BengalsCentral Blog

Mailbag

Greetings from Vail, CO.  I just got here for a family ski trip.  But....I have time to update my blog.  Slow day in football but a lot of small things are worth talking about.  I will hit on some of those later.  It's time for Mailbag.....

P.S.  These questions can be found in the comments section of each post.  I'm not making these questions up lol.  I say that because I always joke with Geoff Hobson of Bengals.com about how he makes up questions from readers on his site.  I know he doesn't, but we still kid him about it. 

John, I agree with not taking a tackle that high, but for different reasons. I think they should move Collins to Right tackle and Whitworth to left tackle. They could be the tackles for years to come. Collins was a fourth round pick. Why not draft one later in the draft. Do you think it would be a good idea to pick up a center in free agency like Steussie or Faine? I know Steussie is older but has a lot of exp. Faine has only played for 5 years. I would like to see them sign Ray Lewis and draft Raji. That D would be awesome! I also would like to see you stay and play some D end. Let me know your thoughts. Last thought I hope they sign Crocker and Benson! Thanks Jim

Trade Bait

Sports Agent Drew Rosenhaus

Bengals WR Chad Johnson said he was going to be quiet this off season and not talk about getting traded to another team.  And so far Chad is staying true to his word.  But that doesn't mean that his agent, Drew Rosenhaus, is going to be quiet.  Reports are surfacing saying that Drew has sent a letter to all 32 teams that some of his players, including Chad Johnson, could be traded for the right price.  I wouldn't read too much into that though.  If you think about it, about 95% of the players in the NFL could be had for the right price.  Obviously, Anquan Boldin wants to be traded, Chad wanted to be traded last year, and Plaxico Burress has legal issues with the New York Giants and the New York City police.  

If you take a look at the whole report, it says that Drew Rosenhaus sent a letter to all 32 NFL teams letting them know which players  he was representing for this upcoming free agency period, and which players he was representing for the upcoming NFL Draft.  Then he threw in the three WR's that could be had via trade.  Other than the trade section of this letter, it seems like common practice for agents to let teams know who they are representing.  And apparently the Giants didn't give Drew permission to shop Plaxico Burress around, according to this ESPN.com story.....

"One source told the Star-Ledger that Giants assistant GM Kevin Abrams informed the rest of the league that the team had not given Rosenhaus the authority to pursue a trade on Burress' behalf. Another source told the paper that Rosenhaus sent a second e-mail Tuesday to tell teams he doesn't have permission to see a trade for Burress, Boldin or Johnson."

LOL, I forgot about Levi

When I said this morning that I needed my coffee, I wasn't lying.  When discussing the offensive line in an earlier post, I forgot about LT Levi Jones.  I asked myself how did that happen and the only reason I could think of is that he was injured for much of this past season.  

A reader asked me if I thought Levi would be back next year and the answer to that is.....I don't know.  That's a tough one.  Levi is very talented.  But he has been injured since his best season back in 2005.  I read things in previous seasons about him having problems with the organization, so maybe with the young Anthony Collins getting good game experience last year, the Bengals would be willing to explore trading or letting Levi go. I remember his agent asking for that last season. That's just me thinking out loud, again I have no inside info.  This has been written about on Bengals.com in the past, so I don't want to be breaking any news here.  ha ha.  But if Levi can get healthy and the team keeps him, he is clearly the starter at LT.  No questions asked.

Reader Comments

I will try my best to respond to questions that are posed by readers.  A lot of you have brought up good points and countered things that I have said.  Good debate.  We all have opinions.  Here is a comment from a reader,

"TJ was 7th rd pick Ocho Cinco and Carl Pickens were 2nd rd The only 1st rd WR pick I can remember from bengals was, Peter Warrick... I feel pretty good about 1st rd pick of A. Smith/J. Smith/Monroe/Oher and a second rd pick of Alex Mack/Max Unger Whats the point of having Carson if you won't protect him. If I was Carson I'd be in someone's ear about making o-line a priority, and who could blame him? "

My response:

Draft projections will change

As I look at many mock drafts on the Internet, I find myself shaking my head.  It's way too early to predict which team will draft what.  Is it fun to predict?  Yes.  But in reality, you have to wait until after free agency to see what each team really needs.  If the Detroit Lions somehow make a trade for Patriots QB Matt Cassel, do you think they will still draft a QB with the No. 1 pick?  No.  So the key to predicting who your team will draft is predicting who they will get/lose in free agency and how that changes their roster.  I will show you what I'm talking about.

And with the 6th pick.......

I was talking to a buddy(NFL employee) today about a topic he heard on some local sportstalk shows here in Cincinnati.  He was pretty irritated because fans here in Cincinnati were opposed to taking a WR with the 6th pick in the NFL Draft.  We got into a pretty good debate about who we thought the team should take with the pick.  In the middle of the conversation I said that I wished I had a recorder to put this on my website.  It was pretty good.  Anyway, I will bring you bits and pieces of the debate and you can chime in to let me know what you think.  Today's debate is going to be the case of drafting an Offensive Tackle with the 6th pick.

Ok, back to TJ

(Photo by Gregory Shamus/Getty Images North America)

Joe Reedy has an article about TJ in today's Enquirer.  I thought it was a good piece.  TJ doesn't think the Bengals will put the franchise tag on him and he explains why.  He feels as if the team has too many holes to tie up 10 million dollars into him for one year.  And with the looming uncapped year coming up in the NFL, he may be right.  With each day that goes by, TJ is going to let his feelings be known more and more.