| 05 August 2011
Remember that moment of euphoria when it was announced that there would be a “salary floor” in the NFL, which meant Cincinnati Bengals owner Mike Brown would be prevented from being the cheap piece of shit that he prides himself on being? Yeah, too bad they didn’t inform us immediately that said provision in the new collective bargaining agreement doesn’t kick in until the 2013 season.
There is a league-wide salary floor right away, but individual teams are not subjected to any type of salary floor until ’13. Therefore, get ready to see Brown try and pocket as much money as possible the next two seasons. When the salary cap numbers are released for each team this season, what do you want to bet the Bengals will check in at No. 32? They will be dead-last in the NFL in terms of spending.
Carson Palmer was owed $12 million this season. You think Brown is going to re-invest that cash in the team? Hell no. He could have out-bid the Houston Texans for cornerback Johnathan Joseph, but decided not to. Joseph had two relatively similar offers to choose from, and picked the franchise that isn’t run by monkeys. (Apologies to any bonabos that read this blog.)
And in typical Bengals fashion, Brown has tried to make up for it by signing big-name players whose careers are unquestionably on the decline. We haven’t seen anything to the extent of Richmond Webb yet, but you get the idea.
As someone who follows Ohio State, I’ve always been a Nate Clemens fan. But he’s a huge drop-off from Joseph at this point in his career. Furthermore, if Clements or Leon Hall get hurt, the Bengals have pathetic depth at corner. A good team would have re-signed Joseph and then signed Clements as the nickel. I know, that sounds ridiculous to a Bengal fan, but it’s how good teams operate. Clements is not a top-shelf starter any longer. But again, this fits the classic Bengal blueprint for free agency: Find a former first-round pick (or big-name player in general) who can be signed somewhat on the cheap because he’s lost a step or two. Or in the case of Terrell Owens last year, because no one else in the NFL wanted to put up with an extreme diva, no matter how talented he still was. The only thing Clements is missing is a rap sheet and he would fit every one of Mike Brown’s criteria for signing a free agent.
The only good news is all of this is at least there is a light at the end of the tunnel. At least there will be a salary floor for individual teams beginning in 2013, which means Brown will have to spend at least 89 percent of the cap. He’ll certainly make bad signings along the way, but at least we won’t see any more seasons like this one where the Bengals are going to be dead last by far in the NFL in team salary. Even the $6 million that was owed to Chad Ochocinco hasn’t been talked about enough. What is Brown doing with that money? Oh yeah, pocketing it. Same with the cash that was owed to recently-cut defensive end Antwan Odom.
The Bengals did sign a few outside free agents like Clements, linebackers Thomas Howard and Manny Lawson, offensive lineman Max Jean-Gilles and quarterback Bruce Gradkowski, but those are more stop-gap moves than anything else. They also re-signed running back Cedric Benson (only for one year though – the Bengals and Benson are like the couple that can’t decide if they really want to get married, but they never break up), linebacker Brandon Johnson and safety Gibril Wilson, but that didn’t come close to making up for whiffing on their No. 1 offseason priority: re-signing Joseph.
The amazing thing is that the Bengals could have franchised Joseph before the old CBA expired (like good NFL teams did with their good players – like Logan Mankins from the Patriots for example) and would have removed any risk of losing him. But that would have required a front office that didn’t have their collective heads up their ass. In other words, standard operating procedure for the Bengals.
Brown has to be pissed that the NFL will be forcing him to spend more than he wants to beginning in 2013, so dammit, he’s going to ratchet up the cheapness these next two years. I picture him sitting in his dorm room at Georgetown College right now with the tune “Damn It Feels Good To Be A Gangster” blaring in the background. Sans air conditioning, of course.
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