Is Shemar holding out?

[*ochocincos*]

(06-11-2025, 02:33 PM)Soonerpeace Wrote: We’ve been awful at first rounders contributing early on defense.

Part of that is Marvin+Taylor drafting guys a year early and giving them a year to ride the bench, but that's on them/the organization for going that approach.

Teams only need to look back at the Chiefs in 2022 to see how impactful immediate rookie contributions can be, as evidenced by Karlaftis, McDuffie, Pacheco, and Chenal's contributions that year on their way to win the Super Bowl.
2022 was the first big year of Mahomes's salary kicking in, having a $35.8 mill cap hit at the time, up from just $7.4 mill the year prior.
That was also the year the Chiefs traded Hill to the Dolphins for a boat load of draft picks, which helped them balance the salary cap and try to get a new set of young guys to come in.

Bengals need to find a way to get their young defensive guys to contribute earlier and more often than they have been historically.