The only thing I'm going to miss about Kelly Washington is the Dance. Since I shamelessly use his name as an excuse to post this video, I figure one last hurray won't hurt.
With the talent Washington is competing against, it was a given that he wouldn't return. Still up in the air is the fate of Kevin Kaesviharn and Shaun Smith.
Losing both would hurt our depth. But the apocalyptic forecasts with the wide range of cap availability seems like both will be gone. Both are, afterall, backups. That would likely close out the first chapter of the off-season free agency. The second chapter starts up after the 2007 NFL Draft.
Then you have to look towards next season. Madieu Williams, Tab Perry, Antonio Chatman, Glenn Holt, Adam Kieft, Keiwan Ratliff, John Busing, Rashad Jeanty, Jonathan Fanene and Bryan Robinson are among many playing their final season on their existing contracts. Players like Landon Johnson, Caleb Miller, Kyle Larson and Stacey Andrews, if they sign their tenders, will be free agents next year. Justin Smith will have to be signed to a long-term deal or we're faced with the same dilemma we are this season.
Go-Bengals.com projects the team will have a $100 million payroll just under the expected $109 million salary cap.
Perhaps it's time to rework the current mega-deals.
In other words, this team's depth could be disintegrating over a two-year span. But is that bad thing? It's the most natural and uncontroversial way to turnover the personnel. To fish out the problems that Willie Anderson and Carson Palmer spoke of.
From the play me as a fool file.
I don't comment much about the league, in general, when it doesn't apply to the Bengals. Why should I? I can't believe you'd come here to get my take on issues about Lance Briggs.
Oh, speaking of which: Lance Briggs.
Do I know the Lance Briggs circumstance? No. But let's quickly recap published reports. Last March, the Bears offered Briggs a seven-year, $33 million deal. For some reason, he didn't like that. Lack of guarantee money? So then the Bears said, fine, we'll just franchise your ass and give you $7.2 million for the year (which is guaranteed) in 2007. Again, I don't know the circumstances much. But this is another example as to why people hate the modern greedy athlete.
Even Bears blogging extraordinaire, Windy City Gridiron, isn't much of a Briggs fan right now.
Meet Brett Favre's possible teammate -- Randy Moss.
A post from Packer-land, Acme Packing Company:
I believe if Moss were banished from football, not one soul in America would give a damn -- well, maybe Moss. Then again, does he even care? The Favre to Moss combination would be an interesting one. You go from iconic super-hero legendary never take off quarterback to run-over-cop-smoking-hash wide receiver. It's awfully tough to be a bigger villain than Terrell Owens. But Randy Moss is.