Well, I think we all saw this coming. Joe Reedy of The Cincinnati Enquirer reports that the Andre Smith holdout doesn’t appear to have an end in sight. The problem? The Bengals want to pay Smith less than what the seventh pick in the draft, Darrius Heyward-Bey, got from the Raiders.
According to Reedy, the Bengals have offered $33 million, $5.25 million less than what Bey received. If this is true (and there’s no reason to believe it isn’t), the Bengals have reached another penny-pinching low. I know at this point I should never be surprised by the miserly nature of Mike Brown and his cohorts, but I am exasperated, infuriated and outraged (that sounded like something Johnny Cochran would have said. Impressive).
The slotting system for draft picks is almost universally accepted. The first pick gets the most money, the second gets more than the third and so on. The Bengals’ attempt to circumvent this system is a lot like going to the grocery store, grabbing a loaf of bread marked for a $1 and then telling the cashier that you won’t pay a penny more than 50-cents for it. Guess what? In the grocery store, you ain’t getting that loaf of bread.
Which brings us back to this Andre Smith fiasco. Michael Crabtree looks like an idiot for trying to get more money that what his draft spot dictates. Sorry Mike, that’s not the way things work. The 10th pick gets paid somewhere between what the 9th and 11th make. It’s always been that way.
And now the Bengals are trying to pull the same shenanigans. It’s precisely this same type of thing that makes them the laughinstock of the league. I usally defend them far beyond reasonable bounds, but I can’t even come close on this one. The Bengals front office personnel are embarrassing themselves right now. The team constantly blabs about its commitment to winning and then it pulls this low-rent, cheapskate act with a player that absolutely needs to be in camp sweating off his moobs (man + boobs).
I’m disgusted. Rant over.
News: The Bengals held a scrimmage tonight with the offense getting the best of the defense. The running backs in particular looked good acccording to Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com, with James Johnson, Cedric Benson and Brian Leonard making some nice plays. Bernard Scott sat out with a shoulder problem. The logjam at running back is going to be interesting to watch because Johnson always seems to make the most of his opportunities and Scott has reportedly drawn comparisons to Titans running back Chris Johnson by some teammates (hopefully, they were not under the influence when they said this). I believe the team usually only keeps three tailbacks on the roster, but may need to get creative this season to hold onto its talent.
Nate Wilkinson is a long-time Bengals fan who remembers both David Shula and David Klingler - and somehow lived to tell about it. He has covered the NFL for The York Dispatch and has earned awards from the Keystone Press Association and the Associated Press Sports Editors. He's working as a freelance journalist in the Pittsburgh area and anxiously awaiting the second-coming of the Ickey Shuffle.
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