#it's just that this FO is sooooo stubborn and ridiculous

[cementcornfield]

i will say, in the calmness of the morning after lol, i DO still think we are more likely to get tee, ja'marr, and trey done than not, like i said in the tags last night. though, the nature of this FO being the FO it is and the family behind it, they will make it unnecessarily hard and frankly just say dickish things like this in the interest of "negotiations".

if you look at more of what duke said yesterday:

On Tee: It's going to be hard. We feel like we have the resources to do it, but it all depends on how the negotiation goes and whether they're willing to accept wanting to come back at a number that makes sense for everybody. And you know what we do with Tee going forward, I've always been very upfront in my desire to have Tee Higgins on our team. I've never not been upfront about that, and that desire continues, but we have to be able to come together with his representation on what that means and what the right number is for his experience, for his play time, for his production."

Let's find something that works for everybody, because he is a guy that we want to have here, and hopefully that can come together, but we have other guys who are trying to take big bites of the apple in other areas, and we're going to have to balance those as we go forward.

Basically corresponding to the viral tweet of, we can't pay everyone top dollar, which while shitty, is something i think tee realized when he fired David M. it has ALWAYS been the case that in order for this to work, tee will be getting less money than he would from a WR-desperate team in free agency. (i believe right now his projected worth in FA is 28 million a year, i could easily see a team like the patriots going up to 30 tbh). we've taken the agent switch however to mean that he's okay with getting a few less million. how much less is he willing to settle for? and would it be fair in the team's POV regarding his play time and production (because you really can't have a discussion about tee's worth if you aren't factoring in the unfortunate reality of his injury history and consistent lack of availability). and all that is where the uncertainty comes in. and that will be the bengals' argument against him getting paid at the top of his position, despite what he is likely worth on the free market. i believe that's what duke is alluding to here, but you know, said in the most dickish way possible. because we CAN and we SHOULD pay tee what he's worth, but the FO's strategy has always been to low ball and, again, make negotiations so so much harder than necessary.

On Trey: Has he earned a pay raise and a bump in an extension … he has,” Tobin said. “We’re cognizant of that, and we will give that to him. But whether we agree on what that looks like, is what is to be determined.” "We'll do what we can. We'll do what we feel is right, and we will try to get Trey re-signed. It's not giving anybody an extension. It's agreeing with somebody on an extension.”

Again, instead of just outright saying, yeah we want trey, he's our ONLY player on defense basically worth paying and we want to make him happy, duke goes through all this nonsense on how we won't GIVE him an extension (implying in some ways that it has yet to be earned, despite....everything!). again, a negotiation tactic that feels so gross when paired with the viral "we can't pay everyone" quote. but i do still feel like they will try here, going back to the first part of the quote, it just depends on how much of a bump trey wants. i don't think trey necessarily wants to be the HIGHEST paid DE in the league, he just wants to be playing for a more reasonable paycheck than his current shitty contract (which, i will say, no one forced him to sign that extension. i remember it being talked about last year, how he had a particularly green agent who gave him bad advice about both the original extension and the ability to adjust it last year).

On Ja'Marr: “It's a priority for us. It's something we feel like there's a framework to work off of. Should be a pretty easy framework to work off of. Guys in his position have recently re-done contracts. We believe in Ja’Marr, he's very important to us. The other guys that have done contracts are very important to their teams. So, we believe there's a real framework to work off of. I would expect that we could come together on something that makes sense for both sides.”

This is the one that actually does give me the most comfort, and i think even duke realizes that ja'marr HAS to get done this offseason. like god, they came so close last offseason it's so ridiculous. but they've got the "easy framework" based on the recent top WR contracts (aka justin's, which i've talked about already following the same time frame for ja'marr so far). they just have to use that contract structure, something close to what they structured last year, and make some adjustments. they know this is their last chance to get it done without blowing everything up and burning some bridges. they know how important ja'marr is. it's going to get done. let's just pray they don't drag this shit out again and ja'marr misses another training camp!!

Zero excuse not to pay our best players. Btw.