"Win a playoff game . . ." is the thought going through your mind, right. I know.
But, no. That's not what I'm talking about.
What I'm talking about is the bloodshed happening with the New York Jets.
See, the the media (outside of Mel Kiper Jr back in the early 1980's) mostly love the Jets, for they aren't afraid to make big trades on draft day and sign big name free agents (see, Decker and Revis and Brandon Marshall and Ryan Clady).
But the problem is this: it just doesn't work in the NFL.
The Bengals don't make huge trades on draft day.
The Bengals don't sign big name free agents. In fact, this year they signed starting linebacker, Kevin Minter, from the Cardinals, and that is about as huge as it gets for outside free agents.
Nor do the Bengals waste money on aging vets (Andrew Whitworth and Domata Peko) or on players who don't play key positions (Kevin Zeitler).
It's not sexy, but it has worked very well for the Bengals, who have won the division title three times 8 years and made they playoffs 6 of those years . . . and had they had a descent kicker, they'd have squeezed into the playoffs last year too.
Look at the players the Jets dumped. All (Decker, Harris, Revis, Marshall, Mangold, and Clady) were all aging vets. The Bengals just choose to let those guys walk (as they did with Whitworth and Peko) and invest in their young players (as they did the past few season with new contracts for Gio Bernard, Dre Kirkpatrick, AJ Green, and Geno Atkins). This season they will likely shell out big numbers for tight end Tyler Eifert and linebacker Vontaze Burfict but that means other aging vets will have to move on without big deals (Michael Johnson and Adam Jones) in the coming years.
Now, if they could just win a playoff game!
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