are going to do it, this is the year. If we take a couple of years, more of the pieces may be on the roster now, depending on how they develop, and who we might lose.

I also really hate the "what if"-ing that goes on. At work, I get a ton of "would you rather have drafted Burrow or Herbert". I am sure I am going to get more of it when I go in today. But the point everyone should remember is that it was never our (Chargers) choice. Cinci was loved Burrow and they had the 1st pick. They were never going to trade the pick, so the question is of the other guys who would you rather have, and that is Herbert, the guy we have. We actually didn't have a shot at Tua either, but I can live with that one, although there are still a lot of college football fans here in the south who think Tua is still going to be the better pro (I don't see it myself).

Burrow is on the better team this season and he is going to the SB. It is about the team he has around him. Herbert would look a lot better with a more complete WR crew like Cinci and a D that keeps him in the game more. And it is also worth remembering, that while Cinci kinda stumbled into the playoffs losing 2 games in early Dec (Us and SF), before going 3 of the final 4 to get in.

[Bolt4Knob]

What we need to shoot for 1st is being dominant on one side of the ball or the other. I always prefer D, but that is VERY hard to achieve anymore, and we are LONG way from being there. IF that is the goal, I think we pretty much need to gut the entire D except Bosa and James, plus maybe Adderley and Samuel. Everyone else, if you want a dominant D to dominate the current crop of explosive offenses is pretty much going to have to be replaced sooner or later. Even if we are just going for a VERY GOOD D, some of the player we have now either need to really step up their game or will be gone too.

The point is, we aren't going to have a really good D for some time, no matter how aggressive we are this year (unless we hit on every single FA and quality draft pick).

If we are shooting for a dominant O, then we need an RG, RT, TE (that person may be on the roster as Parham, McKitty or both together), slot WR and RB. Not easy to fill all those spots in one season, but if we are going to do it, this is the year. If we take a couple of years, more of the pieces may be on the roster now, depending on how they develop, and who we might lose.

I also really hate the "what if"-ing that goes on. At work, I get a ton of "would you rather have drafted Burrow or Herbert". I am sure I am going to get more of it when I go in today. But the point everyone should remember is that it was never our (Chargers) choice. Cinci was loved Burrow and they had the 1st pick. They were never going to trade the pick, so the question is of the other guys who would you rather have, and that is Herbert, the guy we have. We actually didn't have a shot at Tua either, but I can live with that one, although there are still a lot of college football fans here in the south who think Tua is still going to be the better pro (I don't see it myself).

Burrow is on the better team this season and he is going to the SB. It is about the team he has around him. Herbert would look a lot better with a more complete WR crew like Cinci and a D that keeps him in the game more. And it is also worth remembering, that while Cinci kinda stumbled into the playoffs losing 2 games in early Dec (Us and SF), before going 3 of the final 4 to get in.

I don't think the defense is a lost cause - Telesco and Staley just need to make smart, disciplined, unemotional data driven decisions with respect to the players on defense. TO me, offense is pretty easy: bring back Williams (or pay for a really good WR); get a RT and a RB

Defense is a bit harder
three free agent decisions: Nwosu, Jones and White - do you keep them or do you upgrade via free agency

Free agency and draft: CB1; probably 3 IDL (two from free agency and one from draft) and Edge

[Parcells]

Wait, isn’t Herbert 2-0 vs the Bungals

Tyrod Taylor is infuriated by this statement. The Tyrod Taylor era saw him go undefeated in which he beat the Bengals.