The Bengals' first major move of the offseason Monday all but guaranteed kicker Shayne Graham's services for the 2009 season and wide receiver T.J. Houshmandzadeh's entry into free agency.
The club announced in a news release that Graham has been named the team's franchise player, under terms of the NFL's Collective Bargaining Agreement:
The franchise tag gives Graham the option to sign with the Bengals for 2009 for a salary equal to the average of the five highest-paid kickers in the NFL for the previous season (2008 in this case).
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6 comments:
Hate it....leave it to Mike Brown to tag the cheapest option. Kickers are a dime a dozen.
I hate it as well but the only reason I can see the Bengals doing this is because they didn't want to offer Graham what he probably wanted. His agent was probably seeking a 3+ year deal for him and the Bengals didn't want to offer that to him after an injury-plagued season and also didn't want to shop for a decent kicker.
I would not have tagged Benson or TJ has some people are suggesting. But, unless its Vinateri in his prime, you never franchise a kicker. I agree with Adam, kickers are a dime a dozen. I just don't see the point. It is definately the cheapskate route. I have a feeling Ryan Fitzpatrick will be handing the ball off to Beanie Wells and throwing to Jerome Simpson and Andre Caldwell. (Chris Henry will not be available due to off the field issues)
This could be ugly fellas!
Though I dont agree with it, its definitely not the cheapskate route. The cheapskate route is too not franchise anyone at all
I'm still not sure how I feel about this one. Graham has been pretty consistent over the years except on two memorable occasions (2006 game vs. Steelers when he missed a FG that cost us the playoffs and last year's OT miss against the Eagles). But he has also consistently not been able to kick it into the end zone on kick offs either. I would still consider him a top 10 kicker but that's not what we need to be competitive. It's not like Mike Brown's going to spend all of his cap money anyway.
I'm actually cautiously optimistic about next year. I like our defense a lot and I feel our offense could at least be respectable if we get an elite tackle in the first round and maybe another offensive lineman late in the draft. Carson may not be what he was pre-Kimo, but he's still a good QB, and if he's given the right protection it'd be a dramatic change from last year.
I wouldn't be surprised if we try to get a DT in free agency again and come up empty handed like last year. But could you imagine if we landed Haynesworth?
Us getting Haynesworth... good joke Nick.
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