John Sheeran speculates why the Cincinnati Bengals haven't made more moves in free agency thus far.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Bengals free agency has died down tremendously fast and I can't quite grasp why that's the case
00:05But when looking back at some comments made at the scouting combine something becomes incredibly clear to me in this video
00:10I'll explain what that is
00:14Hi again bengals fans john sheeran of a disease sports cincinnati here and i'll be honest with you guys
00:20I am just as confused as a lot of you are now to be perfectly fair. This is the bengals
00:26I recognize they have a reputation a lot of people who are still fans of the team
00:30Hold on to this reputation and always like to bring it up for weeks specifically like this
00:35but I still land on confused as my main emotion here because
00:39Something is definitely missing a few days ago
00:42I posted the video recapping all the moves the bengals had made in free agency
00:45They signed samadji pirine tj slayton oran bergs. They brought back joseph assai bj hill and since then
00:53They've done pretty much nothing marco wilson cam sample being brought back on cheap one-year deals perfectly fine
01:00They can't be your only moves since monday of legal negotiating full transparency
01:04I'm recording this video on thursday at 5 30 in the afternoon because I gave them a lot of time to do something
01:12Anything that was relatively expected
01:15Nothing's happened and I recognize that there is still time for some things to still happen
01:20But where i'm at right now is if even if something again
01:23Relatively expected does happen. It doesn't feel like enough has happened at all this week, which again
01:30boggles my bengals altered mind because there's obviously a difference between going all in and the bengals going all in right
01:37Everything is relative the bengals are never going to put cash over cap and guarantee future years
01:43And put themselves in potential situations where they have to deal with oodles of dead cap in future years
01:48That's not going to happen
01:48But relative to the past five years
01:51This is by far the most bleak and dreary looking free agency class
01:55The bengals have compiled and the last we heard about it changing at all was interest in guard tevin jenkins
02:01And that's been two days in the making and there's been radio silence ever since the bengals could sign jenkins between
02:07When i'm done recording this video and when it's posted and that'll be that right even if they do even if that is the one
02:13Last move that they make in free agency and the roster gets to 70 players and they move on to the draft
02:18Does anybody feel like this team is remotely good enough or to the level that it should be?
02:24Entering the second week of free agency because I sure don't feel that way
02:28There were opportunities to bring in veteran help for the pass rush
02:31Whether that was a defensive tackle or on the edge
02:33A lot of those good options are pretty much gone by now
02:35You look at linebacker oren birx was a decent addition
02:38But if you're planning on replacing jermaine pratt with a veteran those options are pretty much gone by now
02:43You had the cap space and based off of how they spend cash you had plenty of cash left over
02:47To make one or two more impactful moves and those moves probably don't exist anymore
02:51And again, i'm trying to stay within the constraints of what the bangles consider to be an aggressive free agency week
02:57They've been so much more aggressive in years past compared to this
03:00This is not even remotely close to what expectations were and the worst part is the expectations
03:05Were set by duke tobin himself and that's what confuses me the most because two weeks ago
03:10He went on record to the world that he doesn't want to spend more on the same team as the 2024 squad
03:16But right now that is looking like it's going to be the case
03:19The only notable improvement on the roster right now is nose tackle with tj slayton just because they didn't have a nose tackle last year
03:26Everything else has barely barely moved the needle when tobin made those comments at the combine
03:31I thought one of two things was true either a he was speaking from a place of confidence that he had
03:36Assurances that certain moves are going to be made and that the roster was going to be in a much different spot than it is
03:40Right now or b he was pleading to the front office to make sure that these moves could happen
03:46And that they would have the financial capability to do them and at this point
03:49It's looking like he was pleading more than anything now
03:51I don't think it's over based off of how much cap space they have based off the fact that they were looking
03:56At a guard and there are still options at that position
03:58but again
03:58Even if they do sign a guard and replace alex cappa and then draft a rookie to compete with cody ford and cordovalson
04:04And they have the offense fixed. This defense is scary and not in a good way
04:08You're looking at no new additions to this pass rush
04:11Every new addition is going to be unproven through the draft and that is always risky
04:15You're probably relying on a rookie linebacker to replace pratt or you're bringing pratt back after he couldn't move at all last year
04:21I didn't expect much change in the secondary
04:22But unless they draft to safety early that's putting a lot of faith in geno stone
04:26Obviously taking a leap
04:27There are a lot of bets happening right now on development of who they have in the building
04:31And not all of them are going to hit and mind you they only have six draft picks right now
04:35They need to hit on at least half of them immediately for all these problems to be fixed
04:39It really is tough guys
04:40I think in any of the last five years you could have convinced yourself the bengals made some strides with the roster
04:46After the first week of free agency
04:47I think this is the first time since zach taylor's first year in 2019 when all they did was like sign bw web
04:53They re-signed bobby hart. They signed kerry win
04:55They basically did nothing and they ended up finishing 2 and 14 that year if you want to hold on to any sort of hope
05:00It's that the offseason still has six months to go, right?
05:03There are still extensions that could be coming down the pipe with jamar chase t higgins
05:07It's looking more and more likely that trey hendrickson is going to be in town for at least another year
05:11Because it's not looking like they're going to be able to trade him for the price that they want
05:14I think if they had done one of those things before during this week things would be looking at least a little bit better
05:20But there remains to be so much work that this team has to do and eventually time will run out
05:25Like they have been for the entirety of the joe burrow era the bangles are on the clock
05:30And they need to start looking at it